I was up at 6am this morning, getting lots of food ready for our big Family Reunion in Kent. Keith and I had bought it all yesterday so I just needed to cut up the quiches and pop the sausage rolls in the oven. By 10am we were all ready to go with the food packed tightly into the boot, which was a big temptation for Mikey who was eyeing the sausage rolls with interest...
We drove down to Kent via Islington as we needed to see where we were going for Sophie's Charlie Simpson concert on Thursday at the O2 Academy. We had a good drive down the M1 but then the traffic in London slowed us down considerably and I was beginning to wonder whether I'd made the right decision. I'd organised the reunion with my aunt and I was terrified that I'd be late and be unable to help her with the tables and chairs in the hall.
We crawled slowly through London with Gladys telling us we were always about six minutes away from the O2 Academy and the time was creeping on. I needed to be at the Church Hall by at least 1.30pm and I began to seriously doubt we were going to make it.
Luckily for us, though, the traffic cleared a bit and after spotting the car park by the O2 Academy we put the postcode of the church hall into Gladys's system and off we went via East London and the Blackwall Tunnel.
We ended up being so early I was able to treat the long-suffering children to a snack, have a coffee myself, buy the newspaper for Keith and put my dirty car through the carwash.
The afternoon was a great success, even if it was a bit chaotic when everyone arrived and we were all putting our food out onto the tables. Several family members had gone to a lot of trouble with fresh flowers arrangements for the tables, gifts for a free raffle and a quiz! We had a bank of old photos and a large family tree which was brilliant, especially as I'd been researching this side of the family over the last few days. The family stemmed from my paternal grandmother's side so it was mainly cousins, some of whom I'd never met before. My grandmother had 11 brothers and sisters and the family we met were descended from the siblings with the oldest man present being 83, although there were lots of much younger members there as well. Mikey found himself two new friends who were probably his third cousins!
We had a great time eating, drinking and chatting away and then my Dad went around all the tables and we all introduced ourselves and how we fitted into the family. Then we had the raffle (we won two boxes of chocolates) and thank you speeches, so it was a lovely day, with the intention of doing it as a regular event every year.
By 6pm we had all pitched in together to tidy up, wash all the cups and saucers and sweep the floor before setting off for the long journey home, which on the motorway, was a lot quicker than the journey down!
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