Today is the first full day of mine and Lois's stay with our daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with husband Ed and their 3 children, Josie (16), Rosalind (15) and Isaac (12). Ed will be away in Devon till Monday, because he's helping to organise some young hikers who are camping out on Dartmoor this weekend as part of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme for young people.
flashback to last night: our daughter Alison shows us
a picture of Ed on her phone, live from Devon, where he's hiking
through an old neolithic monument with a group of youngsters
And today is also the day of the piano concert at the Guildford Institute, Surrey, by all the pupils of Jessica Gale and her partner Eric Phong from Hong Kong. A group of about 20 kids from the Guildford area will be performing, including all of our 3 grandchildren.
And there's a tangibly nervous atmosphere around the house this morning, and Josie, Rosalind and Isaac are all being uncharacteristically quiet, Lois and I notice - the concert's only going to be in front of all the kids' parents and grandparents etc, but that doesn't stop you feeling nervous, does it.
Be fair haha!
12:15 After an early lunch, Alison drives Lois and me, and Josie and Rosalind over to Guildford, but she has to just drop us off in the city centre, because she's then got to drive to Liphook, Hampshire, to pick up Isaac, who's been taking part in a dress rehearsal for Peter Pan the Musical at his school this morning.
Talk about "Busy busy busy" - what busy lives parents lead these days! It's total madness !!!!!
13:15 Lois, and the girls, and I arrive at the Institute after a breathless dash through the city centre and up the Institute stairs to the upper room where the concert will be held. It's a breathless dash I don't relish, what with my dodgy hip, but somehow I manage to keep up with them.
Dash dash dash - yikes !!!!
We grab a cup of tea and find some seats - and we also have to save two seats for Alison and Isaac who will be arriving late.
we wait with cups of tea for the concert to begin - Josie and Rosalind
are in the row behind us: Josie is looking over my shoulder
Just as we're sitting down, the day's big surprise/shock comes when our other daughter Sarah texts me to ask what our plans are for the day
Yikes - shock-horror! Why is she asking this???? Isn't she supposed to be at home today in Alcester 130 miles away, with husband Francis and their 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica????
Yikes (again) !!!!! Sarah and family must have driven the 120 miles or so from Alcester to somewhere in this general area - a two and a half hour drive, but without giving us any advance warning!!!!
13:30 The concert begins. The kids' nice piano teacher, Jessica Gale and her partner Eric, remind their pupils not to worry if they make the occasional mistake - it's the first time for many of them to be performing in front of an audience, and it's all part of the learning process, she says, which is fair enough.
These are "stills" from the video clips I took of our 3 grandchildren's performances.
Isaac's pieces:
Josie plays Liszt's famous Liebestraume:
Rosalind's pieces:
And at the end of the concert, all the performers come forward for a group photo, which is nice!
all today's performers take a collective bow: piano teacher Jessica Gale
is at extreme right, and Jessica, Rosalind and Isaac are in the back row,
2nd, 3rd and 4th from right respectively
Well done, guys!!!!
During the concert, it's become clear from some additional texts from Sarah, that she, Francis and the twins have reached Alison's house, which of course is all locked up and deserted. So now they're waiting around there.
Well, after we leave the Institute everybody's starving hungry and thirsty, so we stop briefly in Café Nero across the street for a quick snack.
after the concert everybody's starving hungry and thirsty
so we pop across the road to Café Nero for a quick snack
Then we drive to Guildford Railway Station to put Josie and Rosalind on the train to Haslemere, because we're in a car with only 5 seat-belts, and the journey home includes the fast A3. Then we drive to Haslemere Station to meet the girls off the train and install them in the back of the car for the nice gentle ride from Haslemere home to Headley.
Confused? Well, I was! Complicated isn't it.
We squash the 3 kids in the back with Lois. For some reason that I don't understand, it's legal to drive with Isaac not wearing a seat-belt, as he's (just) under 14). What madness !!!!
we squash the 3 kids plus Lois (hidden) into the back seat
with Isaac not wearing a seat-belt, which is legal apparently
- what madness !!!!
Anyway we take full advantage of this surprising legal leniency today, and eventually arrive back at Ali and Ed's house in Headley, to find Sarah and Francis, and of course also the twins, who are understandably acting very shy, all waiting outside.
the reunion of our two daughters (leftmost) and their families
after eight and a half years - what a moment!
It's a lovely reunion. Alison and Sarah, our 2 daughters, haven't seen each other in the flesh since the winter of 2014-5, when Sarah's family visited Ali's family in Copenhagen in the great winter snows, an experience which the twins were too young to remember anyway.
2014: (left to right) Rosalind, Josie and Isaac in Copenhagen
flashback to December 2014: the last time the two families
spent time together. The twins don't remember it, needless to say!
Sarah and family decide they can't wait for dinner here with us - they need to get back to Alcester, and Sarah's got her accountancy job to go to in the morning. So they just have a bit of tea and cake to keep them going on their 120-mile trip back.
Then it's time for Sarah and family to go.
the twins put their sneakers back on, and prepare
for the long journey back to Alcester
21:00 In the evening Lois and I sit down with Ali and watch a bit of TV, but Lois and I feel completely shattered by today - an exhaustion probably caused mostly by the unexpected visit of Sarah, Francis and the twins completely out of the blue.
We see a bit of Antiques Roadshow, a series where members of the public bring along some of their family heirlooms etc and other possessions from their attics typically, and have them discussed, and sometimes valued, by experts in the field.
Lois and I are both history buffs, so it's something of a joy to us this evening to see a letter written by Admiral Horatio Nelson in 1805, just a couple of weeks or so before he fought his great sea-battle against the French at Trafalgar, a battle Nelson won at the cost of his own life. The letter was just a rather routine one written by Nelson from his flagship HMS Victory to his optician back home.
a letter written by Admiral Horatio Nelson to his optician in England
just a couple of weeks before Nelson died at the Battle of Trafalgar
It's difficult to read the handwriting because Nelson had lost the use of his right arm due to injury, but he'd nevertheless taught himself to write with his left hand.
And what would Nelson have said if he'd been told that in about 120 years' time, this routine business letter would one day be showcased on a popular TV programme, and seen by an audience of millions in the UK, and also in other countries, like Australia, where the BBC sells a lot of its output?
Fascinating stuff!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!
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