Saturday 24th August

Once again a busy week in the Luce household (when is it not?) I have been busy taking photos during the week to remind me of all the happy times!

Jess discovered a rather large hedgehog in the meadow, fortunately one sniff was enough!

We had an excellent netball mixed tournament on Tuesday evening, Steve and Bex ran the raffle and lots of people made cakes to sell. All in all £2,400 was raised for pancreatic cancer UK. Phili would have been so proud of Imogen; she did a brilliant job of organising it.

The high tide and lovely weather meant I managed dog walking and second breakfasts on the beach before 9:30am- and a lovely evening swim at Rozel. Still can’t get Jess to come and join me though, but maybe that’s not a bad thing!

I don’t intend to discuss political items on this blog but the demise of yet another large company in the island is pretty awful, needless to say the politician has been hard at work this week.

Friday was Dan’s day off so just for a change he thought he’d go out on the boat…..which of course encompassed lots of high jinks on the water, exploring caves and jumping off rocks ( all in line with health and safety of course)….

One boy had a go pro(small camera) attached to his chest but when he jumped into the water, the force of it knocked the camera into his chin and split it open (later a trip to A&E and ‘glue’). The camera was lost in the ocean. Another boy jumped with different go pro strapped to him, again the water knocked the camera away from strapping, Jack was in the water watching and grabbed part of the camera case and after abrief exchange of words quickly realised the actual camera was spiralling away out of sight, so free dived. Like Daniel a few weeks ago no time to equalise his ears and suffered earache- but rescued the camera- a hero!

This pic is them watching video footage of their exploits- why none of them are wearing shirts is beyond me.  I was left with the usual trail of sand, copious amounts of dirty teacups and an empty biscuit/snack cupboard, no change there then!

The week also included a spot of razor fishing-

And Jess met up with her grandfather and uncle down at le saie- and while she enjoyed splashing about in the shallows she still didn't swim!!

Finished off the week with supper at a friends house, beautiful setting as we ate outside with a view over the bay, and good company.

Sunday 18th August

Sunday 18^th August

Apologies to all those readers out there, the blog has been worse than slack of late, I can only put that down to the blogger mainly me I’m afraid. It is not for want of material, but merely the fact that getting me pinned down to the laptop of an evening proves tricky. 

Hubby and I had a fantastic day at a friends wedding yesterday hence the picture, many congratulations to the lovely couple....

 

Taking the dog for an early morning walk on St Aubin beach at 8:45am this morning (long story) I had the run down from one gentlemen about how he had fallen down a 30ft bank in Rozel while doing his pest control (he was 79), knocked himself out, thought he had concussion as everything was blurry then found out his glasses were broken. Needless to say there were further parts to his story but as I hadn’t volunteered an opening line I was hoping I could actually continue the walk with nothing more than a cheery “Good morning!!”

Jess exploring St Aubin

The second chap I encountered randomly told me about his sister who is an Animal right Activist in Midlands…. Jessie meanwhile was very happy doing her own thing and found most of the four legged canines reasonably friendly I however think I would be wise to stick to the East of the island from now on.

I have been swimming in the sea as often as I can, twice a day if possible, it really is lovely and especially so after a set of two of tennis, very good for sore muscles! I have been playing in a closed tournament at Grainville over the last two weeks and my mixed partner and I did legitimately manage to get into the final, we played yesterday and won, a close game but played in good spirits. 

Bel Val

By total fluke I was also in the Ladies final, (long story I won’t bore you with!) and surprisingly won again, I did have two very strong partners!!

I am also playing (again through a players injury ) in another tennis tournament, which has some very strong players in it, way out of my league but giving it a go anyway.

I still play badminton on a Wednesday night (after choir) but I can’t say the tennis has helped my badminton one bit- Stephen and I did manage a game of racquet ball last Monday, he beats me easily but at least he coaches me on where I go wrong ( after I’ve lost the shot of course!)

The winners!!

He has been almost as busy this August as he is in a normal states week, lots of problems to try and solve and companies to salvage, plus a few parish issues. We had an amazing Gorey Fete last Thursday, so many people giving up their free time to make it happen and I believe they took over £26,000, that’s money, all going to local charities. Jack certainly worked extremely hard, and Bex did a very commendable radio interview at short notice!

Opening of the fete!

Dad and daughter

I have hardly seen the other two boys, both of them seemed to spend a lot of time either at sea or on the beach last week, and the youngest is so tanned I hardly recognise him. 

