Family wedding

A dull day for a family wedding, but a joyful one nonetheless.  About 100 people were there to watch Fran and Rob do the legal stuff, and they spoiled us all with a generous reception at Hintlesham Hall, near Ipswich.  A bit of fuss was made of the fact that three of the newly discovered cousins were there (Philippa, John and myself), and it was heart-warming to meet so many members of the family we so recently didn't know we had. 

All in all, the occasion more than justified the risk of

Door security, Burnford-Jones marriage

a venture into bandit country north of the river, and it was fun to get dressed up for a change, even if we did look like the bouncers.  I'd been planning to go in a lounge suit despite the black tie orders, but was persuaded at a late stage to conform, and wear a dinner jacket.  Glad I did, since we'd have been in a small minority otherwise.  One of our number could still get into his dinner jacket trousers: another had to make an emergency journey to M&S at a late stage, the 1968 and 1990 trousers having shrunk radically in the wardrobe.  I don't think the new one has the quality of the 1968 job (17 guineas: thank you, indulgent late parents!), but it did the job.
 

Cousins

Of course, some of us turned out in full effnic regalia: Mr Engineer Smith appeared in the kilt (Smith tartan, no less, with a McPherson pin, in honour of Maisie of that ilk, who carried us both to the font, and died suddenly and young).

The discovery of this new branch of the family has been startling in so many ways, but particularly in the choice of the 'new' family's names.  Frances was no doubt named after her grandfather, my uncle Frank.  But her brother is David, and his daughter is Philippa, like my cousin.  She, Pip, has been digging a little further, and finds that Grandpa named Frank as a dependent child on joining up in the Great War, not that we needed convincing, having seen Frank's photograph on an election flyer.

So there you have it.  As we leave these shores tomorrow before the sparrow's tummy has so much as rumbled on an expedition to chivvy French artisans, we leave Forges-l'Evêque in the hands of local ditto, and hope to return to find a new raised bed, a re-profiled patch of grass, non-lethal paving on the terrace and a new paved quadrant at the top of the garden.  More anon from furrin parts.