Storm Arwen......

 
Really lovely visit from Son on Sunday, it seemed ages since we last saw him. 

I'd made the most of Saturday while Hubby was out fundraising, and stripped our bed and washed it all after I'd already done three machine loads which all has to go on clothes horses upstairs, then remade our bed, plus a few other jobs, which meant lots of up-and-down the stairs, so I enjoyed just sitting and chatting to Son on Sunday even more. 

SisterP reminded us this week of some photos as she had saved them digitally to save online, and sent myself and sisterS copies. 
It was 1985 and we managed to get the whole family to meet at a photographic studio in Ilford Essex. Not easy finding a date we could all do and a couple could only get there late while a couple had to leave early but we managed. 

The reason was to get the best present for our parents' combined birthdays and upcoming 45th wedding anniversary. 

At that time they had...

Five children

Four children's spouses

And seven grandchildren. 

Their family portrait was huge and framed and hung on their wall until mum moved into sheltered housing in 2008 and of course it was immediately hung there. 

While we were at the studio we arranged for each family to pose, just the children to pose, just the siblings and also one of just the men, which we all chose to have small prints of in a concertina wallet. 

This was us way back then (I loved that curly perm). 

Unfortunately the quality of the studio's developing was seriously lacking and all the ones we framed and displayed have faded and even though sisterP had kept her wallet in a draw these images are poor but still a wonderful reminder of a fun day with my wonderful family. 

Tuesday O and the dog were here while Daughter was working. O wanted me to measure him against the bathroom doorframe, our permanent record,

and wow he had grown 2 inches in 2 months! He's been taller than me for a long time 😂

I'm worried about friendL who we should have lunched with last week but her and her husband had tested positive. Scarily she was taken into hospital earlier this week as she has asthma and was suffering. She is on the Covid ward so very very limited visiting. We play "Words With Friends" (online scrabble) together anyway so I'm trying to take my turn and get the games back to her as soon as I can to help with her distraction. Keeping everything crossed for her 🤞

Storm Arwen is threatening all sorts of horrid weather this weekend. Hubby and the SERVSC gang should be doing a two day fundraiser event, however where they pitch is on concrete so they can't anchor the gazebo down and there's very high winds forecast..... so at 6:30am today it was cancelled and everyone was informed..... then at 7:45am when it still looked quite calm through the window event leader was having second thoughts and messages were going back and forth. So hard dealing with a storm but even harder trying to deal with the anticipation of a storm! Pleased I'm not involved. 

So batten down your hatches if you need to. I'm off to make another cuppa.

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