Vacation to England to Celebrate my Parents 50th Wedding Anniversary

Wednesday July 30th was my parents 50th Wedding Anniversary and to celebrate the occasion I was summons to England for a vacation with the family. My brother, Pete; his daughter, Emma; and his wife, Sue, all arrived in England a week or so before me. Richard and his kids, Matthew and Philip had also made the trip to Rothbury from Sheffield earlier.

It is a very busy time at work for me so I could barely pull off a week away. I took a 10pm flight from JFK that was scheduled to arrive at Manchester airport at 10:20am on Thursday morning. The flight left JFK late (what a surprise!) and got me into Manchester at about 11am. Having missed the 11:04 train, I jumped on a 12:04 train to take me to Newcastle. I arrived in Newcastle about 3 hours later where my mum and niece were waiting to pick me up to take me to my parents house in Rothbury. Upon arriving at my parents house we found the rest of the family huddled up in the garage all cold and wet and locked out of the house after being rained out of their golfing session.

It was great to see everyone and to catch up a little. Pete, with help from mum and Richard, made us a nice dinner and then we all chatted for a little while and then went to bed. I amazed myself by staying awake until about 10pm with no nap! This was due to actually getting a few hours of sleep on the plane, which is a rarity for me.

Killer Rabbit

The next morning I got up at about 8:30am and went out for a run. My parents house is situated in a beautiful area with lots of hills, valleys, and fields so I love to run whenever I can. I ended up running 8.25 miles of an out and back route and felt pretty good. My calf was feeling almost 100% better by now.

Later that day we had some fish and chips for dinner and then headed out to a restaurant and hotel called Embleton Hall. This is where the 50th anniversary party was to take place and we would all spend the night there before heading out to the Isle of Arran the next morning.

Pete, Emma, Sue, Richard and Philip

The party consisted of a social hour to begin with and was then followed by a delicious meal. There were about 20 of us in attendance, including the owner of the hotel/restaurant, who must have felt weird being a guest at dinner in his own restaurant. I got to chat with some of my parents' friends and neighbours that I already know and meet some of my mum's old school friends, who I have never met before. My brother, Pete, got up to do a toast to them and also made brief mention to my nephews, Matthew and Philip, turning 18 and 21 years old respectively that week also. Then my dad proceeded to thank each and every one of us for coming to the party to celebrate with them.

Philip and Matthew

Left to right:

Ian and Shirley; Frank, Dad, Richard, Philip, Judy, Matthew, Me, Emma, Sue, Gillian, Pete, Hazel, Jim, Hazel, Tom, Mum and Trevor

I will start a new post for our trip to the Isle of Arran.