Friday was Sam’s birthday (24!) and we all met up in Bristol and went got lunch at PizzaRova on the Gloucester Road in Bristol. It was lovely to spend some time together as a family, the food was good and the sun shone. Sam seems to be thriving in his flat and enjoying his job with Enterprise Car rental.
(just for info to remind me in the future, it then took a looong time to drive home, Google maps sending me via the Downs, under the suspension bridge and out to Chew Valley lake before finally getting home. A problem in Farrington Guerney apparantly)
I haven’t blogged for the whole of July as from 1st July to 5th August we’ve been away on an Ionian adventure, flying out to Zakynthos, the Kefalonia, Ithaca, back to Kefalonia, Lefkada, Meganisi, Parga, Paxos and finally Corfu before flying home. It was wonderful. I haven’t (yet) blogged on our travel blog, but do still need to do that.
One of the reasons for our trip was because it was our 30th Wedding Anniversary on Monday; our very first holiday together in 1993 was to Corfu (Roda) and (part of) the rationale of our trip was to visit the islands and places we had been to before we had children. It was a wonderful pilgrimage to the past, and I loved every minute of it,
This was us 30 years on, enjoy each others company in a taverna on the beach in Kalami, Corfu, 3rd August 2026.
And this was us on 3rd August 1996, at Farrington Gurney Church.
We haven’t aged a bit!!!
As we flew back over England, it was clear from the brown fields below us that whilst we’d been away, the UK had enjoyed/endured a very dry summer and we were now in a drought. Sophie kindly collected us from the airport, taking us home to a very dry garden.
The front trugg looked very sorry for itself – after extensive dead heading and watering, it is showing some signs of life. (Sophie had been home, off an on, whilst we had been away, but was absent for about 10, dry, days, and this is when the damage was done.)
But a few sunflowers out the back …
… and the fig tree …
had survived due to my automatic watering system in that part of the garden. The tree has been yielding a hefty crop – much of it gone to rot in our absence, but some surviving to the plate.
It is good to be back, and we are well acclimatised the the hot and dry weather that persists, but if I could go back to Greece tomorrow, I’d do so in a heartbeat!