Surprise!

So........thankfully today went well. Mum and Dad had to be distracted whilst Will and I were driven in by Josh, hiding in the back seat of our hire car. We then hid in a back room of the hotel. Things were a bit fraught when my sister was slightly delayed and then we couldn't get any signal to Skype and no one thought to come and give us the hotel WiFi password......Mum was getting upset at the thought that she would not be able to speak to us but eventually one of the waiting staff came and gave us the WiFi code and we were able to get online and speak to them. The signal was really clear so we couldn't pretend it was bad so after a while we said our goodbyes and I said I had arranged a surprise and asked Rod to get it brought in.......of course the surprise was us.........there were a lot of tears ......but they were tears of joy.The best gift you could ever give my Mum is just to have all her family together."Do you know," she said, "I think this is the best day of my life!".......... Well, it was until they took away her dessert before she had chance to eat it!The meal was lovely, with excellent service.Mum had set up a table with lots of old family photos and everyone had brought an album of their own photos for everyone to look through and laugh and reminisce about.Afterwards we took photos in the grounds before all heading back to my brother Rod's house to carry on the 'catch up'.We cut her cake there, which was delicious, before everyone drifted off. Andy and Julia went back to Bristol, James and Jo went back to Barnsley, Zoë and Ian, back to Manchester and Will and I went back to Calthwaite with Josh, Helena, Lewis, Nathan, Jayne (my boys' Mum) Jim, Jayne's Dad and the boys other Grandpa. We had a lovely evening all playing board games...... The highlight being Jim's rendition of 'Happy Feet' in Charades.I will put up pictures as soon as I have time to do it.....and internet......but we are just dashing from one day to the next at the moment.

Letting the Cat out of the Bag.........finally!

So.........since March we have had to be very secretive......It is not my Mum's birthday until the 28th of September but today, Up Over, there is a family gathering for a birthday meal to jointly celebrate her 80th birthday and hers and Dad's 55th wedding anniversary.The secret is........she doesn't know that we are no longer Down Under but have flown Up Over for two weeks to be there too.We are going to try and Skype or ring before they have the meal on the pretence that we are still Down Under and then, when the call seems to be failing, say that we will try something else......and then walk in the room and say "Is that any better?"Hopefully she and Dad won't have heart failure and it will be the lovely surprise it is meant to be........pictures to follow.

Monkey See!

We just love this mural in Brisbane!............Sorry Shirley but it was just too good not to share it. 

Emblem.

The Films of Death!

So........since we have been able to go back out to the cinema all the films we have seen recently appear to have mostly been about death or dying.......why is that?