Long time no 'see'!!

Thank you to all my blogging friends for all the nice comments and emails to check that all is well with me. After being a dedicated blogger for three years, I suddenly felt that I had very little to say. I found the winter months so depressing and I virtually went into hibernation- a bit like my tortoises!!!
Currently I am staying at Beccy's Killiney (Dublin), where I have been for 10 days. The idea was that I looked after the grandchildren so that Beccy and Joules could pop over to Bristol, for 2 weekends, to help two of Beccy's oldest friends celebrate their big birthdays.
We were all rather worried about about the volcanic ash but the first weekend ran smoothly.

This weekend I think we got a bit complacent, Beccy was actually staying here . Her friend booked the castle for the weekend, complete with swimming pool! All went well until we heard this morning that her flight home this evening was cancelled. She tried to get on an earlier flight but that was full. She has now heard that there is no morning flight tomorrow so they are going to book a car and drive to Hollyhead and catch the ferry across. Well, that's the plan.....
Now I'm due to return home tomorrow evening and I won't know until the morning whether my flight will be operating. If it does then I will have to leave for the airport before Beccy gets home. You see it's beginning to get complicated and the sad thing is it's my grandaughter's birthday tomorrow and quite naturally Beccy is very upset she won't be home when the children get up. Mollie was actually very good about it and thought it was funny her parents were stranded....or maybe she was just being brave!

Ben and I went down to the beach this morning for a walk, it was very pleasant and the sun did shine, although you wouldn't think it by the photo (my bad photography!)

My eldest grandson, who turned 17 in March, had his first driving lesson this afternoon. I was amazed when the instructor told me he would get Dillon doing 'hill starts, reversing, and turns' I certainly don't remember doing that in lesson one! Anyway he came back after a 2 hr lesson, having thoroughly enjoyed it. The instructor thinks he will need about 3 weeks of lessons before he can practice with his parents, so I'm looking forward to the time when he can drive his poor old grandmother about...that won't do his street cred any good whatsoever!!!

I couldn't resist taking a picture of Dillon sitting the car (sadly not too clear) and that's the instructor standing by the door.

I'm not allowed to put it on Facebook but I thought I would risk it on my blog as he doesn't read it!

Well that all my most recent news, time will tell whether I manage to get home tomorrow. I know my mother will not be too happy as she has a hair appointment on Tuesday, but hopefully Embee will be able to take her! Are you reading this Embee???