Had an enjoyable Bank Holiday weekend in Blackpool, catching up with Di, John & Georgia again - they travelled up from Birmingham to see us. The first day was cold and rainy, but luckily cleared up in time for the Ollerton family lunch on Sunday. The lunch was held in a beautiful old stately home called Astley Bank in Darwen and we got to meet 17 new family members. That evening, back in Blackpool we went to the Hampton Road Working Men's club for some drinks and snacks and ended up participating in their bingo sessions. Marg felt disadvantaged by the elderly Welsh gentleman who was reading out the numbers as she said she couldn't understand him. The next day we dropped the girls off to the Pleasure Beach Fun Park at 10.30am and they stayed until it closed at 7pm. No need to tell you that they had a ball. Apparently they rode the 'world's biggest' rollercoaster 9 times. The 'oldies' were more sedate and spent the day relaxing on the sun chairs in the Sun Room on the North Pier.

The girls and Marg have enjoyed having a quieter week. To Marli's great delight, there is a craft shop directly across the road from John's house. The owner of the shop, Betsy, makes beautiful cards and has generously given Marli a lot of her time, showing her how to make some very spectacular cards. The library is just around the corner as well and we've become members to borrow books and use the internet.

Ray went off on Wednesday by himself to have his port-a-cath flushed at the local hospital - amazingly they still had his hospital records from when he last visited there at age 8. He then took off to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire - a magnificent 500 year old house and gardens - while Marg and the girls did things around Blackpool with John. On Thursday we all headed off to Haworth in the Yorkshire dales - the town where the Bronte sisters had lived. A beautifully picturesque town now, but apparently it was very squalid in their time with lack of hygiene and many people dying of consumption, typhoid and plague. Their father, a local cleric, outlived his wife and all 6 of his children. We had a personalised tour (being the only ones on it) and got the history of the area and the Bronte sisters, and then visisted the Bronte museum, which is located in the parsonage where their family had lived.

Today we visited Stanley Park with Aunty Marg, her daughter Susan and Susan's son's Westley & Lucas. Ray had a ride down memory lane when we hired some paddle boats - he has fond memories of doing that 50 years ago.

Off to Birmingham tomorrow to drop the girls off for a weekend on their own with their cousins Georgia and Chris. Ray and I are having an overnight stay at Stratford-on-Avon and to see 'Anthony & Cleopatra' at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. We leave for Brugge via the ferry from Dover to Calais on Monday.