A grand surprise

When I was a child, my father and stepmother had some wonderful friends called Sandi and Ian, who lived in a place called Diamond cottage in Tenterden in Kent, one of my favourite memories from my childhood is when we would all go over there for bonfires night, and have a barbecue and fireworks in their beautiful garden. it was always such a happy time.

They are my sister Alexandra‘s godparents and I haven’t seen them for over 40 years. They wanted to surprise Alexandra as part of her 60th birthday celebrations and invited us down, we invited our brother James and the look on her face when the three of us arrived was priceless.

Sandi is a keen artist, (one of her paintings is in this collage of the four people on the beach) she had made a big effort to theme everything as a day by the seaside, James took full advantage of the props LOL.

They had their friend Becky there, who was a lovely lady. They took us all for a lovely lunch at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, there was an elderly gentleman playing the piano the whole time we were there, it really was such a treat.

Off for a very blustery look at Burling gap, and then back to the Grand for a cream tea!

We didn’t get home till about 9 o’clock, it’s been a lovely day.