The view from my window

The view from my window
The view from my window

Thursday 14 February 2019

Returning to normal - hopefully!

I flew back from the funeral via Manchester on Sunday night after a week full of 360° weather changes and very mixed emotions. Sadness, of course, for the loss of my brother, but full of laughter - as usually happens on these occasions when we allow ourselves to remember the silly things too. The funeral was nicely done and the celebrant spoke well, I thought. Turns out he knew my mom's family from when he was a child and he managed to bring quite a personal touch to it. After the funeral I actually commented to Phil's oldest son, Darren, that it was a shame we now only seemed to meet up at funerals since, for a large family, we (mostly) get along very well so did anyone have any thoughts on meeting up occasionally somewhere "neutral" - to which Darren replied "but who would we have to shoot"? He has my brother's sense of humour and just cracks me up!

We set off from Dorset on the Thursday morning before the funeral as on a "good" day it would be a 6-7 hour journey and on a "usual" day it could take any number of hours! For that reason, my brother-in-law decided to take the back roads as the last time he had driven up to North Wales on the motorway the traffic jams were horrendous. And honestly, it was a real pleasure to take that route and visit (or re-visit) places I hadn't seen in decades. On the way up we went through a lovely town called Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire - it was so, so pretty it would be hard to do it justice. It was also near here that we stopped to eat in an unassuming little place that ended up doing the most amazing food! Homemade venison or chicken pies, fabulous cakes, sticky toffee puddings, you name it!! It really was superb, although after last week I don't think I'll even set foot on a set of scales for at least a month!

Bradford-on-Avon
Near Ledbury we passed a lovely looking pub that I had never seen before. Ledbury is only a few miles from where BIL grew up so he and my sister spent quite some time reminiscing about the different places they had been when dating/first married.

The Trumpet Pub near Ledbury
My youngest son and his fiancée were able to get a couple of days off in order to come to the funeral so afterwards, having shown them around Conwy and Llandudno, I thought they might enjoy "UK prices" and took them to that young person's shopping paradise - Primark! Well that was a hit! Basically Jordan followed Jen around like a sherpa carrying a shopping basket, with her going "oh my goodness look at these prices! How much is that in real money?" and so on. After her shopping spree it was Jordan's turn and we went upstairs to the men's department where he got to satisfy his urge to shout "oh my goodness …"! Anyway, they were both really happy with their purchases and, since they made sure not to bring too much stuff with them, we were able to get all their goodies back without having to pay any excess baggage! Which did trigger an interesting question (provoked by me, I have to admit) about whether they would be able to have such a "spend up" if a no deal Brexit meant import duties were re-imposed on goods coming into France from the UK! Which also gave way to a more interesting discussion with my family when we saw a similar sign to the one below on a door in Conwy!


On our final day in Wales we decided to visit Portmeirion since none of us had ever been there before and I/we were very pleasantly surprised. It was so pretty and the china in the gift shop was to die for! Expensive and fabulous so unfortunately I couldn't indulge but I was drooling, I have to admit!

Portmerion

Portmerion

I had forewarned my sister that on the way back I wanted to take the kids for a drive up through Betws-y-Coed so wouldn't be following them back to Llandudno via the normal route (through Llanrwst - where my grandfather used to have a cobbler's shop). Well! By the time we got there it was dark and starting to snow and as we were leaving Betws I was having a hard time seeing where I was going as there were no lights, no cats' eyes and walkers heading up the road in the dark, presumably to the Snowdonia hostel further up, It was really hard work, bearing in mind I was on the "wrong side of the road" too! At one point I had had to chose between going straight on (unsignposted) or taking a left turn but going that way would take me over Llanberis Pass, in the dark, in the snow, on the wrong side of the road and still not sure I was going the right way! Turns out I was right, but by golly that was hard work, although listening to Jen trying to pronounce Welsh names from the GPS on her telephone was hilarious!

