Wednesday 8th April we land at Gatwick Airport and a wonderful surprise as we were met by Hayley and my new great niece, Isabelle, who promptly stole a

 little of my heart.  Onwards to the North East of England where we spent a rather hectic but fabulous three weeks.  We spent all of the time, apart from two nights which were spent with local friends, with my family which was fantastic, mum got a real thrill looking after us and cooking Chris a breakfast every morning! She is making good, if slow progress with her broken ribs and gets really annoyed if you try to do too much for her, she is obviously nearly back to normal.

   We walked, went for drives, generally getting out and about, I don’t think Chris realised just how beautiful the countryside around my hometown was, he thoroughly enjoyed his visit.  The weather overall was good, dry and very, very cold but the day of the anniversary was sunny and warm, warm enough for photo’s outside,  twenty eight members of family sat down to celebration lunch at Headlam Hall, www.headlamhall.co.uk  everyone had a wonderful time and it meant a lot to my parent to have everyone together.  Lots of laughter and a few tears, especially when Mark asked his Granddad to be his Best Man at his wedding in  August, it was priceless.