Back, but limping.

Scroll down if you want to see pics of Herne Bay Festival, as I just found an entry I hadn't finished due to pc meltdown.

Still no sign of a fixed laptop, Wayne is too busy at the moment having just started the ground clearing work on the second housebuild, and also having sold the house they are in, with the threat of being homeless in 5 weeks.

Kelly understood my absolute frustration at having no computer access, and since they have an abundance of laptops and pcs in their house, she very kindly has given me her extremly old - ancient even - laptop. Poor old 'Dilbert' limps along at a very slow speed, cant cope with big programs like photoshop, has to be permenantly plugged into the mains or he dies, and weighs a ton, but already I love him!

Having been round to dad, downloaded all my camera memory cards and burnt them onto disc, the first plan of action was to get them all uploaded to net. I was in the process of doing that before my own lappy died, but this was a slow process as I was uploading for printing and cleaning each one up before loading. This time round the whole lot are going online and then once saved, I will slowly replace each as I clean it. There is no way I want to loose these photos.

The latest ones are a little special anyway. When the girls were small, I was at college doing my degree, and mum was working so it fell on good ol' G'dad to do the childcare bit. Often on nice days they would, on the spur of the moment, decide to go off in the car on a picnic. Now, G'dad's idea of a picnic was simply to get a large box, and sweep the contents of the cupboards into it. No buttering bread and wrapping it up ready to eat when you got there. Oh no. You just throw in the whole loaf, the butter dish, and a knife, and sort that out when you get there. Laura only ate salad cream sandwiches, Kelly ate whatever was on offer (except brussel sprouts) so whole bottle of salad cream went in, plus anything else dad could find, including the tin opener. Drink was a flask of hot water and oxo cubes.

As younsters, both girls loved these improptu outings so while on holiday Laura asked G'dad to take her for 'one of his picnics'. So yesterday we went together with her to Knole Park to see the deer. The park is only £2.50 to get your car into (as National Trust Members Mum and Dad get in for nort) and you can go in the house but this was not what we were at. We had a quick look at the many many deer,

admiring the many deer

a quick race up the hill

watch some more deer

set out the picnic, note the box of food behind mum

'I think this goes here' - note picnic box and bags of more food

Happy but hungry bunnies we settled down to admire the view and munch away to our hearts desire. But nothing is ever that simple with us is it? First came 'THE WASP'. Only one (and the only one we have been pestered by all year) but Laura is terrified of them so there was lots of jumping up and down (not easy from that table) waving of hands and shouting.

Having got rid of that pesky thing, we then had more trouble!



He was very persistant, and very tame.


Despite warnings about not feeding the deer because they might bite, mum still wacked it on the nose, flayed it with a tea-towel.



Dad pulled his antlers away (gently)


and Laura tried to entice it away with some bread.

Finally it got away with an apple which was way too big and hard for it to eat, so back it came.




In the end the only thing to do was eat quickly and pack everything away fast.

Finally, realising we had nothing left to pinch it went off to the next picnicing party, and mum did laugh when they started to attemp sending it back to us!!!

It really is a beautiful picnic spot, and was good fun (the deer actually made the day) so if you are close and get the chance do go in for a look see and a spot of lunch.