Llanberis Pass
When I got back to France I ended up coming down with the lurgy, which could have been due to stress in addition to the cold and howling wind that we had to put up with in Wales, but I have to say we were actually pretty lucky for the most part in that when the weather was doing its worst we were mainly in the car and actually managed to avoid the worst it could throw at us. Not completely, of course, or else I wouldn't have got sick but ….. Either way I'm starting to feel better already after a few lazy days and am already thinking it's time to get back to the old exercise malarky to compensate for the surfeit of calories I managed to cram into my poor body last week!

And finally, when I got home I realized that the bloody handle on my (relatively) new suitcase had come right off, either in Manchester or in Geneva upon arrival, so somewhere or other there is a suitcase handle with my name and phone number attached to it squeaking forlornly around a baggage carousel, somewhat like Rhod Gilbert describes below!


10 comments:

  1. I hope you feel better. Sorry to hear about your suitcase, that sucks, airlines and airports are so bloody hard on them. We try not to invest too much but now pretty much stick with Samsonite soft sided ones and they seem to last. Hubby uses it for business travel too and it takes a beating but still looks pretty good. I am glad you got to spend some quality time with your family albeit under crappy circumstances.

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    1. The suitcase that got damaged was pretty cheap - and that might be why it broke, I guess. Oh well, I just bought another, more expensive one today as losing my stuff in the UK wouldn't be so bad but losing it in Sri Lanka (just under 3 weeks to go) would be a bit more serious. I'm glad I got to spend time with Phil but our time at the funeral really brought home to me how well we get on as a family. Obviously our Welsh family was there as well and it was really nice! One of the down sides of moving away I guess!

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  2. I'm so sorry you got the crud after all that. Your pictures ans tories are wonderful. Readin ghtis makes me even more assured doing the trip last summer was the right thing. We all need to try and spend time with htose we love and get along with when we are physically here-not meeting up after someone has departed. thanks you for sharing-I know one of my first retirement rips when we can take a month will be to travel the UK countryside and see places beyond the radius of London-as much as I loved Lonodon, I know it is not the whole of the UK.Next will be a wholemonth in France and so forth! All the plans to make and I'd love to bring my adult kids along.

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    1. You absolutely were right to make that trip. Money, even if tight afterwards, can always be replaced but spending that time gaining new experiences AND doing so with your family is irreplaceable! Tomorrow is promised to no-one is it!

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  3. Weddings and funerals really do seem to be the only things that brings (some) families together these days, aren't they? Glad the service was pleasant (relatively speaking, of course) and you got to spend some quality time catching up with your family. What a detour on your way back! Yikes - happy you made it safely. You're much braver than I am.

    I've just marathoned 'Hinterland' and filled up on that lovely Welsh accent and the beautiful scenery around Aberystwyth. And, yes. Now I want to visit. xx

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    1. I have to admit I was a bit nervous at the thought of going over Llanberis Pass in the dark and the snow as I really don't like driving in the snow. More to the point, I seriously doubt my rental car had snow tyres but in the end I thought "oh for God's sake, stop being such a wimp, you live in the bloody French alps" and it turns out I was on the right road anyway. I've heard a lot about Hinterland but have never seen it. I'm not one for watching much TV (I waste far too much time on the computer though) so I must look out for it. I didn't even realise it was set in Wales to be honest. Had an aunt in Aberystwyth but I can't remember much about it as I've been gone so long. Methinks a road trip around Wales might be in order at some point!

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  4. You made the neccessary trip into a worthwhile adventure!
    I hope you do organise some family gatherings....maybe don't shoot anyone :)

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    1. Well I wanted my kids to get to know that side of the family. They are close to my own siblings of course but they've never met most of the cousins as we are all so far flung. And yes I may well push the idea of a long weekend for the "fun" side of the family. A murder-mystery weekend maybe (ha, ha)!

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  5. Seems as though everything went as well as could be expected. Life is about recollection, remembrance, and moving on.

    I too like to 'souvenir' when I travel, and usually take a small. empty backpack along to fill with memories.

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    1. Hi Dave, I used to be big on souvenirs and have stuff from so many places but I had to tone it down because it quickly becomes clutter. I have to say though in the kids' case the souvenirs were just a shedload of new clothes!

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