Northamptonshire, UK,
United Kingdom
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Had a really nice day today. Left Solihull early and drove up to Birstall again to pick Aunt Ada up, then drove down to visit another cousin of Barry's (John) who he hadn't seen for more than 40 years. John and his wife Josie made us very welcome and gave us an enormous feast at lunchtime before we all drove down to see John's mother - Barry's eldest surviving Aunt, Arthur's sister Ethel who lives in a bed-sit at an elderly citizen's housing complex at Rushden in Northants. Ethel was in fine form at the ripe old age of 94 - and was quick to ask Barry for a "ciggie" as she had run out! Ethel spends her time doing jigsaws, crosswords and "find a word" puzzles as well as keeping up with current affairs by reading the newspaper from end to end. Trevor, Barry's cousin we'd seen on Tuesday had sent a litre bottle of Scotch for Aunt Ethel and she was thrilled but said she only uses it as a "night cap" and sleeps very well indeed! What a great old lady and it was certainly a very special visit for us all.
We left at 3.30pm to make the journey back to Leicester to take Aunt Ada home, but ran in to terrible heavy rains again and found the entry to the M1 we needed to take had been closed, so had to make a huge detour almost over to Coventry before being able to head north-east up to Birstall, so didn't get back to Solihull until almost 7.30pm. What should have been an hour and a half journey taking almost 4 hours - so not such a good end to the day, but safe and sound at least.
