Lisa’s birthday was warm with some sun and started with opening all the cards visible above.
At noon the Zoom event organised by Neil Robinson in Stafford commenced with 20+ of Lisa’s mediation friends and colleagues taking part. This was full of warmth and greetings as will be evident from the audio recordings below
Part 1Part 2 The Zoom screen showing some of the group
After that excitement and pleasure we had a quiet time until tea time when we had a virtual party and cakes with candles using Zoom including both Epsom and Crouch End families
Much to Tim’s surprise he was nominated to receive a Lord Mayor’s medal. This medal was presented by the Lord Mayor of Bristol, Councillor Clare Campion-Smith, to Tim (and 19 other people) on 16th March 2016 for the contribution he has made to the Henbury Community over the last 15 years. The ceremony took place in the Mansion House, Clifton.
We were able to hire Mounts View on the Speke’s Manor estate in East Sussex where five years ago we rented The Oast House for Lisa’s 70th.
Lisa and Tim were able to arrive and settle in on Thursday, 2nd April before the Easter weekend. Jonathan and family joined us on Good Friday afternoon and Diana arrived in the early evening.
Around the table on Friday
Saturday was spent enjoying the facilities, a little tennis for example, around Speke’s manor and Diana collected Louis from Lewes train station in time for supper. A large jigsaw puzzle emabarked on early in our stay was already showing significant progress from the team of ‘workers’ employed:
Progress
On Easter Sunday, Lisa’s actual birthday, we drove over to Herstmonceaux Castle and enjoyed a walk around the gardens before a light lunch in the excellent cafe in front of the house.
Herstmonceaux Castle
75 and enjoying it
In the afternoon we moved up to the Royal Greenwich Observatory at Herstmonceux and enjoyed several fascinating hours there including demonstrations of reflecting and refracting telescopes.
Royal Greenwich Observatory at Herstmonceaux
One of the attractions was a short talk on materials with lively demonstrations. Here is Lucas, Louis and Jonathan acting as unpaid assistants
Lucas
Louis
Jonathan
So it was back to Mounts View, birthday cake and more challenging games
Cheat?
On the Monday Tim and Lisa were left to enjoy the surroundings on a fine sunny bank holiday:
Speke’s Manor
Originally peacocks but someone lopped their tails off
Speke’s garden
Muddles Green
They motored happily and gently home on Tuesday along the A272 with a lunchtime stop at Uppark House
Lisa made sure that Tim was around for the weekend of 24th August to celebrate his birthday with the immediate family – Diana, Louis, Ella, Jonathan, Luiza, Lucas and Anita. Jonathan + 3 arrived on Friday evening and Diana plus 2 arrived in good time for salad lunch on Saturday.
By common consent this was a vintage Christmas with all the immediate family here to celebrate Christmas. Jonathan & Luiza and family arrived a couple days before the Landrock Road party. This meant that Jonathan and Anita had the opportunity to get to know Leila, the Alsatian from Brook End, who just loved being taken out for walks and activity. Diana assisted by Ella cooked and served up a delicious Christmas lunch with largest turkey yet seen at The Old House and never soon enough for Lucas and Anita it was finally time to open the most exciting present of the Nintendo Wii. This technology soon provided great participation in active dancing as will be seen from following this links: Dancing at Christmas – 1Dancing at Christmas – 2 On Boxing Day when we ventured out to the Odeon Cinema in central Bristol to see the first of the projected three films of The Hobbit. The 3D experience was good even if marshalling the glasses is a chore. Then, all too soon, the Crouch End and Epsom families departed for home A collected photo album is here Photos
A weekend of celebration was organised by Etienne in the characterful Auberge Moulin de la Pipe near Ombleze at the foot of a dramatic gorge on the edge of the Vercours National Park. Nineteen family members and two friends enjoyed a very happy time together with Marie Jo. Click this link to view the collected photosAnd here is the lively video from Annie and Joseph > (NB This video is a large file and will take about 5 mins to download!)
