SARAH'S BIRTHDAY

Sarah came over from Norway for her 29th birthday. Baard had booked to come with her, but,surprisingly he was called over to Australia for a Centrebet Conference.

Sarah arrived on Sunday, and with Carol working, she and Dad spent Monday doing some shopping - bought some lovely warm boots for snow walking in Norway, and generally relaxed. Tuesday, Carol was unaccountably struck down with a mysterious stomach wog, and had to ring the school to say she would not be available. And then we al took off for a day in London.

Popped in to St Pauls Cathedral, tubed our way to Leiccester Square, which Len knew was the wrong station as we were really aiming for Picadilly where we knew there was an excellent Japanese restaraunt which was to be Sarah's birthday present. Finally found it and had a really super meal - amazing how much a growing girl can put away!

Went to see the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben and then took a bus towards the Tower of London so that we could catch the train home from Fenchurch Street. Lot's of puffing and huffing - but we made it.

Wednesday we were going to drive down and see Peter and Mary, but Len was suffering from a nasty cold and we did not think it wise to risk giving the infection to Mary who is still recovering from her second hip operation. So we pottered around. Sarah made a lovely casserole and a pleasant day was had.

Thursday morning we haad to get Sarah to Stansted to fly home -BUT when we woke up there had been a heavy fall of snow. We heard on the radio that Stansted was closed -and then that schools were closed -so Carol decided to accompany us to the airport which had predicted it would open later in the day.

Swept snow off the car - and tentatively drove the 40 odd miles to Statsted where we dropped Sarah off. When we got home there was a call from Sarah to tell us that her flight had been cancelled, and that Ryanair (her carrier) could only tell her that their next flight into Stavanger was on Sunday!!

Carol got onto the internet and after some exhaustive tooing and froing managed to book seats on British Airways from Heathrow to Oslo late that day and a Norwegian Air flight from Oslo to Stavanger early the next day! Poor old Sarah - she had to get the Express Coach from Stansted to Heathrow and wait there for 8 hours to get to Oslo, then she sat up in the airport at Oslo until late morning to get home. About 36 hours in transit.

So it was quite a birthday to remember.