This week.

Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been a whole week since my last post!

Well. It has been a busy week. Sometimes a stressful week. An exciting week.

I cannot blog without first at least acknowledging that his holiness, Pope Benedict, arrived on our shores on Thursday. I can remember when John Paul 11 visited in 1982. Hubby was telling me about how he and his Mum camped out on the streets of Canterbury to get a glimpse of him back then. This time around, the visit has been affected by some negative controversy. Throughout history, terrible, evil things been committed by people hiding behind religious cloaks. Such is the way of the Devil. The Pope has the unenviable task of taking responsibility for and apologising for such evils. We look to him to lead us through it.

Anyway, the above pictures are from a walk we took in the woods with some friends from school. They invited us to a walk and picnic after school on Tuesday to try and make the most of what is left of the nice weather. I think the children really welcomed a chance to run about and have fun making dens after almost a week back at the chalkface. Hubby and I have been watching, with interest, 'Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys' (Thursday, BBC2) in which he (Gareth) has been challenged to raised the achievement of boys in their reading. He believes that the key to success is in nurturing/harnessing their natural instinct for competition, risk and physical activity. I couldn't agree more and look forward to seeing the results next week.

So, today, our good friends Glenn and Jancy came to lunch which we followed with a nice country walk, picking blackberries and other fruit.

Hope was determined to eat an apple. I sat, slightly nervously, with her while she munched on one. I was a bit scared that she would choke.

The sun always shines on Honor-May!

We picked some of these delicious pears.

And the weather was gorgeous. Really warm. The children made friends with this sheep...

but I wouldn't let HM take it home!