Danskcolin: Monday May 12th 2025 "Family reunions - a blessing or a curse? Cast your vote now haha!"

Family reunions - they're usually heart-warming occasions, it's true, but there are exceptions, as "screamed" a headline just a few months ago in the local Onion News for East Hampshire, a headline which started, like, a billion alarm bells ringing, more, probably (!), over this side of the county at least, to put it mildly!

Poor Sargent Family !!!!! And let's hope nothing like that happens when my own, absolutely humungous, family has its (now) annual, get-together next month near Gerrards Cross, Bucks.

Let me put my cards on the table at this point. I've got, like, a billion cousins, more probably, and I blame my own grandparents for this - it's not possible to point the finger at anybody else, sadly!

Yes, step up, and hide your heads in shame, Grandpa and Grandma Evans - you know what you did, and did, and did, and did again... and did again, ad (almost) infinitum haha! Yes they had 9 children by the time they finished, but you can see the exhausted look on their faces in this tell-tale picture of them on the beach at Southerndown, Glamorgan, with the last of 4 of their 9-strong "brood" !!!!

flashback to the 1920's: Grandpa and Grandma Evans, visibly exhausted

on Southerndown beach, Glamorgan, with the final 4 of their 9-strong "brood":

(left to right) Ruth, Joan, Hannah or "Nan" (my mother) and Babs, Joan's twin

What madness, wasn't it!!! And we're still paying the price of those grandparents and that madness (!) - all of my 30 or so surviving cousins have been invited to what's become an annual event - a humongous cousins-get-together at my cousin Jeannette's house near Gerrards Cross, Bucks, no less !!!

Only joking, by the way, my little "Colinketeers" (!!!!) - I'm sure a good time will be had by all of us who have accepted the invitation. This includes, our new cousin David, identified by a DNA test a couple of years ago - as if we didn't have enough already (!) - only joking David!!!. And also including at least one of our 4 "further-flung" cousins flying back from the "colonies": "little" Hilary from New South Wales, Australia, is definitely coming. And Susan from Colorado USA has taken part in these get-togethers in the past, so possibly may be coming again this year - but we'll see!

To the best of my knowledge, these events have been happening on and off since the first one in 1987, when my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I were a sprightly 41 years of age, and our two daughters Alison and Sarah were 12 and 10 respectively. and we all met up at Aunty Babs' house in Loughborough, Leicestershire.

Contrast(!) - (left) Lois and me, and our daughters, leaving New York in 1985

after our 3 years in the States, and (right) us, 40 years on, on our daily

walk this morning, this time over Iron Hill on the Hampshire-Sussex "county line"

And in this following 1987 souvenir picture (below) taken at the first ever cousins get-together, you'll see that my red Vauxhall and my father's Austin Mini are also in the picture, parked on the road outside Aunty Babs's. I wanted to include them, and the cars themselves didn't want to be left out either (!), but please don't assume from the picture that we brought all this great humongous "mob" in our two humble-to-humble-ish cars!

You can only fit so many people into a mini, be they nuns or whatever (!), as so many "rag-day" students have discovered since! But more of that later !!!!!

flashback to 1987 and the first "cousins-get-together" with, in the background,

mine and Lois's old 1985 red Vauxhall Astra and my father's old Austin Mini.

Not that we brought all this lot to the party - for that, we would have needed

at least a couple of 'limos', more, probably!

two close-ups, with (left), Lois and me and my dear late parents ringed,

and (right) some of the kids, with (ringed) our daughters Alison and Sarah

Happy days!! But that was nearly 40 years ago, and we're a dwindling bunch in 2025, to put it mildly! The children have all grown up and moved away, and are all "incredibly busy" they say (!), and my dear parents' generation are all "off the scene" now, and not nearly as busy as they once were, sadly, needless to say (!)

[That's enough exclamation marks in brackets (!) - Ed]

flashback to the 2023 cousins' get-together at my cousin Jeannette's house:

(right) John, Liz, me, Jeannette, Susan, David, John, Lois and Alan (Jeanette's husband)

It'll be an adventure for me and Lois to attend next month, now that we're in a new part of the country, in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, because somehow, on our route to Gerrards Cross, Bucks, we'll have to "get round London" with all its manic motorways etc. However we're planning to stay at the same little inn we stayed at in 2023, which will be nice.

