Time at home, usually, was primarily a time for family, friends, gardening and hiking. This time we enjoyed two weeks of reasonably good weather following by a six week deluge, the wettest June on record. So, our time in the UK slowly became exclusively time for socialising!
Grandchild number 6 was expected towards the end of June and meanwhile the other five kept us busy and entertained! The bigger children kept us busy too, with heavily pregnant Jo having to move house twice during our stay and son Nathan once!
Mountaineering
on the lawn.
Stop
for refreshments on the way from the park
Pizza-making
competition
Another
day - another park - another little family!
Playdate at Silke and Dave's - a treasure hunt.
Whose play date is it anyway??
Refreshments.
Take two girls and two empty beer boxes and you may end up with "Corona" Mansion.
Dressing up time
School
Sports Day
Football
club fun day.
Looks
like someone has had more fun than he can handle!
Gwyn and Angie's daughter was to be married during our stay and we volunteered to help with the preparations. The village hall was to be converted into a Bedouin tent for the reception. Christine and Angie set to work ironing the 144 yards of crumpled muslin fabric which Angie had dyed. The day before the wedding the hall was slowly transformed with the help of many, many safety pins! The overall effect was wonderful and cosy, it was hard to believe we were partying in the local hall! Dancing went on late into the evening to the sound of Rob's band.
The "Bedouin" Tent ready for action!
Bride
and Groom cut the cake.
This wasn't the only social event during our time at home! A week after we arrived we were visited by Harry (Anju's favourite welder) and Jane, who were visiting family in the UK from Florida. This called for a celebratory dinner at the Bear!
There was another reunion of "Phil and the by-pass boys", as they have become known in our family. Phil got together with his musical chums from way, way back, Geoff, Glyn and Murray. The planned walk was rained off but they had plenty to talk about.
Our final party was 2nd cousin Richard's 60th birthday. The plan was a family camping expedition to a remote cottage in the border hills near Shrewsbury. The weather dictated that the venue be changed to Richard's home and the camping cancelled. Still a great time was had by all and the weather even improved enough to allow a little barbecuing and for Christine to take a first trip on the tandem bike with her cousin!
The tandem was disconcerting, the sensation of riding on a two wheeled bike when you have no steering, no brakes, can't see where you are going and have to have total faith in the person in front - at least Richard knew what he was doing!
At
least there weren't 60 candles!
Family
portrait
Ciaran
and John finally get to use the umbrella for sun not rain!
Of course the highlight of our visit was the somewhat delayed arrival of the much awaited new family member Eben Dafydd Puw. Although the NHS were determined to delay his expected June arrival until July, by cancelling the scheduled C-section several times, finally the little fellow made his début in the big wide world!
The trauma of this disruption combined with not knowing where the family would be living two weeks after Eben's birth, when work on their house overran again, was unwelcome additional stress. Fortunately the health visitor checking on mum and new baby happened to know someone with a house to rent in just the right spot. Perhaps some people are born lucky! Let's hope so!
Suddenly, it seemed, we were on our way to catch the 5.18 am train from Abergavenny to catch a flight out to the USA for our next road adventure!