An Eventful Weekend!

Praise be, dear old Terry Wogan was back at his microphone this morning, cheering me up immediately with his Light Programme wit. I'm always grumpy when he's away because there's no-one else I want to listen to at 8am. Getting up to do breakfast for Students is fine as long as I have good old Sir Tel making me laugh. Not that my Students are difficult, in fact they are very pleasant and very polite. The Spanish one was off doing his tourist impression at the weekend: on Saturday to Cambridge and on Sunday up to London again - he's a glutton for punishment. He staggered in the door last night at about 9.30pm, saying he was exhausted and was going straight to bed. The other one, from the Czech Republic, smiles a lot but doesn't have the stamina for all those trips. He did manage to get the bus up to the Seven Sisters yesterday, and said that it was very beautiful - even in the rain. Just as well, because it hasn't stopped raining for days!

I had Grandson here for the weekend, despite having a sore throat and not feeling on my best form. He was quite happy to chill out for the day on Saturday, and as it was (still) raining neither of us felt the urge to do much. He is having busy weeks at Nursery at the moment, and was quite happy to relax indoors. We also had a surprise visit from Son and his Girlfriend in the afternoon. He phoned to say that they had driven down intending to go to a Wedding Party in a field near Lewes! Needless to say, when they got here and saw the weather they changed their minds - they didn't have wellies, raincoats or umbrellas with them. What a shame! I imagine it was a fairly empty field and rather a quiet Wedding Party. Anyway, their loss was our gain because we had a lovely hour of sitting chatting over a cup of tea, and Grandson had a lot of fun being thrown up in the air by Son. Sadly they couldn't stay and decided to drive back to London - in fact there was no room at the Inn, because I had a full house.

Later on Grandson and I went downstairs to my Neighbour's Barbecue, which turned into an Aga-Barbecue because of the rain. We did have a good time right until the end, when Grandson decided to go out into the garden with no shoes on in the pitch black. He walked across the wooden deck and was stung on his foot (I later discovered) and YELLED. I ran to get him and was stung on both feet and YELLED!! God, it was painful. I gathered him up and sprinted for the house, where we landed on the surprised party, making rather a lot of noise. Grandson was crying and I was hopping about in agony. We had been stung by some all-black flying insects (I'm sure I've never seen them before) about an inch and a half long, with thin bodies. Nasty. I was batting them away and so was everyone else in the end. Bloody Panic. Grandson looked at me through his tears and said "Let's go HOME, Nana." So we did. I bathed him (and me) with everything I could think of. Luckily when I put him into bed he was asleep in about 5 minutes. But I lay there for two hours, waiting for the pain in my feet to subside, and listening to Grandson's breathing, with my hand on his chest. Fortunately he didn't have any further reaction, and only woke up once in the night whimpering because of the itching. It certainly took my mind off my sore throat!

PS. I Googled the Flying Insects and think they are "Paper Wasps" which can be black, but are normally found in America, apparently. I'm no expert, but I think my Neighbour has a nest of them under her deck. I won't be setting foot on it again, that's for sure.