Cheers!

No, it's not a can of beer - it's a Pimms and our musical jubilee biscuit tin that plays God Save the Queen!

Cheers to Her Majesty, and cheers to the end of a difficult week.

I thought I was going to visit the Prism exhibition on Friday, and then demonstrate FOIL at our EG branch on Saturday, so I'd been working hard getting together my ideas and samples and packs of foil:

But then instead of catching a train to London on Friday, I had to catch a train to Cardiff.  Arrive 12.30, meet mother, sister and nephew and drive another two hours to get to a memorial service for my Uncle Brian in Llansadwrn - middle of nowhere, but a beautiful nowhere.  My Uncle Bri was only diagnosed with motor neurone disease a few months ago, and for his life to end so abruptly has been a huge shock to Mamgu and the family.  He wasn't my "real" uncle, sort of a step-uncle, but an uncle nevertheless and I felt I had to go.  Apart from my Mother, who died very young, and a long time ago, Uncle Brian is the first of that generation to go and that takes some getting used to.  The service was very dignified and appropriate, with Welsh rugby hymns and then tea and cake in the local pub.  For any of you teachers out there, if you were ever OFSTEDed by a Brian Evans, that was my Uncle!

So back to Cardiff overnight, a train back to London Saturday morning, and then on my way to see the Prism exhibition before it finished I bumped into these chaps:

Hurrah!  I love London and I love being British - wandering down the Mall and just "bumping into" the King's Troop and the Life Guards.

After a thoroughly nice time at the exhibition, including a long sit-down in the cafe to listen to the booming of a 41 gun salute echoing over from Horse Guards Parade, it is crustimoney proseedcake to toddle up to Fortnums.  Very occasionally, when Mr G has been busy writing and not cycling, we've received large cheques from the Queen's grocers and so we like to support them when we can.  Hence the musical biscuit tin that plays God Save the Queen!

Finally back home, the Girl and I did a spot of baking to while away a wet Sunday watching the boats:

And then last night we watched the lighting of the town's new beacon, which appeared at the playing fields last week much to the amusement of local children who started using it as a giant basketball goal:

Once the beacon was lit we jumped in the car with the Boy and ventured out to the Forest to see all the beacons lit across the ridge of the South Downs. 

Magnificent!

(While I've been writing this, the Girl has been picking out the tune to the Gary Barlow song on the piano...something tells me we haven't heard the last of that one...)