slow slow slow .....the sun has almost stopped shining and we really thought that we may have had a referral by now but things in China are going at a snail's pace.

These are some pictures from my week staying on my sister's farm. We did lots of lovely things like mushrooming, blackberrying and feeding the calves....as well as taking my nieces to see the film Cars that was surprisingly good - I was quite surprised!

Re CHina and the never ending wait - There is a scarily addictive blog that I try not to look at too often - it is called Rumor Queen ( US site ) and it looks at referral dates and talks to all the adoption agencies over there - they seem to think at the moment that referrals this month ( end September ) will cover half of August papers and October referrals will cover the remaining August papers - that would be us ....but who knows I thry not read those sites otherwise it could send you completely bonkers!..

IN the last couple of weeks there has also been a number of articles talking about intercountry adoption in magazines - a particularly awful one in a new magazine called In The Know - that talked about baby tourism and adoptive parents arriving in hotels in CHina to look at a line up of babies and choose...complete rubbish!....I was so angry on reading it I had to bin it straight away ...so don't look. On the other hand there is a great article in Red Magazine this month which really looks at the issues and examines why people decide to adopt from another country. Well written without any sensationalism....