My good friend Barge and his wife Nam came to visit for a few days. Hamish was still poorly with his chesty cough and Lorraine was suffering too, both from her bronchitis and her lumbago.

On Saturday I went into town with Freya, Barge and Nam. First stop was Little Gym, where it was show day, which serendipitously meant that friends and family could come in with cameras and enjoy the fun. So Barge took camera duty and we had a lot of fun. 

Then we headed into town. I found out that the restaurant we were looking for had changed into a rather nice chocolaterie. We wound up in a Mexican restaurant so Freya could have chips and chicken nuggets and ice cream (with no chocolate) and then to the toy shop to see if we could find a bus. We did manage to find one and also a rather nice wooden fire engine. And, of course, I had to buy both.

Then it was back home via the supermarket for supplies so that Barge could make his delightful dahl and saag aloo. Hamish was really suffering and his breathing had us so concerned that we ended up taking him to the A&E. It turns out that he has croup, poor wee mite.

After dropping Nam off at the station on Sunday, Barge and I took Freya to Remich where we had some fun running around the bandstand, playing in the park and feeding the swans and ducks. We had some crêpes for lunch then headed into Germany for a random drive. We stopped at a random town while Freya was asleep in the back so that Barge could go for a smoke, but Freya woke up when we stopped and wanted to go for a walk. Thank goodness she did as the place turned out to be really quite something. It was called Saarburg and had a waterfall right in the middle of the town that used to spin a waterwheel for milling flour. It was such a shame that the whole family couldn’t have been there, but now we know where it is we’ll have to go back to visit the chocolate river.

All in all it was a really great weekend for me and Freya, but not so good for Lorraine and Hamish.