In this day of technology and communication

I've just spent the last 30 hours trying to contact my parents who are probably only about 20 miles away from me!!!

They do house sitting from time to time and I knew they were on a job this week as my mum let me know last week. However, I needed to contact them to let them know about Sabrina's Chickenpox as they had agreed for the girls to go to them over Easter so that both Gary and I could do our own thing on Saturday (he's off on one of his photography days and I'm a the Newport crop).

Also I'd heard from Ange who works in the shop on a Saturday that she couldn't make it this week.

So I really needed to check that my mum would have the girls still before I made a decision about what to do about the shop etc.....

I ring the mobile number I have several times to keep getting a message that the phone is switched off. Then I decide to ring my kid sister as she's the one most likely to have any contact number for them. Nope she doesn't but at this point I discover that mum has changed her mobile and I don't have the new number. We sort that out and I then try ringing the new number only to keep getting her ansaphone.

This evening my sister rings saying that they've rung her and she now has a number for me to ring - it's a Cheltenham number which means they are only down the road from us !!!! Apparently mum is having trouble with her new mobile phone and they are not meant to use the house phone too much. The long and the short of it though is that they are still happy to have the girls, spots and all (although Sabrina's are crusting well and will be beginning to go by then). Just hoping that Alanna holds out a few more days before going down with it now.

So we have made the decision to shut the shop for the whole of the Easter weekend instead of just the Bank Holidays and will carry on with our original plans - don't you just love it.