90 today!

Wednesday
A very happy day today, celebrating my father-in-law’s 90th birthday. He had a huge pile of cards to open this morning - many received on Saturday at the afternoon tea held at church - I counted up to 47, but several more arrived after that! More family arrived as the morning went on, with a total of 16 of us going out for lunch at a nearby restaurant. The food was good, the service very attentive, and a good time was had by all. It was wonderful that so many of us were able to get together, with Jen, Roger and I coming from the States, Laura from Kuwait, three of the party coming from Guernsey, and the rest from various locations in England. Just Roger’s sister Janet and husband John live locally, and it’s them that we have to thank for putting everything together for the last five days.
As you can see from one of the images in the collage, a group of us got out in the late afternoon for a neighbourhood walk - it’s a great area for walking, with a wide network of paths. The weather seemed quite threatening, with dark grey clouds, and the wind picking up, but fortunately we escaped with just a brief touch of drizzle. In the evening, the reminiscing continued between Bernard and his brothers. There have been a lot of stories shared over the last few days, some of which we’ve heard before, but various new ones in the mix! The day has inevitably brought back memories of my own Dad - I’ve been truly blessed to have had both a wonderful father and father-in-law, both of them committed Christians and serving all their adult lives as local/lay preachers with the Methodist church. So Happy Birthday Bernard, and many thanks to Janet and John for all their planning and hard work!