Friday 3 September
They're gone! It was great to have the family visiting for three weeks, but it's also great to have the house back to ourselves, without a hyperactive grandchild charging round causing chaos wherever he goes.
Tom had his fifth birthday while they were staying with us, and we took him to The Deep for a birthday treat. This was a big hit: five-year-olds like sharks almost as much as dinosaurs. During the course of their stay, we also visited most of the children's play areas in the neighbourhood, in a usually unsuccessful attempt to drain off some of Tom's energy. Yesterday afternoon, on the final day of their stay, Steve and I took him to Brimham Rocks for some rock scrambling which he found exhilarating but a bit scary in places (so did I, to tell the truth – I was glad that Jo was not there to see some of the exposed ledges her little boy was scrambling over).
Tom's younger brother David is now just fourteen months old. He can stand but he can't yet walk unaided. He is a sweet-natured little boy, much more placid than Tom, and he always has a big mischievous grin. He crawls at great speed around the house, including up the stairs, then stands up to pull things off shelves. He needs to be watched constantly.
They left today, to go to stay with Jo's Mum until the wedding, which will be in two weeks' time. I have to admit that we breathed a sigh of relief to see them go. The past three weeks have been a constant round of shopping, cooking and entertaining. The washing machine, drier and dishwasher have been on the go almost without stop, and so have we. We're ready for a very quiet weekend.
And I have my computer back again! Jo has needed the broadband connection every day for her work, and whenever she's not using the computer Tom wants it to play games or watch a dvd. But now I can begin to catch up with the online journals and answer the backlog of emails that has built up.
Some time during the two weeks since the previous journal entry, Liz has also left home, to start a new job at an osteopathic practice in the west country. She hasn't yet found a place to live, so she is staying with a friend. This means that all her possessions are still here, and so is her cat Tiffin. This must make us sound like a pair of old curmudgeons, but right now Mary and I are really looking forward to the day when Liz comes to collect Tiffin and leave us to enjoy our home in peace once more.
Saturday 11 September
... or 9/11, to use the American notation for dates. But I don't want to go down that route today.
After a wet, wet August, we have had a week of perfect late summer weather, and we have been very glad of it. We have enjoyed taking it easy, pottering around the house clearing up some of the chaos left by the family's three week visit, and sitting out in the garden reading, on the patio in the shade of the apple tree (which, sad to say, had most of the fruit shaken out of it prematurely by a naughty five-year-old who shall be nameless).
The forecasters have been saying that yesterday would be the last fine day before another wet and colder spell, but today it was still warm and sunny. We drove over to Dean Clough in Halifax, to a preview of an exhibition of prints at which a friend of ours is one of the exhibitors. There is a very good cafe there, and we had lunch at an outside table, almost certainly the last time this year we'll be able to do that.
Tomorrow, the weather will surely turn autumnal. In another major change, I'm going to have to adjust to the world of work again, after eight months of leisure. Term starts in a couple of weeks, and I'm teaching a couple of courses, one of which I'm giving for the first time. I have decided to type up the lecture notes and put them on my departmental web page for the students to download, so I'm going to be busy working on that for the next little while.
I have to say that the eight months of leisure have passed very quickly and happily. I don't think I am going to have any trouble getting used to full-time retirement when the time comes. But for the next couple of years, I'm also looking forward to spending a few months of the year back in the university doing a modest amount of teaching. I'm also happy to be earning a small part-time salary to eke out my pension.
Wednesday 15 September
So Steve and Jo are finally getting married on Saturday. They have been living happily together for ten years, and have two kids, so marriage is not such a big step for them as it might be for some people. In fact, I think the only real reason they're taking this step is to please Jo's Mum. Both of them recoil from the idea of formalities of any kind, so the wedding ceremony and reception will both be very low key, without any fancy dress or speechmaking.
Even so, it's not every day of the week that one's offspring get married, and Mary and I are very much looking forward to the occasion. We'll be driving down to Worcestershire tomorrow and staying there until Monday, so as to combine a little holiday with the wedding.
I'll be taking plenty of photos, of course, and I'll post them on our family web site in due course.
Tuesday 21 September
We arrived at the B&B where we stayed for the wedding, at a farmhouse a little way north of Ledbury, last Thursday, to find that the area was in the national news: several of the hunt supporters who had invaded the House of Commons the previous day were members of the North Ledbury hunt. There was no sign of political activism to be seen, however (though I did toy with the idea of waving an Animal Liberation Front poster to see what the reaction would be).
The people at the B&B were friendly and helpful, and recommended a nearby pub, the Bell Inn at Bosbury, for our evening meal. The food there was excellent, and we went back there each evening for dinner, each time with an increasing number of people. On Thursday there were just the two of us, on Friday we were joined by Mary's brother and sister-in-law, on Saturday after the wedding by my brother and sister-in-law and their granddaughter, and on Sunday we invited Steve, Jo and the kids along with Jo's Mum. If ever you find yourself in that corner of Herefordshire, I recommend the duck paté or the charcuterie for starters, and the steak and kidney pie, the duck confit or the lamb shank for a main course (or, for that matter, just about anything else on the menu). After two courses, and a pint of real ale, you won't have room for any of the puddings. I certainly didn't, and nor did most of the rest of us, except Steve, who had a delicious-looking tiramisu.
The wedding on Saturday was a very happy occasion. The ceremony took place in the 17th century half-timbered Market Hall in Ledbury, and the reception in the equally traditional Barn House nearby. I took plenty of photos, and I'll post some of them on the family web site when I have done a bit of editing.
The reception was quite a small scale affair, just the immediate families and a few very close friends. One reason why Steve and Jo have postponed getting married for so long is that they both hate formal occasions, and they wanted this to be a totally informal and stress-free event. They insisted that there should be no speeches at the reception, and they almost got their way. The best man, Steve's cousin, made a very short "non-speech" in which he welcomed everyone and presented envelopes to a number of the guests. He explained that each of them contained a scurrilous allegation about Steve, and that all but one of them were true. He then asked for each of them to be read out, and invited people to guess which one was false. Needless to say, this was the most innocuous of the lot. I won't repeat any of them here, but I will admit that most them came as news to Mary and me. Of course, it was Steve's sister Liz who had dished the dirt on him by providing most of the information.
The weather was unpromising on the morning of the wedding, misty and drizzly, but it cleared up in time for the ceremony, and the sun came out for the reception. The Barn House has an enclosed garden where the kids were able to run out and play unsupervised. Young Tom looked very elegant in the embroidered waistcoat that Jo's Mum had made for him (with another even smaller one for David). He quickly made friends with my brother's granddaughter, who is just a year older than him and equally lively and bossy.
Seeing family history being continued, by a wedding, reminds me that today is my father's birthday. He was born on 21 September 1904 so he would be 100 today if he was still alive. I wrote about him once before, in this entry, and I can't really add much to that. I wish that I had known him better, and I hope that I have a closer relationship with my kids than I did with him. I would like to have more to remember him by than I do.
Sunday 26 September
Just a brief entry to say that I have now sorted out my photos of the wedding and put them on the family web site, here. There are three pages of them, and I think the best ones are on the final page.
The "official" wedding photos were taken by Mary's brother, who is a semi-professional photographer. Here is one of them (scaled down to fit on a web page), showing Steve and Jo with Tom, David, Mary and me.
