August is, of course, school holiday time. And not just for us, but for friends too. This year we were delighted that David, Jan and Peter were able to make it over from Seattle, and dropped in for a couple of days on their tour of the UK.

One outing was to the Zoological Museum at Tring, a regular trip for us but quite an eye-opener for Peter in particular. It's an amazing place, once a private collection by Walter Rothschild, now part of the national Natural History Museum.

Malcolm and James did a "dad and lad" trip in August, this time on the local train to Birmingham. James had found there was a rare triceratops skull in a Birmingham museum, which we tracked down to the new "Think Tank". Whilst there we saw an exhibition on alien life, touring from the Science Museum, with one of the best computer interactive simulations I have ever seen.

Also on the tour was the Sealife Centre, and a canal boat trip.

Bridget, James and Matthew met up with Sue, Lily and Thomas at Bird World, which is not too far away from Sue's home.

As is often the case, James managed to find a goat to hug. Thomas is growing fast and walking well, so the four children were able to enjoy the day together even more.

For our main holiday we went to Ireland, first to visit some of Bridget's family, then up north to the Antrim Coast. In the past we have taken the high speed ferry to Dublin, but due to some timetable changes and the prospect of a long car journey to Holyhead, we instead flew to Belfst and hired a car. Although this was just after the "fluids on planes" scare, the journey was uneventful and very pleasant, and meant we were on holiday much quicker.

We had time to meet up with Maurice and Eileen and family, Mary and Sean and family (this is Alanah and Tuppence the dog), Anna, and Gerry (over the border).

In Antrim we stayed in an apartment in a large private house on the edge of Cushendall. It was a lovely location with clear views over the bay, and an easy walk into the town itself.

James added significantly to his collection of bones, and Matthew started a seaweed and shell collection. The weather, as usual, was mixed - during our trip to the Giant's Causeway we nearly gave up due to rain, then 10 minutes later it turned to beautiful sunshine!