The Whitsun bank holiday weekend at the end of May saw the wedding of my cousin David to his girlfriend Joanne. I went to the wedding just outside Banbury in Bodicote with my mother and brother. It was a lovely occasion, and amazingly the weather stayed fair after all the recent rain. Mum who has spent much of the last year being treated for bowel cancer looked lovely and it was the perfect occasion to celebrate. The last time I had been to the church was probably to David's christening over 40 years ago.
It was also a family reunion. David is the son of my late father's sister, and over the last few years the families have not had the opportunity to get together, in fact the last time was at my dad's funeral 4 years ago. There is no sinister reason for this, and sometimes it is easily for families to drift apart and time seems to march on. I got in touch with one of my other cousins Sarah a few months ago as she very kindly bought and supported the fundraising book I have self published to raise money for the Beating Bowel Cancer charity. Since then we have had regular contact and the culmination of that was the whole family getting together at the wedding. It was such a joyous day and we all got on terrifically and it was especially nice for mum and dad's sister Anne to spend some quality time together as they have both gone through some tough times health wise recently. It was a shame that my sister and her family couldn't join us, but I am sure the families won't leave it so long until the next meeting.
Following on from the wedding we drove up to Suffolk the following day to drop my brother Noel off at Dragoman where he works driving overland tours all over the world. He has now departed for a 5 month stint through Europe and Asia, and then plans to go on to Australia to celebrate his 50th birthday in January. I am hoping to join him there at the end of the year, although challenging times at work are making this look less likely now. It was nice to see where he works and get an understanding of how hard they have to work to prepare the vehicles for these long distance trips. We will all miss him, but especially mum who enjoys having him around the house! It's going to be quite a long time until he is back, but we hope he has a fantastic and safe trip.
