Day 4.238: Home on the Grange

We've spent the day with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew. We had a great day.

This afternoon we visited Biddulph Grange Garden. The kids had a ball - our main view of them was a distant view of their backs with a little dust being kicked up behind them. Amazingly we never lost them for too long.

Of course the rest of us enjoyed a surprisingly tranquil walk around the gardens!

We took a group shot at a position we visited a few years ago, but I'll save that for when I can locate the original.

Day 4.237: One hundred and fifteen

I slimmed down the photos of the wedding to a more manageable number.

Here they are for any who are interested. I haven't done much in the way of editing so far - I may do more later.



Meanwhile we have safely arrived at my sister's house for the last visit of our time here.

Day 4.236: Wedding (anniversary)

Our preparations for the wedding were interrupted briefly by some anniversary cards and well-wishes this morning but seventeen years on from our wedding day, we were mostly occupied by Exile #2's brother's wedding.

I took more than 400 pictures apparently - only a small fraction of which will be fit for public consumption. I won't attempt to do them justice tonight, but here are the Exiles dressed up for the occasion and the happy couple to be going along with.

Day 4.235: In-law-in-laws?

We have arrived in Bristol for Exile #2's brother's wedding. His bride will be my wife's sister-in-law, but I believe that is the only way to describe my relationship to her. The bride's mother, who introduced us to some Malaysian sweets: dried slices of nutmeg fruit and dodol as well as some special fruit jelly (Jell-O), will be my brother-in-law's mother-in-law. We must be able to better than that surely. If I can describe the great-granddaughter of my grandfather's brother as my second cousin once removed or something can't we do something about this secondhand in-law-y-ness?

In any case we had a lovely time and are now settling down in the hotel for the night before the festivities tomorrow.

Day 4.234: Season-lag

In the UK, summer ends on August 31st. That makes today the first day of autumn for us. Of course, it will still be summer when we get back to the US...it's the first time we've experienced season-lag due to transatlantic travel.

It was warm and sunny today and a whole lot more summery than the last few days have been. However, when Exile #2 and I escaped for a little walk this afternoon (a walk we first did together a little less than twenty years ago) the hedgerows along the largely disused Cassington Lane seemed to have got the memo about the season change.

We saw rosehips and hawthorn berries, sloes, crab apples, hops and other fruits of autumn.

We also saw a field of wheat looking ready for harvest. I took this shot:

A few minutes later as we walked back down, we discovered that we weren't the only ones who thought so: