Lincoln

We arrived in Lincoln just before lunch to see Mike's brother, Alistair, and get a quick tour of his renovated house. He's done a great job with it, making me wonder how we can come up with a way to entice him to Canada. You see, there's a certain house in desperate need of some fixing up in Ontario somewhere...

We'd planned to visit Lincoln Cathedral, grab a quick lunch and then leave the boys with Alistair for a special sleepover, while Mike and I joined my in-laws at a concert near Leeds.

The boys could hardly contain themselves - Uncle Alistair is one of their all-time heroes - but they were not very interested in seeing yet another old church, wanting to hit the park instead. I guess they've reached their fill of sightseeing for a while.

I can't say I blame them, but I wish we'd shown them Lincoln Cathedral first, before they lost interest in all things antiquarian. It is truly a sight to behold.



Interestingly, the Cathedral was used instead of Westminster Abbey during the filming of 'The Da Vinci Code' a few years ago.

After saying goodbye to the boys, we set our sights on Ripon, a little under 2 hours north. We arrived with plenty of time before the evening's concert, so Mike and I took the opportunity to go for a walk.

We were only just returning to the house when I saw my mother-in-law running towards us. As she caught up with us she prefaced her news by "Let me just start by saying the boys are all right."

Not what you want to hear when you've left your children in a town two hours away.

It turns out that Alistair had injured his knee while playing soccer with the boys and was now at the emergency room, while the boys were being looked after by a couple of Alistair's friends. He didn't think he'd be able to take care of them overnight, seeing as he wasn't able to walk on his injured leg or drive a car.

There was really no other option but for Mike and his dad to get into the car and drive back to Lincoln. Getting results from the hospital took a while, so it was closer to midnight by the time they returned, with sleepy boys and - as it turned out - a hobbling Alistair.

Alistair's knee is not as bad as originally feared, though he is still in a lot of pain. He'll be seeing a specialist within the next few days and hopefully will be able to recover without surgery.



My mother-in-law and I were obviously concerned about the guys, but that didn't stop us from going to the concert as originally planned. We spent the evening seeing a performance of Elijah at the recently renovated Royal Hall in Harrogate. It was a great distraction from wondering what was going on in Lincoln.

Today is a lazy day around the house. We all need to chill out for a little bit, and that's exactly what we're planning to do.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!