Family Reunions

The weekend just gone was a long weekend (or Bank Holiday weekend as they are called in the U.K.). Cliff and I went up to visit my mother in her new flat in Norfolk. It was the first time since she moved in that we had been there and I must admit that I had been feeling somewhat guilty about it.

The weather was quite good. One always starts off that way in any discussion of activity here. More than likely - especially this summer, and last, alas - it will rain, or look like rain, or begin to rain and stop after a few drops. Everything you think of doing revolves around the weather. Will we be able to drive, have a picnic, or go for a walk? And if not, what will we do instead! In our case, the weather was quite good - meaning that rain threatened and we had a few drops but that was it! If we had planned outside activities we would have been able to do them. But no, it's all starting to come back to me now. It did rain but not enough to spoil anything and so my subconscious has decided that it didn't rain. I went for a walk around the centre of Thetford (my mother's new village/town) and then through a friend's garden. How funny that I didn't remember the rain.

What does this have to do with reunions, you may well ask? My sister was visiting my mother and I hadn't seen her for at least 2 years. Also my niece, Lily, came down from Norwich to see us all and finally on the Sunday, my brother Peter turned up. It wasn't a big reunion, as you can see. However, it was probably a manageable size for us.

More on my mother's flat for anyone who's interested. For many reasons, she has decided to move back to the UK where she had lived in the late 70's and 80's. She seems to be ideally located in Thetford. She lived there for a number of years and still has friends, she is not far from my brother and his family in Norwich and she can get down to us by bus, which takes her into Heathrow. Thetford was not a very pretty town, the last time I spent any time there. However, it has greatly improved over the years. It also has a multicultural feel to it with Portuguese, Polish and Lithuanian shops and restaurants.

For our American friends, Thetford was the birth place of Thomas Payne, the author of the Rights of Man. Apparently, next year is an anniversary, the 200th anniversary of his death. What a funny thing to celebrate! However, I'm sure that Thetford will make something of it and welcome hoards of American tourists.

I haven't really said all that much about family reunions. Mine doesn't have them very often. How about the rest of you? Are they good things? Are families best remembered rather than experienced? I suppose it depends on the family at a particular point in time. I did find mine somewhat insightful. I have discovered that one of my siblings may feel jealous of the others and so calls mum, 'my mum'. I will have to think about that for a while.