Sooz’s birthday celebrations were rather restrained yesterday, due to my still aching head and the rubbish weather. We made up for it today though with a trip to the New Forest. Was a lovely day out and the sun even shone throughout. Will post photobloggy pictures in a minute. Yikes, also have to go to bed very soon! :O

Yesterday was the big tax office day. It went a lot more smoother than anticipated, only took about an hour or so to get all the forms filled and my massive stack of receipts sorted. And if the calculations are correct I should for the first time in a long time get a rebate. Woo. It pays to leave the country mid-year. :D It’s a huge relief to get the last one of those difficult tax years sorted. A word of advice to anyone planning on living in a different country to where they work in: don’t.

After the tax office excursion we went to see Elisa and Hilla. Hilla is a month old now but still very tiny and delicate. Gorgeous in every way really.

S and I had a go and trying not to drop her as well. :)

In the evening we met up with Dad, Karola and my brothers. I also invited Ride to come along as it was his birthday on Monday and despite all the good intentions we didn’t manage to see him then. It was a fun night, highlights being Vesa’s amazing card tricks! I’ll post a video later if he gives me permission… I was very impressed indeed. Well, what can I say, we obviously must have brilliant genes in common… :P

Well that was a fairly adventurous weekend then. The nice thing about it was that Nikki & Ian finally made it over for a visit. The worse thing about it was that despite having the most gorgeous – hottest day of the year in fact – on Friday, the weather over the weekend has been absolutely insane. Yesterday we went for what was supposed to be a lovely riverside stroll to Richmond and got caught up in not only in the most awful downpour, but also a very rapidly raising tide which almost left us stranded. Soaked to the bone we had to make our way through ankle deep water in order to get onto drier land. At the worst places the people in front of us actually took their shoes and socks off and rolled their trousers up! If it hadn’t been so miserable it would have almost been funny. I’m so annoyed I didn’t take any pictures of our little survivalist trip, I must have had other things on my mind at the time… I was so wet and cold that I’m not very surprised that today I woke up with a sore throat and a blocked up nose. Great…

The things looked up in the evening though when we went to buy a stupid amount of spirits, and an ice crusher which was essential, in order to make Mai Tais. They were very nice and certainly lifted our spirits, even if in hindsight we could have chosen a little bit less complicated cocktail recipe requiring less bottles to haul back. :D

This morning we woke up to a white world. Yes, it was indeed snowing! Heavily! In April! How completely surreal. Now of course, when Nikki & E have gone and I’m dying of a cold under the blanket, it looks lovely and sunny out. Typical…

The first visitor was Miikka, who was over for a week just before Christmas. And he nearly never left as his flight got cancelled. Good fun was had and even though the weather was very cold at the time (unlike now!) and he had a flu we did manage to get around a bit. Here’s some snaps of the touristy things we got up to. (Oh yes and Stu had a birthday as well!)

My mum was also over for a week at the start of the year. No pictures of that as they would mostly feature the same sights I’m afraid. :) I really got used to the dish washing service on that week I must say. :D