Norton Dog

Between Christmas and New Year, I had a jaunt down into Suffolk to meet my friends Ed and Ruth and their two girls, Katherine - nearly seven - and Jessica - four ish.  I'm terrible at remembering ages, although I'm very good at remembering birthdays!   It is especially important that I remember these two young ladies' birthdays, as Katherine is my god-daughter and I need to take things like this very seriously indeed!   Ed and Ruth live in Fareham in Hampshire so we don't meet up as often as we should - it's such a fag to get in and out of East Anglia.  However, Ed's parents live in Cambridgeshire so the clan were up here for Christmas and we arranged to meet up on their way home.

I have been brainwashing Ruth for years now - with Strictly Come Dancing and knitting!   I quite often get a lovely text to say what she's making while watching the dancing.  Ed, of course, is delighted!  This started years ago when Ed and Ruth came to say, and in fact Ruth was pregnant with Katherine.  We had done a spot of sightseeing around Norwich and then I made them watch Strictly in the evening - poor Ed has been stuck with it ever since!   Ruth even brought some of her handiwork with her - a rather handsome corgi!

After a very nice lunch at the Norton Dog, we headed off to the village park and playground to try and wear Katherine, Jessica and Jakey - their Gordon Setter - out before the journey home.

I'm especially excited to hear their news that they are hoping to move up to Cambridgeshire - Ruth is busy applying for jobs and has had a couple of interviews, and they are hoping to move up before September when Jessica will start school.  I can't wait for them to get up here - it means we will hopefully meet up more than the once a year which we currently manage!   Fingers crossed!