Chris's brother Ray & his wife Clair came to stay with us for the weekend, giving us our first chance to really spend quality time with them. 

They have plans to move to NZ, as they're fed up with the problems they've had with money & jobs here. We don't know if they'll find what they want in NZ but we're supporting them as much as we can so that they can have an adventure and perhaps a working holiday for a year or more. 

They've both have a raw deal on jobs, suffering redundancy and all sorts of things. Ray's whole life has been as a genuine falconry expert, flying a peregrine falcon to control birds at American air force bases. Unfortunately this work has dried up, and despite his best efforts, he hasn't been able to find this type of work again. Clair is a skilled IT project manager, who has found some contract work, but not enough.

Home for them is a very old stone house in the Cotswolds district, in the village of Kempsford. The house is undergoing renovation, is very cold and not as nice a place as they had hoped. They are soon to leave the house and go and live with Clair's Dad. This is a good decision for them, as it will enable them to save for their NZ trip.

For an outing, we went to Coughton Court, another huge old stately home, the place where Guy Fawkes and other anti-parliamentary plotters stayed! 

While Ray & Clair were here, we had a monster dinner party, with Ray & Clair, Rob & Dawn & twins & Judy & Michael = 10 for dinner! It was a magic evening, with the family all working together to make the huge meal and then be really relaxed together for the whole time.

I went on yet another walking tour of town, this time it was of the Solihull town centre - near where we live. 

Much of the tour was spent at St Alpheges Church. At the church door, the stonework has been quite badly vandalised, but then I was fascinated to discover that the damage was done by the parishioners of old using the stone walls to sharpen their arrows! There was a time when it was local law, that all men had to go to archery practice every Sunday afternoon after the church service. 

There was an opportunity to go up the bell tower of St Alpheges Church, which reputedly is the highest elevation of any building in the UK! There, I had an opportunity to "ring the bells" which I did with appropriate gusto - enjoying the 'trip' as the bell rope pulled me up into the air! We went up to bell room just as the bells were ringing for 12 noon. As you can see from the photo, the bells were very loud! 

A short distance from the Church, we saw the house where famous Kiwi violinist Nigel Kennedy lived when he was resident in Birmingham.

It might be time for NZ to have a go at the French again. Here's a wine label we saw recently - Kiwi Cuvee, made in France! The cheeky swines...

It seems that they employ some Kiwi wine makers in their vineyard, which doesn't excuse them in my eyes!

We also went to concert, to see The Chieftans @ Symphony Hall. This group have been a favourite of ours for many years, and it was nice to see them 'in the flesh'. The only problem with such concerts though, is that the sound quality is never as good as a studio recorded CD. 

Took George fishing at Pershore, with his fishing club - the Caladonian Corks. To our delight, he caught quite a decent fish, thought I couldn't get a photo of it before it was thrown back into the water. He got 7th prize for his catch that day. Don't know how it happened, but we did manage to pick up another person's picnic chair to add to our collection. So now we have 4 picnic chairs!

Of interest here was the nearby bridge (not the one in the photo) which was built in the year 1413!!! The bridge was built by monks, after their abbot was drowned attempting to cross the river. On top of the bridge, there are big concrete bollards, put there during the first world war, to stop 'the hun' from being able to drive over with tanks!

We have bought a new(er) car - 1977 Rover 400, only a 1.4 litre engine, but with 4 doors and a generous boot it is quite sufficient for our purposes. Our old car sold for £171 pounds at auction, a bit of a drop on the £1400 we paid for it 18 months ago - but that's to be expected, cars are never an investment! 

We were lucky to be able to buy this car via Dave, niece Christina's boyfriend. He had just traded it in at his car year & offered it to us at 'wholesale' price. This saved us at least £400 - so we're taking them to a concert by The Corrs on November 5th as a reward. It's at the huge NEC concert venue, which we haven't been to before.

One Sunday afternoon, we travelled in the new car to Cardiff - in south Wales. We had heard that our Hamilton neighbour Mira Petcu was there for the weekend, and thought it would be really lovely to visit her. We hardly recognised her though, as she has turned 'goth'!. This person in black, from Transylvania (yes really!) took us on a tour of her favourite parts of the Cardiff museum & art gallery, and we exchanged gifts. Chris now has a beautiful umbrella with a Monet painting on it, which she treasures.

For me it felt very odd to be near the sea, having never been to the coast of the UK. To be honest, I had a tear in my eye, and I long to go and walk on a beach. But there wasn't time for such folly, and we returned to Birmingham a few hours later. So close to the sea & yet so far...

We had expected the smaller car engine to be more economical with fuel, but it turns out to be only slightly better than the 1.8 litre Mondeo on the trip to Cardiff. Probably this is due to our running the engine hard when driving at 80mph on the motorways (the limit is 70 but most people go faster than that when conditions permit).

We're counting the days now, until Aidan & Racheal arrive here in the UK. Chris is so excited at spending lots of good quality time with them.

We're put together a suggested timetable for them, of visiting family, places, shopping, dining and of course, their wedding blessing ceremony at Kings Norton Church (shown at right). But intend to remain flexible as I am sure they won't want to be with us old fogies all the time.

Their trip is only 16 days, such a short time to having come such a long way - but that's all they can manage, so we'll make the most of the time with them.