11th June 2026

Just puts the giggle into the day

Start at any year.  So I started at 2012, and as you know we start at the end of the year in cold December on our blogs.  So the first thing I notice is that I am  talking about things  about to happen in 2013.  There is a trip to Germany to take back some Japanese scrolls to a museum in the town of Bietigheim-Bissingen to the Hochdorf Museum.  We were welcomed royally, the mayor proudly took us round his town, the curator of the museum looked after us, a first and pleasant visit to Germany.  There was also our friends from America, Bucky and Loie, who were coming over and we were going to see some of the sites in England, Sutton Hoo being one of them and then of course Wales.

Bucky and Loie at Pentre Ifan

But that is to look forward and I had to go backwards through the blogs.  We had been down to Whitby to see my family and I note we two stayed at my little cottage, which I miss so much still.  It must have been refurbished by then from the rather drab state I had bought it in.  A tartan fitted carpet downstairs that had given me such a shock;) and a bathroom that definitely needed a new bath suite.  Settling in.  Of course it was totally unsuitable for large parties of my family, as the children squashed on the floor but it was only for a few hours in the day.

Tiny but perfect 

And I am sure this memory of family will be interesting to the family, it is obviously around bonfire night when the family came down to Chelmsford for a couple of nights to go shopping in London.  Meetings.  Tom still uses the photo of Lillie and him taken by me.