Fifty tiny fingers, fifty tiny toes...

Well blow me down, as my Mum used to say, that metaphorical clip round the ear seems to have worked. This morning a smiling Student came down for breakfast. He said good morning. He was extremely polite and pleasant and he even offered to mend the broken dimmer switch in the Dining Room. This is all a great advance on the first half of the week. Physical punishment, even the metaphorical kind, obviously works!!

Daughter and Grandson walked over to see me this morning. Grandson came up the stairs shouting out "Nana", and we had a huge cuddle and a big kiss. He does a very wet kiss, and then wipes his hand across his mouth and says "ugh". He thinks it's so funny. Then we tootled off in the car to see the donkeys and feed them carrots. After feeding the animals, Grandson always has a ride in a trolley, with me pushing him. It's a kind of ritual. We look at the statues and pots, and at the miniature windmills (he's very keen on windmills, large and small). Then we visit the fish in their tanks and he plays with the water features. After this, we say goodbye to the donkeys (and the goats, pigs and chickens) and drive to the other Garden Centre where we have lunch. It was all very relaxed and nice today, with Daughter and I feeling more unwound and more cheerful. And it was another glorious blue-sky day, with the downs looking lovely in their Autumn best. As we drove back over the Dyke, down into Brighton, the sun had turned the sea bright silver. And then this evening as I drove back along the sea front, after dropping them off at home, there was the most spectacular sunset I have ever seen here. There were great banks of cloud looking like a land mass out to sea, and everything was backlit a wonderful rosy colour. At the edge of the clouds was a shaft of gold, and the surface of the sea looked glittering and polished. Actually, it's useless to try and describe it, but it did take my breath away, and I wished I had had my camera with me.

I heard on the news this morning about the quintuplets which have been born to a young Russian woman at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. How on earth those parents are going to cope with five babies I can't imagine. They were born at 26 weeks, and each have their own team of doctors at the hospital. Amazingly, they are all doing well; what a blessing that is. Five girls! Just imagine five of everything at every stage. And five teenagers all at once. I expect the parents will have a lot of help and support, but they will also need all the courage, optimism and strength they can muster. Not to mention a fortune. I wish them the very best of luck..