Kia Ora

It’s been a very quiet month for Ann as she’s still on sick leave. She’s been completing her physio exercises and her hip is doing well. However her right knee is still painful (from – don’t read this bit if you’re squeamish - all the wrenching and twisting that the surgeon had to do to dislocate and re-locate her hip during surgery. The surgeon thinks it may be ligament damage which will take longer to heal.

This is an x-ray of Ann's new double bionic hips. She has been rebuilt - she is now better, faster, stronger - yeah, right!
Ann’s highlights of the week(s) have been going grocery shopping with Peter and weekly visits from Jean. The girls have been very excited to see her.
	Ann’s students sent her a wonderful, glitzy card (we’re still vacuuming glitter out of the carpet).

Ann has been managing most of the housework whilst Peter's at work. When she drops something she only has to get her 'knickergrabber' (as Peter calls it) to be able to pick it up again. One day she was being particularly cack handed and dropping everything (pen, tissues, damp laundry, hanger, sponge etc), so in the end she decided to leave it all on the floor and do one big round up of picking things up when she'd finished. However when she went to get the knickergrabber she managed to drop that too. It looked like some weird sort of treasure trail through the house by the time Peter got home.

Peter celebrated his 55th birthday with three very exciting gifts from the females in his life - pruning saws! And Ann will take him out for a meal soon.
	Peter used one of his birthday gifts to prune back a crab apple (potential bonsai material) that's growing on in a raised bed.
We spent one Saturday morning at Jean & Tim's place chain sawing a tree which had fallen in their gully during high winds. It'll be added to our firewood stack for next year. You can just see Peter wearing his orange safety helmet in the centre of the photo.
	Whilst Peter was cutting the wood up Jean and Tim ran a shuttle with the wheelbarrow to the top of the gully.
Chilling!
	Waiting - but for what we have no idea!

News from Home

John, Allison, Gwen, Michael and Alex popped over from Colorado to visit Mike. They spent time visiting some beautiful stately homes and gardens.
They also went down to South Wales for a couple of days and met up with more of Mike's family - sister Shan, children, nephews, nieces, grandchildren and great grandchildren!
Alex, Gwen and Michael - Ann's wonderful nephew and nieces from USA.
	A meal out with Carol, Mike and David before flying back to USA.
Ann's god daughter, Imogen, and her mum Teresa. Imogen has just graduated and is now working in ICU at Manchester hospital. Awesome Imogen!