I went to Harrogate for the half term holidays. As it would be my 70th birthday a couple of weeks later, Alex decided to organise a birthday party for me; not exactly a surprise, but she wouldn’t tell me where it was to be or who was coming. Lots of old friends turned up, many of whom I hadn’t seen for years; it was a fantastic evening, complete with a music playlist compiled by Gemma.

It was the week of the May heatwave, so the weather was amazing; I’d chosen the right week though, as it was about 10°C cooler than at home.

I went into town with Alex to choose a necklace, my present from her, Gemma and Kieran; I found a beautiful one in the first shop we visited.

It was lovely to be able to spend time with Immy; we went to York, Harlow Car gardens with Doug (her grandpa) and the mountain bike track in Wetherby with Alex, as well as doing various crafts when it was hot.

Belle was happy to show me some of her recent creations – and making a beautiful job of it, her workmanship is of such a high standard, I was very impressed. I also got to meet her boyfriend, who’s lovely. She was waiting to hear about a start date for her new job, I’ve never seen her so happy.

I met up with various friends and went  out for dinner with Pat, who couldn’t make it to the party; the week just flew by.

The journey back down to Stansted airport was challenging, thanks to unreliable trains and buses, but eventually I made it and Kieran picked me up from Biarritz.

Once home, I wanted to see how my plants were doing; I nearly cried! My neighbour had said her daughter would do the watering for me, as the neighbour was away at the same time as me, but she hadn’t; some excuse about the door being stiff, but there are two others she could have used. So the plants had been left without water for nine days, while the temperatures were 35-36°C every day. Everything looked half dead, even the geraniums and the lavender! My beautiful, blue hydrangea was crisp. I watered and watered and apologised to each one, promising to ask someone else next time, and to my amazement, most of them survived. I had to cut the hydrangea back, but it’s putting out lots of new shoots now.

Soon it was the weekend of my actual birthday; my brother and his partner came over from London for a few days, the first time they’ve been here since I moved in. We were all invited, along with Kieran, to Mart and Maarten’s for a birthday party on Saturday. It was too hot to eat out, so we enjoyed the cool of their house during the heat of the day, going for a tour of their garden as it cooled down later on. Mart sent me home with more plants for my balcony, including a baby of a cactus I gave her when I left Caupenne, about to produce flowers.

We went to Kieran’s for a barbecue on Sunday, another wonderful day, full of good food, good conversation and laughter.

By Monday, we were all flagging, so we just chilled all day, till it was time to take Peter and Penny back to the airport, stopping off en route to buy duck paté and Brillat Savarin cheese.

It’s quiet now, but only a few weeks till we all meet up again, including Gemma, Chris and Elliott, for a week in a gite in the Dordogne.