It's all relative

What was to be a fairly relaxed but busyish day, working through various administrative and domestic chores before cooking dinner for my American guests, turned out to be slightly rushed and a bit fraught because of welcome but unexpected guests and a car that wouldn't start.

The text and phonecall with my new Australian guests this morning really concentrated the mind - their room wasn't ready and they had a six month old baby with them.

All year we have been meaning to get a cot of some sort - and strangely enough this coming weekend we have a couple booked who are bringing their infant child and so the purchase of a cot had become an imminent occurence before today's events.

So having said to Denis this morning that he didn't need to move his car, I now needed him to do just that - not to worry, I thought, I'll go to the market first and get the provisions for dinner and then I'll sort the room out - and sure enough, by the time I had finished that, Denis had come back from lunch and moved his car.

I just had enough time to pop out before the new guests were likely to arrive - how wrong I was. I bought a new battery for the Audi at the beginning of the year and since then I haven't had a problem with getting the car going - until today - battery flat - car not going anywhere. To add insult to injury, when I hooked it up to the charger there was no response - so it seems that the charger might need a new fuse or it's broken.

There was a certain irony to all this - the only place to buy a new charger, or a fuse for a charger or a new battery or, indeed, a travel cot is in the industrial and commercial zones (out of town stores). To reach said destinations a car is the ideal mode of transport. You see my predicament.

Added to that was the worst day of weather for about four months - no wonder the Aussies had abandoned their cycling week and sought refuge here.

So with the mattress from the fold-up bed and some sheets and blankets we made a little snug for young Pippa who was as good as gold as the rest of us tucked into a four course dinner this evening.

The conversation was amusing and diverse and as ever with Americans and Australians we ended up discussing roots and ancestry - Anna was proud to be directly descended from one of the first convicts exported to Australia which put her on a par with a descendant of the first settlers who landed in America on the 'Mayflower' - according to Lance from California. In the end we all agreed that we all had some element of Irish ancestry, which was a bit sad to admit - the Irish can't have populated the whole world surely? - we even wondered if Barack O'Bama had any Irish blood.

Ellie was born in Swaziland from parents who worked for the UN and so is American by default, as she didn't see the place until she was five years old, but African by birth and has an African middle name - aren't people's lives fascinating?

If we go back far enough, I guess we are all related.