57 Years of Marriage - Bloody Hell...

Today Mum and Dad celebrated 57 years of wedded bliss - they are an inspiration to us all and to me in particular - I should remind myself when I am a right old mardy ass and bickering with John that we are mere novices in the wedding stakes with only 21 years under our belts.

I learned today for the very first time that Mum and Dad had honeymooned in Bournemouth for TWO WEEKS!!!  This was, apparently, in a family run small hotel which had been owned by friends of Minnie and Pop with whom Dad had lodged when he came from Cornwall to Yeovil.  I don't know why I had never asked before and for some reason I was surprised - no idea why!

Anyway back to today.  This morning we had a visit from the goats - shame really as Laura had wanted to see them and they didn't come last week.  The herd now has the addition of babies.  In the main they are quite sweet but boy can they fart!  

The cats are very dubious about the goats.  Minnie really doesn't like them so she disappears and hides under a chair but Chivers gets into a right old state and adopts proper hunting mode so he does a funny chattering with his mouth and starts pacing up and down the boundary.  Normally he is a bit of a scaredy cat and hides very firmly behind Minnie Mou who is normally the more feisty of the two.

Today however things changed and instead of high-tailing it when the goats appeared Chivers became a very brave bunny indeed and decided to jump over the fence and try hunting for real.  I could just imagine him getting a bit close and getting a kick in the face and coming a right old cropper so John kept a watchful eye on him and when he looked like he was really going to go for it John rattled the treats box and that captured his attention.

You can see that much of a cat's behaviour must just be natural because he never had a parent to learn from.  We have also learned today that Chivers has taken to mooching off round to Marian's who has three cats of her own.  He must go off when we are out as he is never far away when we are here in the house.  Minnie Mou rarely goes out of nose sniffing distance from her food.  

I thought you might like to see one of the Gazania's that I planted in the garden - it cost me a whole 50 cents and has added some welcome colour to the garden.  The flowers are about the size of my fist and open up in  full sunshine then close up again in the evening.

At this price I am thinking I will probably get a few more and hope that maybe they might survive over the winter although I doubt it.  John and I are going to take a trawl round the gardens nearby to see what has survived.  Our neighbour's Bird of Paradise plant is in flower ours is in tatters.  Mum and Dad's hibiscus is flowering and mine just looks like an interesting stick!  Maybe we are destined to have nothing else but geraniums.

On our way down to Emba we passed an old man in Stroumbi sat on the side of the road selling tulips from a bucket.  John is such a soft touch that he did a sharp about turn and decided that we should buy some for Mum - they may well have been the world's most expensive tulips when you take into consideration the additional petrol but they were jolly and bright and probably the only bunch the old man had sold all day.  

They may well have been scrumped from a field nearby but we didn't care.  John always likes to support 'the little man' and spread the wealth and once in a vase with some water they perked up and looked lovely.

Mum and Dad had invited Janice and Ray round to join in the celebrations.  Mum had cooked and I had provided the pudding.  I feel a bit of a shit because I had said I would make something but I copped out and took with me some torte's that I had in the freezer which we served with fresh strawberries and the legendary Lidl Vanilla Icecream.  

As it turned out the torte's were scrummy and probably a million percent better than anything I could have created and we will be going back to the GB shop to get some more because for €2 they were an absolute bargain!

I took this photograph of the Tregunna household, Mum, Dad and Missie.  There is something strange going on with the eyes here!!!  Missie is forgiven as she has eyes of different colours but I don't know what Dad's excuse is as he hadn't even had a drink at that point!  We skyped Aunty V in Canada - I seem to think she was bridesmaid at Mum and Dad's wedding all those years ago - if not then Dad's brother Uncle Doug who was to become Aunty V's husband was best man!  Aunty V is coming over in May with a friend and we are all very excited - she is a hoot and hasn't changed a bit since she bathed me standing in a washing up bowl in Cornwall with my cousin Kevin!

We rounded off a lovely evening with a game of Mexican Train Dominoes using the patented 'station' that Ray made for Dad's 80th birthday.  John was victorious and either Janice or Dad was 'bummer' or 'drag ass Charlie' as we like to call it.  

John and I stayed the night.  Sometimes I think we don't do that enough but with the kids home alone we like to get back.  Now that there is the new cat-flap we can lock everything down so it really isn't so much of an issue.

I wonder if John and I will make our 57th anniversary?