Family Reunion

Here we are, the happy fifteen. Starting at the top from L to R we have - Charlie Gee, Jane Hacking, Alison Pike, Harry, Sian Williams, Rachel Gee, Catherine Foglesong, Queen Mother holding Rosie, Chloe Gee, Michelle Hacking, Charlie Gee (the younger) Sam Foglesong, Adam Gee and Daniel Hacking holding Olivia.

It was a wonderful week. Sometimes these things have lots of hiccups and bumps but we rubbed along pretty well. This picture was taken by a photographer whom I hired to take good family pictures and it was worth it. We celebrated Sam's birthday that day. He was 12. On the Friday we hired a minibus and driver to take us out for the day. It could have been a complete disaster because it happened to be the day that 150,000 people were converging on Blenheim Palace for a game show. Our driver picked up the Headington contingent at 9:30 at the Black Boy and an hour and a half later we arrived at the farm for the others (usually a 20 minute journey). Then we tried to head off for Stratford. Fortunately, Phillip, the driver, new the back roads but it hardly helped because so did everyone else. It was 11:45 and we were no where near Stratford so we stopped in Bourton-on-the-Water for our picnic lunch. We let the kids go wild for half an hour then reboarded. It was clear that our time was running short so we dumped Stratford and headed straight for Warwick Castle. This was smart because it is an excellent place for children. It's kind of like Walt Disney meets Simon de Montfort (sorry, I couldn't resist that). They fired off the final trebuchet (look it up) at 5:30 and we collected ourselves and climbed back on the bus. We left Warwick just before 6 and got home 2 hours later. Daniel figured out that the amount of time we were on the bus, we could have flown to New York. You might think that everyone would have been feeling miserable and rotten but not a bit of it. There were no fights and no crying babies. We all decided after the event that it was a great day that we would always remember because of its quirkiness. We came home and gobbled up a takeaway and fell into bed. Alison and Sian left the next day and Daniel and Michelle a few days later. I had Jane's company for the rest of the week - a big plus. She was able to come to Nigel's and to the Book Club.