What a day!

A wonderful day. Bro came late morning and we set off for Thorpe Bay, Southend, for a bit of a family history excursion. We are both bitten by the ancestry bug after some of the papers and photos I've recently discovered whilst going through family treasures. Having found what we were looking for, we then enjoyed our picnic lunch and time to digest both the sandwiches and what we had just seen. The sea front looked glorious but it was just tooooo cold and windy to walk along. However, the sunshine was gorgeous so we took the 'pretty route' home again, through various Essex winding country lanes, eventually stopping at St Andrew's Church, Sandon (today's photo) - a blast from our past with quite a few childhood memories. Once home we spent the rest of the afternoon looking at old family photos (I inherited a large collection with several as far back as1890's) as we tried to imagine several likely scenarios on our Dad's side where information is scant and our curiosity very seriously aroused of late.  Excited to be able to identify two significant photos as those of our paternal grandfather, a Lance Corporal in the Durham Light Infantry in WWI, fighting in Salonica (1916) (now Thessaloniki), we talked and talked.....

 By 19.00 we were too hyper and at the same time too tired to set about cooking, so we indulged with a rather splendid dinner at The Angel in Broomfield where our conversation continued, as it did once back home again. What a day!