Duke Fluffington and The Last of the Summer Wine-d Up

September-October 2015 

WE HAVE A HAMSTER! Introducing, Duke Fluffington!

Oh my goodness, much excitement! It took no fewer than four months to convince Mike that our lives would be infinitely better should we acquire a hamster J Some may call it nagging, I prefer to refer to it as perseverance.

We have now had him for about a month and a half and he’s adorable. One of the potential drawbacks was the fact that hamsters are nocturnal, but so far only I’ve heard him making a ruckus at night because I’m the lighter sleeper. We have a ball for him to run around in around the house which he loves it. It's especially amusing when he gets a bit of speed up and then smashes into a wall. He's also very fond of tearing around the tubes that connect around his cage. 

I would just like it stated for the record, your honour, that before we went to bed the other night, Mike said, “I should just go and check on him”, quote unquote. Verbatim. Mike loves him. 

Now for The Last of the Summer Wine-d Up. Get it? Yeah, you got it J

There’s been so much happening that we haven’t had a chance to write about it all, so here’s a round-up of everything else.

1)      English Family
Mike and I consider ourselves very lucky that we have family over here, and we’ve been able to see my cousins twice now! Katharine and the children, Jaime, Suzi and Zak came to Henley-upon-Thames in August and we caught a train out to meet them there. We had such a blast, hiring boats and pottering around the Thames. Jamie, Katharine and Zak zoomed ahead of us! We had ice cream in the sun and lunch down the river in the Angel pub.

Kathrine invited us to Aunty Ann’s 70^th birthday on the 5^th September. We had such a lovely time! We caught up with Aunty Ann, Uncle David, John, Chris and Emma and we met a lot of family friends. Katharine has invited us to spend Christmas with them. Christmas is going to be very bittersweet this year. Just the thought of not getting to spend it with our New Zealand family makes me cry! But at least we will be able to Skype :-)

2)      Care Package
We got the most amazing care package from Mum and Dad! It was chock-full of Whittakers chocolate, Jelly-Tip biscuits(!), one of Mum’s special chocolate-birthday cards for Mike’s birthday, the current New Zealand flag (since worn to watch the RWC), NZ bird bunting, Marmite, Pineapple Lumps and so much more. Super spoilt :-D We've also received proper airmail letters from Magsie and Rosie! You know, the blue ones? They're really special to me because they remind me of sitting around the table reading the airmail letters from Granny and Grampa-Great when I was little.

3)      Graham Norton filming

I made it onto the mother-flippin' Red Chair! Sadly I didn't make it into the TV edit, but still, I ACTUALLY GOT FLIPPED BY GRAHAM! Dreams do come true xx

4)     Musicals

We've been to two musicals so far; Miss Saigon and Elf. Given Mike isn't very fond of musicals, this is quite impressive. 

That's us for now. The days are getting shorter, the weather is getting cooler and the city is going into festive over-load! 

Much love to all! 

xoxoxox