(left) our plan for the 50-mile journey, negotiating the M3, M4, M25 etc - yikes !!! -

and (right) the little inn where Lois and I stayed for the 2023 cousins-get-together

Good times next month, then! And Lois and I try to focus on that today in leafy Liphook, as we get through our packed agenda - first, an opticians' appointment for Lois to check up on the results of her April cataract operation ("all okay"), and, following that, our daily walk, which this time took us along the so-called "Serpent Trail" over Iron Hill along the Hampshire-Sussex "county line" - busy busy busy!!!

(left) us waiting at Liphook Eyecare for Lois's post-op check-up,

and (centre, right) us on our walk along the so-called

Serpent Trail over Iron Hill, on the Hampshire-Sussex county line.

with (right) me showcasing the Serpent Trail "way-marker" post

I'm not usually one to complain, but as a footnote to our walk, I'll just say that along the so-called "Serpent Trail", pleasant as it undoubtedly was, "serpents" were conspicuous more by their total absence: another so-called "endangered species", no doubt! I know St Patrick is credited with getting rid of the snakes in Ireland - could he have got rid of English serpents at the same time maybe, and it's never been noticed?

Just saying !!!! I might just write a quick postcard to the BBC's "Springwatch" programme, so watch this space!

(left) one of the helpful "Serpent Trail" way-markers that guide Lois and me

on our walk this morning, and (centre, right) some of the typical serpents that were

such a feature of our childhood, seen here in happier times, when they

were flourishing in the British Isles: have they now vanished due to climate change maybe?

Yes, it'll be a bit sad if British serpents, such a feature of mine and Lois's childhoods, have disappeared off the scene now, and if our grandchildren miss out on the pleasure of being squeezed by one of these adorable creatures, or by two, for preference (see picture above)!

What's the truth? I think we should be told!

[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]

14:00 Yes, it's been another exhausting morning, and in bed this afternoon for statutory "nap-time", Lois and I can at last relax, and have a good laugh over the latest set of amusing Venn diagrams that Steve, our American brother-in-law, has picked out for us this week, which is nice.

Yes, watching, through the magic of the internet, your delivery guy (centre diagram), "wending his way" to you via some crazy route - yes, it can be frustrating as the Venn diagram suggests, but to me, as a dyed-in-the-wool technology-freak, I've always found that making breathless CNN-style "announcements" to Lois, and to our company, about the delivery van's "current position" is almost more fun than eating the actual food when it "finally" (!) arrives.

Call me a hopeless "nerd" if you like, haha!

And the thought brings a tear to my eye, and to Lois's, as we remember our last Domino's pizza delivery, from back in November 2023, when our dear daughter Sarah and our twin granddaughters Lily and Jessica, were still in the UK. Sadly, they're now 9000 miles away in Perth, Australia - sob sob !!!!

flashback to November 2023: Lois and me having a pizza

delivered by the local Domino's, for us and our daughter

Sarah and our twin granddaughters Lily and Jessica.

And let me know if you could possibly resist clicking on that tempting red "Track Your Pizza" link (centre). Bet you couldn't !!!! Am I right? Or am I right !!!!!

Happy days!!!!

Back to family "get-togethers", though, finally and that 1987 photo of our first-ever cousins' get-together, where I had to admit that I only had a 5-seater Vauxhall Astra at the time, and my father only an Austin Mini, two vehicles that were scarcely "capacious" enough to bring along the 60 odd guests for the party, sadly!

flashback to earlier in this blog post: a souvenir

picture of the 1987 Cousins Get-Together,

with my red Astra, and my father's Austin Mini

parked there on the street outside

It's possibly the thing I regret most, looking back over my long life, that, back in 1987, I wasn't able to "ferry" my 60-or-so relatives to this historic "do", and that they all had to somehow make their way to Loughborough "under their own steam", as people say today.

Tonight, however, Lois and I realise, on seeing one of ex-Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo's recent TV "railway adventures", this time in Oxford and Abingdon, that things might have been different if we'd only had an MG back in 1987, rather than just our Vauxhall Astra.

an old Michael Portillo TV "Railway Journey", this time to

Oxfordshire, and (right) the old MG Car Company plant in Abingdon

Apparently you can get 5 nurses into an MG, which Lois and I didn't know - we've never tried it to be frank! And here we see Michael going for a spin in a classic MG VA, in Abingdon, driven by its owner, Jim, who has a potential "Guinness World Record" under his belt, a secret that he's been keeping a secret - until now!