Today we took Pete's Mum Molly out to lunch, to celebrate her 85th birthday. This sounds simple, but seemed to involve quite a lot of preparation - including charging the battery for our larger car so that I could drive six of us to Spalding, pick up Molly and get us all to the pub.

We tried the car out in the morning, when we dashed out to buy birthday presents - a standard pink fuchsia (from Pete and I), a bottle of pink port (from Alex and Ben) and a lovely bunch of flowers form Chris and Lizzy). I hadn't driven it since January, and, rather worryingly the brake warning light didn't go out completely when I released the hand brake. We read the manual, dithered about taking it to a garage for a second opinion, and then decided that it looked more like an electrical fault, as it was only very faintly lit, so we carried on regardless.

Molly had selected a local pub in the centre of Spalding, which was a little shabby but had good reviews. Certainly the portions were generous, and the food was well cooked but largely unimaginative. I think Alex and Ben hit the jackpot with a plate of sizzling king prawns in a chilli sauce, that was delivered to the table in a cloud of steam, and had everybody's heads turning. The waitress who served us was a bit humourless, and seemed bent on getting us to eat up and leave, much to our amusement!

We returned home about five, and all felt shattered. After an hour with my novel, I took the dogs out for a quick walk to Ferry Meadows. Once again the lake was teeming with swallows and sand martis, as well as a group of common terns, diving for fish. Of course I had the wrong lens again, but I managed quite a few decent swallow shots (practice makes perfect!) However, Pete and the boys liked this common tern best. It comes complete with action blur, but does capture the rather amazing positions they get in while fishing!

Unfortunately Chris had decided not to come as he was putting the finishing touches to his dissertation, before returning to Sheffield in the morning to hand it in...such a shame.