Busy as ever! What a weekend, on Friday I did a prom makeover in Cherry Hinton and then did a bridal pamper party in Godmanchester which was all lovely.
A word of warning... if you ever have to take your child to ballet exams, be prepared! You will need food, drink, entertainment and to keep calm. Charlotte had her ballet exams this weekend and they are spead out over the whole weekend so that there is no point going home in between exams, the place is filled with stressed out, hot parents and a formidable but wonderful principle! :)  it wasn't that bad really but it was a lot of waiting about and the hot weather didn't help when everyone was stuck inside for hours and hours. The examiner is very strict and presentation is everything, so the fumes from cans of hairspay abounded. Charlotte did very well, she thinks, we don't get results until the end of September but fingers crossed and she should have her grade 3 now. Now exams are over, the rehersals for the Jan 2011 show begin!
In between that I got out on Saturday morning to give a guided tour of Cherry Hinton Hall for the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, which Tony Kirby had organised. We had a good walk around and I pointed out and explained the features in the grounds from the prehistoric archaeology to the Victorian parkland. We even made a quick trip out of the site up the road to Giants Grave which is the large natural spring pool opposite the Robin Hood Pub in Cherry Hinton.
Saturday evening we popped over to Ely to my lovely friends, Emma and Rob, for their house warming which was great. I love Ely, I used to live there many years ago.
My son was here to visit for the weekend  too, so Sunday - in between ballet exams- we had a great BBQ in the garden and Russ even brought the TV out into the garden so we could watch the England match (no comment on that!).
Yesterday I went to my grannies to sit with her for a couple of hours, then I totally skived off of work and went into the town and spent some money on myself :) haha, it was brilliant! I haven't done that in ages, I was a total girl, I brought some clothes, false nails and false eyelashes, got a bit of makeup and some hair stuff then I came home and gave myself a haircut and stuck on my false nails and eyelashes (I can hardly type now). That was well needed.
Then in the evening, last night, I went and gave a lecture on local archaeology and history to Cherry Hinton Local History Society, it was a great evening and I had a suprise visitor along, Barry Fuller, from the Cambridge Archaeology Field Group - he had been involved with CHLHS 25 years ago and is a great friend of mine, he'd been trying to get the chance to come along for the last year and had finally made it, so it turned out to be a great evening all round :)
I must now finish off the War Ditches work I have been doing and have a week free of appointments to get it done, wish me luck!

It is such a beautiful day today that we decided to get up early and make the most of it. We started by going to the car boot sale at Chaplins Farm in Fulbourn, it is a very good size now, having grown over the last several years to become one of the best in Cambridge. We got some plants for our bare looking garden and we were determind to buy some 'car boot junk', so we came home with a Rubiks Magic from the 1980's and a Garfield cat landline phone, again from the '80's, and both still working great. Garfield has now replaced the home phone and I have been trying to remember the trick to the Rubiks Magic most of the afternoon (as you can tell, I am having the day off today :)
We went for an early lunch at the Robin Hood Pub in Cherry Hinton, which has just been refurbished and changed to an 'Eating Inn', It was very different inside now the work has been done but a really really good job, it looks such a nice place to go now. We sat in the garden and enjoyed our lunch then drove over to the village of Abington, where we had a lovely walk across the beautiful park.
We paddled in the fresh stream which runs alongside the park, which was nice as it is so hot today. We hunted for bits and pieces of old pottery in the water and came away with some bits of old blue and white china which we'll stick on plant pots with plaster of paris at some point, when we've collected enough.
Then we went for a walk over to the pretty little church, there were cows right next to it which I'd have loved to stroke but they wouldn't come close enough. It's such a shame that you can't get into churches now and that most are locked - I know you can go and get the key usually but sometimes you just want to pop in to look around. Still we walked around it, the strange thing we noticed was there were hardly any gravestones at all there - I'll have to find out why.
Then a walk back to the car through this picture postcard village and we drove into Sawston.
We parked just off of the High Street and had a quick look at the newly restored Challis gardens and a peek at Challis House which it is hoped will be a new museum for Sawston some point soon.
We went on to a strange wood at the north west end of Sawston and went for a quick explore, I had flip flops on because I knew we were going paddling but I did a good job of dodging the nettles in the wood :) This was a really odd place, not sure we were even allowed in but there was an open place to get in by. It was very overgrown and seemed unmanaged but strangest of all was the weird old swamp in the middle - it definately looked like a natural traditional looking swamp - not what you'd expect to find in Sawston - I'd love to find out more about this strange place - who owns it, its history etc.
Anyway, we're finishing off the day at home now, so all in it's been a really lovely day :)