MORE FAMILY MEETINGS

Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny and was a good start for out trip to Felixstowe to meet some more of my family members. That soon changed; on our way at the second round a bout (fitted with traffic control lights) I stopped when the light turned yellow. BAD MOVE. The car behind 'thought' I would go through the lights so instead of stopping he accelerated. The inevitable occurred. No great damage to the car (but no doubt the insurance excess will cost me!) but Ann's nerves which were settling down well were all 'shot' again. With the feelings I had after this incident I was most proud of my calm discussions with the other driver. As an infamous Australian once said, "Such is life". For the information of my non-Australian readers those were allegedly the last words of the Australian Bushranger (outlaw) Ned Kelly. At least my troubles were somewhat minor compared to his!

Following that we went to my Aunt "Mickey's" home. It was her 80th birthday. Mickey (real name Annemarie) is German born and married Dad's brother Charlie (known as Stan) when he was stationed in Germany in the RAF after the last War. There were some beaut misunderstandings about names and people. My father was Albert George, known as Bert to us in Australia and as George to his English family, Another of his brothers was Bertie Frederick, known the the family in UK as Bert and to us in Australia as Stan. What with the Berts, Stans and George it was very necessary to concentrate carefully. It was a wonderful day and it was easy for me to bond with the Aunt, 1st, 2nd and 3rd cousins. Mickey also had a Sister and other family/friends over from Germany for the occasion which not only made it a multi-cultural day but also multi-lingual. I increased my knowledge of my family origins and picked up heaps of further family stories. Like any genealogist I found these steps backward to be progress. The day ended far too soon but we did not stay late as the shock of the morning was telling on Ann.

This morning we went to Church at Elmsett. This is the Church associated with my earliest discoveries to date. There was a baptism at the service and it struck me that that was the church and font where my great/great/great/great grandfather was baptised in 1749. That really was special. Once again we were made very welcome and enjoyed a cuppa after church with the parishioners.

On the way home we stopped off at the "Rushbrook Arms' for a Sunday roast lunch. And very nice it was too!

There are no special plans as yet for tomorrow, we will see what happens. On Tuesday we will be going up to Boston (Lincolnshire) where my Mother's parents and descendants come from. We will be meeting with some of my maternal relatives there. We do not know how long we will be staying there.

That's about it for now so I will close and might go for a walk into the 'Nutshell'!

Love to all, Ann and Dave.