For the last few months I’ve been organising a Ladies’ Lifestyle Fair which was held last weekend and went well.

There were about 35 exhibitors, we had a cookery demonstration, a belly dance demonstration and a version of Dragon’s Den along with prize draws.

One of the prizes was a free belly dance class. It was won by an 81 year old lady who didn’t seem terribly impressed with her prize!

Anyway I have a bit more breathing space now that that has finished, which also coincides with the start of the school holidays, so that’s good. Jordan has a week off, while Kira has two weeks, then goes off on a school trip to Le Touquet in France for an action-packed week.

They travel by coach and ferry, going via Belgium.

Jordan has just returned from a 3-day school trip to an Army training camp. No creature comforts there by the sound of it - nor any showering going on it would seem!

The UK has been very windy and rainy recently … just the kind of weather for pitching a tent!

He does CCF (Combined Cadet Force) training once a week at school, and one day I went to a Mind Body Spirit Fair straight after school taking him with me. Everyone attending the Fair was female.

“Hey Dad” he said when we got home “I was the only one at the Fair wearing camo gear”.

Jon fell about laughing.

“It’s not traditional garb for a spiritual event” he said.

Jordan has got 9 weeks (!) of school summer holidays coming up, so we need to find some work to keep him occupied. He had 4 weeks off over Easter and Jon managed to find him some work experience in the IT support department of a school in Preston.

He has been going out with his girlfriend for 6 months now and is very happy.

But we are still not allowed to meet her or her parents…

Kira leaves her primary school in July, and has decided not to go to Jordan’s school.

Because she has left two groups of friends behind in NZ and Uganda, and because all her current school friends are going onto the same high school, she didn’t want to leave any more friends, and so will be going to the same high school as they are. They start in September.

In the meantime, Kira and I will be going to New Zealand for a couple of weeks in July.

I’ll be working in Auckland for the first week, and staying with Rowena, a friend from Uganda who now lives in NZ (it’s a small world!) while Kira will go to Wellington to stay with one of her friends and I’ll join her there after several days.

We are really looking forward to meeting up with our friends!

Kira’s poem features in the book ‘Once Upon a Rhyme’, so she is now a published poet!

She also delights in making fun of Jordan who happened to mispronounce the name of a famous author, calling her Agatha Crispie.

Mind you, she struggled to find the right word herself one day while we were getting into the car. She couldn’t remember the word ‘passenger’ so said to me, “Mum, you get in the slave side”.

And finally, Jordan was regaling us with one of his stories. As usual it took a long, long time for him to tell us.

After several minutes Jon said “What did you say?”

To which Jordan replied "I don’t know I wasn’t paying attention".