We have a mixed netball tournament on Tuesday next week, well I say we, it’s just me and a group of netballers and their boyfriends. It’s in aid of a very dear friend who unfortunately died of Pancreatic Cancer three years ago, and so all the proceeds will go to pancreatic cancer Uk. They are holding a raffle and there will be cakes/sandwiches etc. It has all been organised by her daughter who wanted to do something in her memory, there is also a just giving page and if I can find the link I’ll put it on the blog.

  www.justgiving.com/philli-pickering  

Enjoyed a lovely cup of tea with the Holmchase choir at St Martins this afternoon, cake and concert fund raiser that proved very successful.

Saturday 10th August

A lovely late afternoon walk in Le Saie woods with Jessie.....

Friday 9th August. ( he never posted the blog!!)

It's the local politician bloging this evening....before anyone starts getting weird ideas about whos brain is responsible for tonights effort...

All the children are out at the Evening Parade....and we're doing exciting things while we have the house to ourselves......watering vegetables, hoovering and (the piece de resistance) watching Gardener's World....what a wonderful varied life we lead....

This afternoon I played cricket for the States Members team (again)...after our recent success against the Guernsey States Members we decided that we fancied our chances against the Jersey Chief Officers....what a mistake that was. i think their average age was at least 15 years younger than ours...lets just put it like this....they scored 198 and we got more than 100..... next year we will do more practice....apparently they had practice sessions and everything...anyway, we raised £400 for charity which was the whole idea....we're so lucky to have such great facilities as the Farmers Field cricket field on which to play....the weather was just right.....a real good "afternoon off".

This week has been pretty much dominated by "Battle"...my biggest "issue" being the fact that both St. Martins AND Young Farmers were working in the same shed. That made things slightly awkward, but it became obvious fairly early on that it was Young Farmers who were the ones that needed the most help (no change there then) and I'm sure that my parishioners understood....well, I hope they did.....I've been helping JYFC since the 70's....  and battle is such a great time to meet up with friends that you haven't seen for months. Unlike the old days I didn't stay all night....it's time to leave that to the youngsters....but in any case both floats were finished before 02:00.....St. Martin's much earlier than that. We had some good seats in the stands to watch the show....and what an improvement it was starting with all the floats already in the arena.....there's years that I've thought that they should have made that change....hopefully it's the way that all Battles will start form now on. Unfortunately, neither float won any really BIG awards, which was disappointing after such hard work, but Young Farmers did win the Animation Award, so their efforts did get them something...."animation" and "carnival atmosphere" are always targets.....I mean, let's face it, Young Farmers are never going to win either of the REALLY big prizes.....but they are the experts at the "it's not the winning but the taking part" saying. I have no doubt that, as I am typing this, they are having a real ball down in the arena....and a proper Jersey Summer Evening to round off what has been a really great week.

    

Sunday 4th August

Wandering around on various dog walks in the week i think of all the various topics i could blog about, and I write them in  my head. They are always very good and generally humourous, and then it comes to the evening, and of course I'm usually out, which means getting back late and then recalling those entertaining thoughts and prose I had so vividly constructed to find they have vanished into the ethereal space I call my brain, never to be retrieved!

Le saie

Dolphin Watch

An evening dog walk with the boys.

But, it's Sunday and I'm in on a Sunday night, except I cooked a roast for dinner, and then attempted yet more cleaning,( it's never ending), when really I should have tackled the basket of ironing, which when i wasn't looking has multiplied to two baskets now..... The real fault is with the weather of course, if it wasn't so nice i wouldn't feel so compelled to work in the garden/go for a swim etc... You do know it's going to rain tomorrow!!!

I do believe there are five French men (sounds like the makings of a song) who owe my son (Stingray Dan) a rather large favour. In fact if there was a newspaper printed in Sark he would be on the front page.  I know this for a fact.

A brief outline of the story goes like this, Captain Birds Eye and his crew of cabin boys including Dan, set sail for Sark with a charter of folks and their kayaks. Everything was going well and as the boys in their rib were bobbing about the bay they noticed a dejected bunch of French men (nothing new there), sitting on their yacht. Two of the men duly came over to the Duchess and upon spying the boys wet suits asked if it would be possible if one of them could go down a few metres and untangle their anchor.....

 As Dan had the flippers and the weights, he drew the short straw, well, the few metres was actually 11, (we know this as Dan has a spanky dive watch given as a 21st birthday present). It wasn't easy and he dived two or three times, his mate went down to about 6 metres to offer support and pull him up if he passed out.......(that was the theory). The chain was well and truly wrapped around the anchor as the yacht had spun two or three times in a circle. Dan said he didn't equalise his ears during the dive and not only suffered earache for the rest of the afternoon, but spat out blood too....

By the third attempt he had kicked up a lot of sand obscuring his vision and wasn't sure if he had freed it, but realised he had when he received a huge cheer by the surrounding spectators that were following his progress. It turns out the yacht was on hire and due back that afternoon, so the French sailed off into the blue yonder, waving and calling Au revoir !!!!!