On Friday I had supper sitting next to a cannon, in precisely the same spot where Nelson said, "Kiss me, Hardy". Well, it might have been, as we were on HMS Victory, after all. Although according to Horrible Histories, he said "Kismet" not "Kiss me" - anyway, nobody said either 'kiss me' or 'kismet' to me as they were all too busy guffawing about hilarious armed forces things from their six months in Camp Bastion (however, I almost said, 'bugger me' when I banged my head on a big metal thing that you use to pack powder into the cannons).
Whilst I was busy being blinded by the reflections from a thousand medals and bumping into various bits of nineteenth century military hardware, Son and Twins were being babysat by my lovely niece in London. We all think she's lovely, but to my seven-year-old daughters she is beyond perfection because she teaches cheerleading and cheerobics for a living. They all stayed up late learning some cool moves and as a result were tired as old dogs in the morning, and a good job too, because none of us were in the mood for an early start, least of all the war hero in the bed next to me (who I have to say looked particularly handsome in his uniform).
And now we're all back in Nottingham, in the rain, and dreaming about the possibility of a summer happening at some point...