The weekend began on Friday midday when both Maggi and I travelled to Luton airport to pick up Adam in our two cars. Luton airport is a mess. The car park nearest the airport which used to be used for pick up and drop off was destroyed by fire and now that all takes place at the mid-term which hundreds of cars going round and around the large car park.
Anyway it was great to Adam and family and we brought them back home where Maggi had a lunch ready for them all. After lunch I offered to take the eldest two into town to see an exhibition. Adam decided to accompany us and the 4 vol us took the train to Westminster. We walked along Whitehall and then took the opportunity of a snap of the kids outside Downing Street.
From here we walked a bit further along to Horse Guards Parade where the 4 O’Clock inspection was just about to start.
The whole ceremony seemed like such a waste of time. A lot of stamping of feet by the guardsmen with shouting in some form of code that I couldn’t understand. When the small officer came out he looked like a titch in comparison to the guardsmen.
From here we continued to the National Gallery. There are some wonderful paintings of worldwide renown on display. I took a couple of pictures while we wandered through a few galleries. The place was very busy and we had to queue to enter.
We didn’t stay too long in the Gallery because we could see the kids getting bored so we headed of to our favourite ice cream place in Monmouth street. Here we enjoyed lovely ice-cream at £6 a shot and then walked onto Euston Square for our ride home.
Saturday 13th January
The big day arrived. While all the week Maggi has worried about the event complete the final preparations of 25 or so people arriving from 2 pm. We have bought food, drink and lots of nibbles by the Saturday Maggi’s worries had gone away and everything returned to calm. We asked the kids to leave while Maggi and I completed the final preparations.
The day was dedicated as a memorial to Alan who had died two years ago in Spain at the tender age of 71. Mel and Vikki hadn’t felt right about holding a memorial until all the trouble with Pauline had been settled and out of the way. There had been other dates suggested but none had seemed possible for one reason or another. Even now two brothers failed to show. Chris made some lame excuse about not coming south on his own because Linda was on call. The date had been agreed months ago so why she couldn’t have swapped dates with someone else I don’t know. William said he had a gall bladder issue and didn’t want to travel. Anyway the lack of two brothers made our life simpler.
People started to arrive around 2 pm and this included Lynda with Matthew and Dave, Becky and Ben with their two children, Adam and his family were already here, Alex happened to be in London with Bill Gates, Richard came along with Aida, his son Joseph and new girlfriend Annie. Of course Melissa with family and also Vikki, Martin and Ava appeared. Everyone brought plenty of stuff for the party. Maggi needn’t have worried about that. We had loads of drink and lots of it was consumed. The food went round brilliantly and we even ate stuff on the Sunday and Monday.
Sunday 14th January
After clearing up last night the place didn’t look too bad in the morning. Adam wanted to go to Primrose Hill and the area around to remind himself about his youth 20 years ago. We parked up and walked to the the top of primrose hill so we could get a good view across London.
We walked down then hill and Adam bought a coffee for all of us. The tour took us around Camden and back to the cars.
We drove back to home, had lunch and then took the crew to Luton Airport for their flight home.