Half Term Visitors

It's been a lovely, if slightly crazy, half-term week.

In fact, I could rename this year's October break from school as 'Family Week', as we were visited by five families, most of whom stayed for a few days (though not all at once!) and, of course, our own student son and daughters managed to get home for most of, or part of the week.
There was a great deal of cooking...  meals for up to twenty people at a time. Arranging seating at the dining table, with a garden table to supplement worked very well, and no-one seemed to notice if the crockery or the cutlery didn't match...
There was laughter, conversation, walking (sometimes of the dog), playing, collecting and dropping off at the train station, food shopping (Sainsbury's might have been a bit puzzled at my repeated visits)and sightseeing. There was the  joyful renewal of  old friendships as well as newer ones, catching up, opening up, exchanging news advice and views.
There was prayer, its highpoint of course, Mass on Sunday, where we managed to fill two pews.....

And  there were the fond farewells- some of our visitors travelled hundreds of miles to be with us at half term; it's the sort of compliment we can't fully repay since travelling for our two disabled sons has to be limited. But they too, need to meet people, make friends, socialize. What a true gift it is, to have family and friends who understand this and are prepared to honour us all with their wonderful company.