Unexpected visitors...

Early this morning I rang my sister who was stranded in Barcelona with her grandson and asked her what she had been able to arrange. The answer was nothing at all at that stage. Later in the day she managed to contact the airline and to re-book flights but the earliest possible were on Monday evening! Although she and Tom have been thoroughly enjoying exploring Barcelona, there is a limit to the time you want to spend pounding the pavements, so we invited them to come and spend the weekend with us. She went round to the Estacion del Norte and booked seats on a fast train arriving in Valencia (where we shall pick them up) at 1pm, and the return trip on Monday leaving at 2pm to get back to the airport in Barcelona for an evening flight. She will of course be checking the web sites to make sure something is actually flying before making the trip back north.
Tom is delighted - he will get a trip on a fast train, and a look at the house where his beloved Granny spends quite a bit of her time, and he is also getting a good extension to his holiday. He is one of the few who is actively enthusiastic about that volcano and its activities!
I spoke to my daughter, who is not so pleased that we won't be in Clacton tomorrow afternoon but philosophical about waiting for three weeks - she is going to go to the theatre and organise tickets for us for the Saturday evening so we can watch the show. I am looking forward to that - I used to work on the Front of House staff there before we moved, the show is about the history of the theatre and Emily and Victoria are in it! No wonder I am looking forward to it...
I texted Paul and Glyn as well and they were very sympathetic about Peter's disappointment in missing such an important event in his mother's life. He is indeed upset about it, but he has written a mini speech which he has sent to his older son who will deliver it on his behalf after the guests have eaten. And I understand that the other son has organised for lots of photos to be taken, so we shall at least be able to see it all secondhand.
We have also used our day to good effect, progressing the work on the adverts for the Lions' programme, printing out some of the paperwork for the quiz next Thursday and setting up the Tom-Tom for our Valencia trip tomorrow.
Since I was not supposed to be cooking today we decided to go and have fish and chips at Café Rosa and the meal was as tasty as ever. Helen even had some chocolate ice-cream so I had a spoonful of that in my cherry pavlova! Yes, I know it is disgustingly sybaritic, but sometimes these things are just necessary.
And now it is midnight and time for bed - it'll be another long day tomorrow.
(What a daft thing to say - it will be 24 hours long, just like all the others!)
Sleep well...