Tears before bedtime

Oh dear, tomorrow the man in our life leaves for his six month tour of duty and tonight is a family dinner, which in some ways will be an early Christmas dinner so that we can all be together.  Our youngest daughter arrived home yesterday, with our youngest grand-daughter.   Both of these girl have such a huge connection with our man, he's like a magnet to them.  To watch Grand-dad crawling around the floor with the wee grandy clambering all over him in fits of giggles is just so special, she laughed so much that she just collapsed into his arms and gave such a bear hug, one of those moments when one wishes one had remembered to charge the batteries for the camera :(
Cooking a family dinner is one of those chores that I really enjoy, the pleasure in seeing and hearing the comments about 'yum mum's roast', or the odd sneaky pinching of the crackling while I 'growl' at them telling them that there wont be enough left for dinner is part of the good natured banter that always happens.  The dinner will be the easy part, but the end of the night, when the girls (and boys) toodle off home is going to be hard.  Our youngest already gets upset about 'daddy' going away, and because he wants a 'low key' departure he has suggested that his good byes are tonight.  Of course I'll get to take him to the airport tomorrow, but it's tonight that is going to be tough.
So todays jobs - cook the roast pork, the pavlova is made so that just needs toppings, then make the apple sauce, in between time serve a few customers - no worries.
Have a lovely day everyone, ours will be - now where are those batteries?