The end of the Holidays...

Beautiful weather and it seemed like the entire neighbourhood was out cleaning cars, jetwashing the drive, mowing the lawn or otherwise doing weird things with trailers, skips and various scary vehicles.
Harvey was in fine form standing on tiptoe to gawk over the wall for things to be afraid of and there seemed to be no settling him until he'd managed to snap the lead rope and I'd chased him round the yard and backed him up a few times. Oddly enough once that was out of his system he stood sensibly ( albeit still craning his neck) and lunged very nicely as well.
I took Fally out for a spook - well it had to be really, he's obviously feeling well and, unfortunately, in his case this tends to lead to a silly session at every opportunity. I can never be sure if it's boredom that sets him off or just a twisted Irish sense of humour. I suppose it could be both in which case there is probably no hope ! This time everything was scary including flowers and parked cars ( sigh)
The kid's holiday party the other night didn't go down too well although the "guests" were all well behaved and polite, Unfortunately it was one of mine who decided that the vast amounts of alcohol they'd clubbed together and bought was actually a personal challenge and ended up staggering around and throwing up in the shower. I was up till 2 in the morning sorting that lot out and wasn't best pleased. Needless to say that's put the stoppers on that happening again. Next time will be less people and definitely less booze.
The Vomiting Volcano ( of course she was lying on her back when it all erupted) got the job of doing the washing for the whole weekend as a good part of it was technically her fault anyway. Why someone threw their socks out of the window I really don't know and I won't even go into the matter of the cigarette-burned chin......
I'm still driving John's car but now it seems that we've found not only someone who can supply the weird part but also a local garage who will fit the whole lot at a reasonable price - hopefully that will be attended to sometime this week.. I like J's car - it's very nice but not quite big enough for taking 3 kids and a dog around in.I also feel guilty about slamming my not-so-insignificant weekly mileage on an old classic that had incredibly low mileage until I borrowed it. I miss my spacious Volvo tank and I miss my intermittent stereo.

Well I have managed to order and pay for the car parts, the kids are all back at school and college and things are about as close to normal as they are going to get at this point.
The weather is holding and I'm getting quite a good "rider's tan" already - I'm browning from the shoulders to the wrist (!) and just about living in my Raybans, I'm seriously loving these long sunny evenings but not the midges that seem to gather in the stableyard. So as well as the glasses I'm back to taking the antihistamines again.
Holly got bathed and is currently sporting stable plaits in an attempt to get her mane to stay all on one side instead of both sides and some straight up.