It must be, or otherwise it would be spelled Temms.

Which is all slightly moot, because we didn’t go to Thames, we went to Thornton Bay. Sure, it’s just outside of the bustling metropolis that is Thames, but it’s an important distinction to make.

Thornton Bay is home to Dad and Diane’s beach place / future retirement abode. It’s where we go to relax and Dad goes to do his (rather loose) interpretation of relaxing, which is pretty much 8 hours of manual labour a day. To be fair though, he’s not completely insane. There’s a wedding in January he has to get ready for, and the chances of Carl flying up every weekend to help out are kinda slim – meaning a lot of work to be done and not so much manpower with which to do it. This weekend Sam and I went along to help / watch / bother him for Father’s Day. I choose to believe the most help I can be involves staying out of the way and making pointed observations where appropriate.

First things first. It’s important to note that Dad is pretty much a big giant nerd. This is his new lean-to workroom thingy, and his plan is to repaint it a nice bright blue and put a sign saying ‘Police Public Call Box‘ over the doors. I think Diane’s letting him have this one as a nerd outlet, so he can sit in his little blue room and giggle and not cause any problems anywhere else.

The most awesome thing about this place, TARDIS aside, is it has a significant wodge of native bush within the boundaries. Not enough to get lost in (unless you really try, or fall, or something), but enough for a decent wander. And glow worms! Excited squeal! Dad and Diane and assorted grandparents have done quite a lot of clearing already, but there’s still room for more blazing of trails; possibly a little further down the track (yes, a pun).

This weekend’s progress, care of Dad & Sam:

Steps so old people don’t have to slide down hills on their butts. My role in this project was weeding the lavender border within earshot, and rehoming any worms that were excavated in the course of digging. I don’t like the poor wormies to be homeless.

Then this lil guy wandered along to supervise the excavation. Apparently he’s been around since D&D bought this place, and he has the best feet ever. It is an immutable law of the universe (let’s call it Karen’s Law) that a cat person, when faced with a cat, cannot help but give itloves and attention – or at least attempt to do so. And so it was that ubersappy superawesometoekitty stayed around for the rest of the afternoon.

Because I am ill (I came back with a sore throat and am now stuffed up and sneezing out my precious brainmeats) I’m not going to attempt to end this wittily. Instead I will leave you with this photo; my first daffodil of the spring, taken on the first day of spring. We’re planning on going up more frequently to help out with the preparations, so maybe there’ll be a few more updates between now and January…