Saturday 21 June
A night out in Manchester to see the ever brilliant Santana in concert. Wonderful, exciting, great....as many adjectives as one can think of to describe this great musician. We will never tire of this man and his music.

Sunday 22 June
To York for another base but at least this time we will be here for two weeks. My wonderful ex-UK boss/now very good friend Sue very kindly gave us the use of her apartment in York, firstly so that we could relax and spread in a "place of our own" but also so that we can entertain Sally, Ian and Tom who are coming over from NZ. The apartment is very centrally located and we spend the first week finding out about all the sights, smells and sounds that our Kiwi visitors may find of interest, we love York and we can't wait to share it with them.

Saturday 28 and Sunday 29
It's a real party weekend with the annual BBQ held by my old work colleague Tracy and her husband Paul in Selby. Great to see them and some other old work colleagues again. Back into Leeds on Sunday for a Dixon Family Party that Neil's Aunty Joan and Uncle Jack organised. It took a couple of attempts to find a date that we could all make but we eventually managed to get all cousins together. And just happened to be Jack's birthday also! A great day.

Tuesday 1 - 5 July
Sally, Ian and their nephew Tom arrived safely, although a little tired, from their longhaul flight from NZ. We didn't have much time for the jetleg to get in the way and we were straight into the sightseeing. Tom really enjoyed the sights and smells of the Jorvik centre which really gets you into the middle of the history of the Vikings arriving in York. A quick run up the steps of Clifford's Tower before we all went into the Castle Museum where the grown ups enjoyed the Sixties Exhibition. A trip out to Masham for dinner and a pint or two of Black Sheep Brewery bitter ended a busy day. Day two saw us in York again, this time to spend the whole morning in the Minster and then to the National Railway museum in the afternoon. For day three we headed off to see Neil's parents on the East Coast and for all of us to head off to Whitby, Robin Hood's Bay and Scarborough. Thankfully the weather was on our side and we all had a great day out. Thanks to Neil's mum and dad for an excellent dinner back at their place to finish off the day.

All too soon it was time for Sally, Ian and Tom to move onto their next location: Wiltshire for a week before heading off to France. We loved having them with us and being able to share with them our home county. It was also a pleasure to meet their nephew Tom and we hope that he took away with him some good memories of Yorkshire. We look forward to seeing them again when we all get back to NZ later in the year.