We have had a 'back to work' week this week, which is probably the same as many folk across the country. We've been back to catching up with the washing and cleaning, starting three new contracts for work and getting back into the rhythm of life up here.

The work has really picked up, as a large contract has come in for Dave that will last until the middle of October which is great. He's head down in it for all the time he has, but we are planning our work time carefully and we should be ok to fit everything in. We've also been watching the rain come down in spades as we welcome the end of the summer!

We had a sad moment on Wednesday as we said goodbye to Rae and Andy Pears who've gone back down to Bristol. We'll miss their company a lot as they were local friends in Wooler. 

We managed to get up to the main hall again yesterday and picked almost a whole tree's worth of plums, and then stained our fingers brown trying to stone and freeze them all! Ideas for recipes that includes plums welcome...

Relationships with local people are also starting to form. We went for lunch today up the valley with a lovely couple and their son, who's just a bit older than Tom, and had a great time looking at chickens and playing bar billiards. That was a lovely antidote to all the rest of the work! Back to toddler groups and everything else this week.

We've just had a wonderful week with the Green family from Didcot! Quite how we managed to pack everything into a week I'm not sure, but we were all pretty tired every evening.

Tom had a wonderful week with the other two boys and really enjoyed having other people to play with at all hours of the (early) morning and evening. Dave and I had a lovely time chatting to Andy and Sara and spending lots of quality time together.

We ended up on the beach on the first day, digging a hole from here to Australia. We also played on several adventure playgrounds, in and out of a labyrinth, all around Wooler, with lots of balloons, with ALL of Tom's toys (all at once!), picking blackberries and pottering up to the duckpond on a windy day. We also had Andy's parents up for a while staying nearby which was very nice.

One of the highlights of the week was the 117th Glendale show on the Monday. It's a real rural agricultural show with lots of prizes for sheep, bulls, horses and other things like vegetables. We all had a great time looking at events in the show ring, doing bits of shopping, getting soaking wet on the bouncy castle, going round the food tent (twice!) and eating very tasty local icecream.   

All in all we had a great time and will miss them very much as they've headed off back down south.

Why is it that whenever we go to Newcastle it's always raining?

We went down again on Friday to drop Dave off to donate platelets and then went into town to meet Phil's mum at the main shopping centre. After a bit of driving in circles and loitering in town we manged to meet up. Bless her, she was very happy entertaining Tom as we did some shopping and dodging showers and it was very lovely to spend some time with her. Newcastle did look a bit different when its not absolutely pelting it down!

However it did rain eventually and we ended up at the Great North Museum, which was marvellous. Lots of rooms full of animals and natural history  and dinosaurs and a great kid's room full of things to play with. After a lovely tea we went our seperate ways but looking forward to the next time.  Phil.x

Another busy week! Dave has been working his socks off on the new Cloisters website to get it finished and then to train other staff members how to use it. We've had other Cloisters meetings to get us up to date and move things forward and it feels like things are coming together.

We've also had some lovely visitors including the Archer family from Didcot. It's always lovely to see people who are up and around here and we had a great time. Other than that, we've finished off a few work projects and had some fun when it was sunny! Phil managed to walk from Wooler to the main hall with Tom (about 7 miles) and felt very proud of herself. It'll probably never happen again...

Please pray for us in the busyness - Phil needs to complete a batch of work this week, Dave with others needs to complete the website this week ready for testing.

We are making plans to be down in Oxfordshire over next weekend as we go to Andy's wedding in Luton (a good friend from Keble and one of the project group). Please pray for safe travel as it is a long way from here now! Also, for opportunity to catch up with family and friends as we come South.

Pray also that we would know how best to move forward with Dave's work. How much to push for more contracts with everything else that is on with the community.

August is beginning to take shape now pray that we would balance things well.

We managed to survive the 48 hour constant rain - although there was some major flooding. The main road we use to get to Berwick was cut off so we had to find other routes to get to meal out on Saturday evening. It was amazing to see a river look like the sea. I think it reminded people here of the floods last year!

Phil's dad and wife Angela came up to Amble on holiday for a week so we've had a chance to see them over this week. Again some lovely time spent on the beach with them and Tom. Again lucky with the weather!

We went on the hunt for fish and chips one night and ended coming all the way up to Sea Houses - worth it though!

Was nice to have some chilled time amongst the otherwise hecticness of Phil's OUP work and the website development.

We are getting close now but there are always those last minute nasties that get really into the detail but are really important.

We are without photos at the moment as I managed to drop the camera on holiday. I've tried to take it apart because it was something mechanical that broke but they are just so tiny now there was no chance of fixing it. We're hoping that Phil's dad will send us some of his photos for us to upload.

We are looking forward to things calming down a little in August.

Dave