The weekend after our farewell parties, we found ourselves congregating with family and, friends yet again.  During the week the movers had come and taken the slightly nicer part of our junk to put into a shipping container.  Our house was in disarray, and we had 7 days to get it all sorted.  But over the weekend we had another social engagement, this one was because of the joyous occasion of Peter and Lynn's temple sealing.  Tim and I went inside, while Kate helped to look after our kids.  The sealing was beautiful and spiritual.  I was really pleased for them.

     When we came out, our kids were having a whale of a time, as they always seem to do on the temple grounds.  The London temple seems to be a bit like their second home - it's familiar to them, and they love going.  We also always seem to meet people that we haven't seen in a while, so it's a very sociable place.  Here are Abigail and Imogen, looking very elegant:

 

 

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     I'd like to say that my children are always super reverent on the temple grounds, but this time they couldn't resist running up and down the flower beds:

     Peter and Lynn coming out of the temple for the first time as husband and wife for time and all eternity.

     All the children with Auntie Kate and Auntie Laura, on the stairs of the temple:

     The Bleakley women, great at chatting, laughing, socializing ....

   
    Did I say the temple was a sociable place?  I meant it!  Grant and Margaret are down there now on a mission, so the kids were able to spend a little bit of time with them before we had to say our proper goodbye's, which would be a few weeks later.
       We ended the day going out to eat at a really nice restaurant, which I think was called 'The Mill', because that's what it was.  After a long, sociable meal, and further socializing with unkept promises that we would 'be leaving soon',  we finally left to go back to Lincolnshire.
     And then it really was, this time, a very scary last couple of days to move out the stuff that wasn't going with us, and clean the house.  The housing officer had told us not to worry about loads of things - for instance, we didn't have to paint any of the walls, and we didn't have to worry about cleaning the bathrooms up to march-out standard because they were going to rip them out and put new ones in. But still, the cleaning took forever, and we needed lots and lots of people to help us.
     The missionaries were especially great.  They came and sorted out our garden for us.  We had done a lot of it ourselves, but we were no where near getting it done.
     Then, we had lots and lots of help from the ward.  People offered to do dump runs for us, to help clean the house, to bring over sandwiches when we were cleaning and didn't really have time to cook, etc.
     I don't need to document what happened from Monday until our march-out on Friday.  But basically, we worked our butts off, stayed up very late, got up very early, hardly every took breaks.  Thursday was a good turning point for us, and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.  But on Friday morning, just a few hours before the march-out, our music room still looked like this!!  Aauugghhh!  It was truly a miracle that we managed to either dump this stuff, give it away, or pack it in our car within a matter of hours.  At one point in desperation I just started taking stuff out of here and putting it on the lawn, because the house can pass inspection if stuff is still on the lawn, but not if there is stuff in the house.
    

     Anyway, on July 26, at 1pm, Tim and I passed our march-out, with no penalties for shoddy work or lateness.  We were both so relieved.  The children had been away from us for a few days, so we gathered them around and let them see the house all empty and sparkling clean.  Here are the children, saying goodbye to the living room at Lawn House.

     And here they are saying their final goodbyes to the garden.  I always felt so blessed to be able to live in Lawn House, and also to be able to enjoy this beautiful, spacious garden.

     The lavender was in full bloom when we left.  Because we were so busy with our move, I never got to fulfill my dream of making my own lavender soap! 

     Here are some pictures from the garden - it never looked so good!

     Here is our elderflower tree.  It was great having our own elderflower!  I picked many elderflower heads from this tree, as well as a few elder berries in the autumn!

    
     The Bleakley's at Lawn House:  2010-2013.  Lots of heartache and difficulty in this house, but also lots of discussion, laughter, socializing, music, entertaining, and of course, cooking and eating!!

     Here is Tim, leaving Lawn House for the last time, in Kate's Mercedes.

     I stayed behind after Tim left for a little while.  I dropped off a couple of good-bye notes.  One was to the butchers in Coningsby, who I had seen so often that I felt they had become friends of mine.  The other one was to Jo and Mark at the craft store Let's Create.  They were always so friendly and nice to me whenever I had gone in there, I felt I had to say goodbye.
     And then it was time to say goodbye to Lincolnshire.  I never particularly enjoyed living in Lincolnshire, so part of me couldn't wait to leave.  But there were people, and certain things, I knew I would miss.  Yet, after three difficult years of being badly treated by the RAF, I mostly wanted to just move on to the next phase of our lives.