This is the third spread in my now finished Junk Journal, made from scraps of paper and ephemera all stitched and stuck together to form a book. The black paper in the bottom left hand corner forms a pocket that has two hand made tags that I’ve doodled on and two more quotes on the backs. I’ll share images of those further down the page. If you click on the images you can see them bigger.

We had a little holiday from 1-5 May for a trip up north to visit with T’s family to celebrate his nephew, Paddy’s, Surprise 50th Birthday party. It must have been a surprise for Paddy as his actual birthday was in January so he would hardly have been expecting a party in May. The lovely event was organised by Paddy’s wife Nicola and there were lots of people there and we had a great time.

We left home on Friday morning, got the car ferry to Southampton and then I drove us up to Coaley in Gloucester to Mike (T’s younger brother) and Emma’s house. The drive took about 5 hours, twice as long as it should have done because my SatNav was avoiding the Motorways. I did realise fairly soon after we set off that this was happening but I didn’t want to stop and change it. Besides the English countryside is much more beautiful than boring motorways and horrible service stations.

We had a couple of stops along the way and arrived in Coaley just as Emma was getting home from work. Mike had been working from home that day so was already there. Emma made us a lovely vegetable curry for tea and after a catch up chat we went to bed as we had to leave early the next morning.

Emma drove us and the dog, Maggie, up to Cleethorpes in North Lincolnshire where she had booked accommodation for 6 of us in a large house. This drive, which was mainly on motorways, also took more than 5 hours with a couple of comfort stops. When we got to Cleethorpes we met up with T’s sister Jenny and her husband Paul and we just had time for a quick lunch before check in time at the house. The house was very nice we all had good rooms and there was plenty of space.

We had to leave as soon as we dropped our bags off at the house because we had to be at the party by 3:30pm as Paddy was due to come at 4pm. He had arranged to meet up with a friend from the army he hadn’t seen for a few years, I don’t think he was expecting to be welcomed by so many people.

T’s parents, Bill and Edna (both now deceased), had lived in West Yorkshire when they got married and they had 2 children – T born in 1952 and Pam born a few years later. Bill and Edna separated when the children were quite young and for a while Edna brought them up on her own. She eventually met another man called John and when T was 16 they (Edna, John, T and Pam) moved from Yorkshire in the north of England to the Isle of Wight in the South. Some time later Edna and John had two more children Jenny and Mike (so they are half siblings to T and Pam).

Pam and her daughter Emily arrived at the party at about the same time we did. Pam was overwhelmed with emotion when she saw T as she did not know we were going. T and Pam speak regularly on the phone but the party had never been mentioned. Pam knew about the party but she didn’t know if we had been invited or if we had if T would be well enough to attend anyway.

Paddy and Nicola arrived on time at about 4pm, by which time he was beginning to get suspicious that ‘something’ was going on, but he still wasn’t expecting it to be a huge reunion of old colleagues, friends, distant and close family – people of all ages! It was a fantastic party with lots of food and drink and we all had a great time. It was so good that we decided to have another and smaller, close family catch up the next day at Paddy and Nic’s house.

Jenny and Paul had to leave early on Sunday as Paul was due to start a 12 hour night shift at 6pm and they had a 2 hour drive to get home first.

But here is a picture of the rest of us except for Nicola (who didn’t want to be in the photos) and the younger members of the family who were probably fed up with us all invading their home by then.

L-R Paddy, me, Mike, Tony, Kate, Emma, Emily and Pam.

Tony, Jenny and Paul at the Party on Saturday

Tony and Pam

On Bank Holiday Monday May 4th Emma drove us back to Coaley another drive of over 5 hours with a few stops on the way. T and I stayed with them one more night and had to get up early the next day to drive to Southampton. I had booked the 12 noon ferry to the Isle of Wight. This time I did set the SatNav so it didn’t avoid motorways. We made good time and arrived in Southampton just after 11am and in plenty of time for the ferry and we got home at about 2pm.

I apologise for the long post about this but, to be honest, it’s so nice to be able to report that we actually got away, met up with family and had a great time. Rather than the usual updates on T’s poor health and associated problems.

Anyway here are the two tags from the pocket of my Junk Journal:

That’s all my news for now, hope you are keeping well.
See you soon
Big Love AJ xxxxx

PS I used to send my blog posts out by email to my subscribers but I’ve changed the settings now so it’s only posted on my blog. I don’t want to annoy anyone with unsolicited emails filling their inboxes. Hope that’s OK with you all?