Lake District

We had a lovely time in Milnthorpe at the weekend, visiting Andy, Hazel, Lottie and Oliver. It was the first time we had met Oliver and he was a lot of fun:

Lottie had grown up a lot since we had last seen her and obviously loves having a little brother to play with:

On Sunday afternoon we all went to a fantastic climbing centre in Kendal and Andy put Luke and Joe through their paces. Lottie and Oliver had a good go on the lower bouldering sections too.

Venice

Elaine and I have just returned from a four-day trip to Venice for Elaine's birthday. It was absolutely fantastic and we had a wonderful time. We pretty much covered the whole of Venice while we were there, as well as some of the nearby islands (Murano, Burano and the cemetery at Isola Di San Michele).

On the big day we took the secret itinerary around the Doges Palace, which included a visit to Casanova's cells (he was moved from him first after making a hole through the floor with a spike!). We also took a trip to the top of the Campanile in St Mark's Square and had a nosy around inside the Basilica. We took a gondola trip with our gondelier, Dante (yes, really) in the afternoon and finished off the day with some local fish.

We poked out nose in our local church, San Zaccharia, and discovered it full of wonderful paintings including one by Bellini!