It's the end of yet another beautiful sunny day here in Boston. I can't say it's been wall to wall sunshine as we have had a few rainy days (eg yesterday - rained all day so we all got very soggy) but the majority of the time the weather is sunny and hot and it seems to be on average 5 - 10C hotter than back home in the UK.

We have had a low key week this week, settling down into our new life. The girls and I had a lovely day shopping on Tuesday, in Macy's no less! It made us feel very American. We discovered that Macy's has a fantastic children's wear department which is enormous, full of sale offers on designer clothing and has clothes in sizes up to age 16, which Isabel can still just about get into. We came away with several bags full of Ralph Lauren denim shorts and DKNY t-shirts for an absolute steal. Good job Barry wasn't there to confiscate the credit card!

On Thursday morning we were invited round to visit our new friends. Yes - we have made some friends!! We met Peggy, Dion, Megan and Jacob whilst out dog walking last Sunday. They stopped us to make a fuss of Dougal, explaining that they had had a border terrier when they lived in the UK. They have been living in Boston for four years following 17 years in the UK and a year in Hong Kong. Peggy and Dion are from South Africa originally, so a truly international family. Megan is an extremely friendly 11-year-old so great for the girls. Their house is a 10-minute walk from where we live and is rather nicer than our apartment! The girls and I had a thoroughly enjoyable few hours with Peggy, Megan and toddler Jacob (eldest sister Taylor kept out of the way) and the girls went back on Friday afternoon to finish off a game of Monopoly started on Thursday. The girls are so happy to have made a friend (as am I!). We've been invited to a barbecue at their house tomorrow and we gather that Dion is very much looking forward to continuing with the brief cricket chat he had with Barry when we first met. Peggy says he suffers greatly as he has no-one to talk cricket with here in Boston. Bearing in mind Barry has spent many of his lectures so far using his computer to keep an eye on the Ashes then I suspect the two of them will have plenty to talk about.

We all went into Boston today (including Dougal, who is becoming addicted to the T - he pulls every time we pass a T station on dog walks, which is frequently, and looks very doleful when he gets dragged away) with the plan of walking most of the Freedom Trail, a walk which takes in many of Boston's historic sights, and finishing with lunch in the Italian North End. We managed about a quarter of the Freedom Trail before getting fed up with the crowds and instead took our own route to the North End and had a truly delicious lunch sitting outside an otherwise deserted restaurant. We had no idea why it was deserted as the food was excellent and the setting was nice enough but we were reassured whilst wandering around afterwards to see that most of the restaurants were very quiet. Maybe the Bostonians do dinner rather than lunch.

On the way back Izzy and I diverted to get Isabel a new mobile phone. It's galling to have to do it as she has a perfectly functional phone already but as it would have cost us $70 to have it unlocked so we could get it onto a US network and would then cost us another $30 to buy a SIM card we've gone the reluctant route of a new phone. If anyone is reading this with a smart phone please download the Viber app so Isabel and I can text and call you for free. I will try to e-mail as many people as I can with our new US numbers but if in the meantime you get onto Viber it should come up on our contacts and we can text you.

That's it for now. I'll try to update again soon and put some photos on.