On Tuesday morning I set off from Ossett to go to the temple in Preston to witness the sealing of Andrea and Sean Palmer, and their daughter Nicole. The endowment session was at 11, it should take about 1 hour 15 to 1and a half hours, so leaving at 9 I had plenty of time..... Driving rain and thick fog as I drove along the highest motorway in England, and a sat nav that wanted me to take the country route put paid to that. Having decided to ignore Gill (the sat nav) and turning back to the motorway, I made it by the skin of my teeth. The sealing was at 1 pm and as I came out of the temple the freezing wind cut through you like a knife. The spirit present however was warm and provided confirmation to Sean and Andrea, and solace to me.
I hurried to the MTC to leave a package for Elder Henry only to find the missionaries had been sent out into the field a couple of days early due to a mission presidents conference. Dashed back to the temple to catch Andrew Gardner from Wolverhampton who had also been at the sealing, and he kindly took the package to Henry for me - Phew!
Photos taken, I set off about 3pm to drive back to Yorkshire, where it was drier and warmer - never thought those words would come out of my mouth but it's all relative.... Picked up Amy, Hayley and Austin, and met Cait, Ethan and Sam for an early supper at Silkwood Farm - good food, and the kids loved the play area. Sam decided to play the 'can I dodge my grandma and get past her to run out?' game. He tried creeping past, running at full pelt, sneaking fairly close and then making a dash for it and various other tactics. He made it past me several times, only to be caught a bit further down the walkway, and then he said 'Stop it Grandma I wuv ooo' in a bid to be put down so he could really escape. When I am tickling the grandchildren that is what they have to say to make me stop - he obviously thought it was worth a try!
Visited Alison Boome in the evning - it was lovely to see her, and Sam and Eleanor are so kind and welcoming to me. We chatted for an hour or so all about the trip to Texas and Louisiana, and had a laugh together. Stayed over at Cait's and was sleeping in the bottom bunk of the boys room, with Ethan above me.
At just after 4am I woke up and as I opened my eyes I saw a huge house spider crawling across the bed just below my chin! I leapt out of the bed, thinking 'can't scream Ethan's in here' and hyperventilating. Opening the ipad for light I searched for that monster to no avail. I did find two dummies and several soft toys down the side of the bed. Eventually, heart still thumping, I forced myself back into the bed (too cold not to!) and tried to go back to sleep. Shortly after that Sam asleep in Rich and Cait's room started making little noises, like a dog who is dreaming, and at 5am Ethan got up and went downstairs. Thinking he was alone I shot out of bed and went after him, only to find poor Richard was already down there with Sam. I went back upstairs, gave up all thought of sleep and read for an hour, getting up at six. The heating had gone off during the night and we couldn't get it started again. Cait called the engineer and hoped he would come before they went to their halloween party.
I left mid-morning, and drove home, stopping in Oxford to visit Nanny Witts. She was in good form, happy chatty and looking forward to their Halloween party in the nursing home. As usual she insisted on introducing me to everyone. I was so glad I went as Pam wasn't well, and hadn't been able to pop in to see her.
Came home, carved a pumpkin, did a good job if I say so myself, made a ghost, put both on the front doorstep, got the goodies ready and Tim bless him, called to say you must be shattered, I'll bring home take away - I love him to bits.
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