Emily is now enjoying four weeks of Summer Camp run by her pre-school teacher and we are planning to send Joshua for the last week. It'll be good for the teachers to have a heads up, before his proposed start at pre-school in September. Wish them luck!

We are looking forward to Linda, Phil and Carol visiting this month and hoping the weather improves or they will think they've gone 6 months back in time during the flight!

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We have made the decision, we are going to keep chickens for eggs. When we were on holiday in May, the owners of the cottage we stayed kept chickens. After tasting those eggs we toyed with the idea, but now we've thought it through we're going for it! Why do I get the feeling that Paul's late nights in the office will coincide with mucking out days?

We have a bit of garden preparation to be done but watch this space over the summer...

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June was a very slow month. We didn't have any visitors, and the weather got steadily worse.

On the plus side we had our first parents' evening at Emily's primary school a couple of weeks ago and Emily had her orientation day on the 16th. She loved it and wasn't a bit nervous about staying on her own with new friends and teachers. She had her last day in montessori pre-school today and is now really looking forward to starting big school on 1 September.

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We have been back from holiday for a week now and post-holiday blues have set in as we return to thoughts of school, work, housework and yet more DIY instead of ice cream, eating in restaurants and going on day trips. We are toying with the idea of sailing to the UK or France for a week in the summer to visit places we haven't seen and to let the kids experience things they wouldn't see and do every day.

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Congratulations to Lucy and Chris who got married today. Such a perfect couple who looked stunning in their fineries. Emily and Joshua made us very proud, behaving extremely well throughout the whole day and dancing until almost 11pm! Thank you to Lucy, Chris and both of their parents for putting on such a wonderful celebration. To see photos click here. We will update this with better ones once we get a copy from the official photographer.

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Happy 2nd Birthday Joshua! We are on holiday in Somerset from 10 May until 18 May so Joshua opened his presents in 25 degree sunshine then spent the day at Longleat. We had a fantastic week, most of which was spent doing the local touristy things in shorts and t-shirts enjoying an unseasonal burst of summer weather. You can see photos here.

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We have just said goodbye to Chloe's Mum and Dad after a fantastic three weeks. We have achieved more this month than in the previous twelve. We won't spoil the surprises and list all the DIY we've been up to, we will let visitors find out for themselves when they get here. A huge thank you to Chloe's parents for all their blood, sweat and tears this month. We'll see you again next spring!

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Terrible news to report this month about Sam, our oldest cat. After a fight with the local feral cats he developed an infection in his back leg. After a month of trying to save the leg the vet had no choice but to amputate. This sounds horrific, but he is actually coping really well, delighted to be free of the pain he had been in for the last month and now races about the garden as fast as ever!

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Now the weather is warming up we are keen to get lots of fresh air in the garden planting more veggies and tiring Joshua out.

We're looking forward to having Chloe's Mum and Dad come to stay in April and then in May we'll be on holiday in Somerset for Lucy's wedding.

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Happy St Patrick's Day! This year's Fermoy parade has been hailed as one of the best ever and as we were such a happy bunch the photographer for the Corkman newspaper couldn't resist...

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