Week 17 of 2014

Last weekend saw us going to a family party all dressed up.  It was a surprise party for my brother’s father-in-law.  All the guests were asked to dress up as the man himself, so here we are in our wigs and tashes.  If you can feel a caption coming on, pop over to my Saturday is Caption Day post and add it.  H got to stay up very late, but the next day showed why that is not such a good idea.  He doesn’t get sleeping in after a late night, so he got up at normal time and then had a nap before lunch.  I had to wake him up for Sunday lunch and he was grumpy as anything.

On Easter Monday I headed down to Tredegar in South Wales with my brother for what seems to have become our annual family history weekend.  We visited relatives that still live in the area and hung out in a few cemeteries.  This stone is the grave of my great, great grandparents: Enoch and Ruth Hughes.  We’d noticed it was in a bit of a state last year (despite being replaced some years ago when the original stone became unsafe), so this time we took some gardening stuff with us to sort it out.  It’s also the grave of my great-great uncle Joby who lived a colourful life, including bare knuckle boxing; tennis tournament winning; Welsh rugby try outs; and mining in South Africa.  He was known for his iron constitution, until he met with a nasty freak accident close to home, when a tyre rolled down the mountain and hit him.

So back home and on with the Easter holidays.  We had a day out at our friends’ farm and a day at home playing because it poured down.  In between we managed a glorious day out at Dudmaston, which is a National Trust property in Shropshire.  It has wonderful grounds and we walked around the lake doing a little den building and tree climbing along the way.  It was such a nice day and the children had such fun outside, that we never actually made it into the house itself.