Family

Standing: Chris, Martyn, me, John; seated, Margaret, Pip, Gill

We finally managed to get a few more of the cousins together yesterday for lunch here.  Good co-operative effort: Pip brought the makings of an antipasti starter and served it beautifully on little wooden platters; we made a big casserole of chicken in a sort of ratatouille and Margaret brought a pear, almond and chocolate tart and a fruit salad.  I think poor Gill (seated, right) was a little overwhelmed at meeting another four relatives at one go, but she and Chris soon relaxed and seemed to enjoy themselves.  I was struck by some points of resemblance between Gill and my mother - the line of the jaw, the pale blue eyes and the mobility of the eyebrows!

A photograph of her father Frank, prepared for his local council election leaflet, stopped me in my tracks - it showed once again the striking resemblance between him and Charles, the brother he never knew he had.  And the great dome of forehead is not so dissimilar to mine.  The dome is a bit of a family characteristic: we won't forget my aunt's memorable crack back in 1975: 'you look even more like your mother since you grew that beard!', which had a certain logic about it, however perverse.

We're preparing now for the journey south once again.  Washing 1 is drying (unfortunately not on the line, since it's showery); washing 2 is chuntering away in the machine, and washing 3 - including the fourteen napkins from two big lunch parties - is lined up for the next run.  I shall have a marathon ironing session later.  Meanwhile, I've hooked up the irrigation system for the tomatoes, spuds and herbs.  It will draw on the water butt that has the biggest catchment area of roof, and is solar powered.  Clever stuff, eh?  And the modest initial capital outlay apart, owt for nowt.  We did have to pump water round from another barrel, but the heavy showers forecast for today ought to fill them up and keep our crops in growth for a while.  The eternal dilemma: you can't really have gardens and trips abroad.

I'm a little anxious at not having heard from the builder this past week.  But I'm sure I'd have heard from our neighbour if anything had happened to stop the work being completed by yesterday.  His bill is going to be rather heftier than I'd expected: he's had to render rather than point the wall, since a lot of old openings have been messily blocked up at various stages.  I'm just hoping that the wall visible from the street is in a better state.  We'll see: I don't expect we'll have the whole job completed much before the end of October.  Such fun, owning property.