Sunday, June 24, 2012

Catch Up - England part 1

I've been an extremely lazy blogger but after 6 months its time for an update! We've made some changes around the house and in the back garden but I will start with our short trip to England in March. I hadn't seen my mom and 2 of my brothers since our wedding in September 2007 so it was mostly a trip to spend time with family but we did do a little sightseeing. One of the days we drove to Shepperton where my grandparents lived their whole married life until they passed away. I last visited Shepperton in 2002 a few months before my grandma died and haven't been back since so I wanted to visit the church grounds where my grandparent's ashes are scattered and also drive by their bungalow one last time. On the way there we stopped in Camberley and drove down the street my parents lived on when they were first married.

  Photobucket
This is the first house I lived in - we lived there until we moved to South Africa when I was 3. I don't have many memories of living there but I do remember the wallpaper in my bedroom - strange that I remember that of all things!

  Photobucket

My Grandparents' bungalow. We moved a lot when I was growing up but this house was always a constant and we would always stay here when we came back to England to visit my grandparents. The oldest memory I have at this house was watching Charles and Diana's wedding with my mom and grandmother. 

Shepperton Church. Apparently there has been a church on the same grounds since the 7th century but the current building was built in 1614. Its a small church but very beautiful. Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket

This is the wall in the grounds where are the plaques are displayed.

  Photobucket

Granny Jean (who I was named after) and Grandpa Big Boy (I started calling him that after he told me that if I ate my vegetables I would grow up to be big just like him).

  Photobucket

Where Granny's ashes are scattered. See that gravel in front of the headstone? There was some brown mushy stuff on the ground that I pointed out to my dad. He took a look at it and said "oh its probably melted toffee" and proceeded to poke it with a stick. Turns out it was dog diarrhea so we thought it best to cover it with gravel before taking the photo. Then we laughed for about 10 minutes about my dad assuming it was toffee - you know, because its totally normal for there to be melted toffee lying by a headstone next to a church!

  Photobucket






























Where Grandpa's ashes are scattered.


Photobucket

This pink magnolia tree was in full bloom - so pretty!


Next up: Corsham Court ...

1 comment:

Josh said...

It's about time you did a blog post. I thought it may never happen again.