Double celebration!

Sunday
Nine of us went to church this morning, swelling the numbers in the congregation! Then Janet and John had prepared a wonderful celebratory roast dinner for the family - 16 of us. However, besides Bernard’s birthday, we were also celebrating Matthew and Claire’s engagement this last week. Fortunately, Janet and John have a large house with a dining room as well as a huge kitchen, so they were able to set up two tables in the adjacent rooms, with the connecting door open between the two. There were two scrumptious desserts to follow the main course, Banoffee pie and Pavlova, as well as cheese and biscuits - we were well stuffed! The top right photograph in my collage shows Matt and Claire, while the top left shows the delicious Banoffee pie, decorated with a picture of Matt and Claire from when he proposed to her - they were on a walk, and Matt had taken along a bottle of champagne in his backpack - so much more romantic than Roger’s to me - I’m afraid he didn’t score too highly in that regard!!
Late afternoon, Jen left us for a couple of days, flying from Manchester airport to Geneva to spend two days with her long-time friend Magali - they were friends back in Jen’s later school years in France - and in fact are celebrating 25 years of friendship this year! Matt and Claire were going to be leaving about the same time to return to York,so they kindly offered to drop her off at the airport for us. She returns late Tuesday night in time for Bernard’s actual birthday on Wednesday!