It’s not very often that you get the opportunity to attend a 99thbirthday party. In fact, I decided it was such an honour that it was worth flying back to the UK from Cambodia just for the occasion. I don’t usually visit the UK in the summer – it had been two years since I had done so and I realised perhaps it was time to remind myself that it’s not always cold and rainy in Blighty.
Once the idea was in my mind, I knew this trip would be the perfect chance to surprise my family. I’d always wanted to organise a surprise visit but never quite knew how it would work. Without letting friends and family know of your arrival, you run the risk of returning only to find people already have plans and don’t have time to see you. Logistically, however, this wasn’t going to be a problem as I knew all of my family were gathering together for my grandad’s party. This ‘all’ included my older sister, Fran, who lives in Perth and was returning for the 99th party too.
I decided to tell Fran about the surprise and we attempted (and failed) to coordinate our flights. Having someone on the inside really helped, however. I also told my friend Anna who generously offered to pick me up from the airport and drove me to the holiday home where my parents were staying for party weekend. Fran was able to provide us with all the details and even told us to wait halfway up the drive when my parents went outside unexpectedly.
You’d think after 28 years that my mum would recognise her daughter but there was a definite pause of about one second before she registered who was stood on the doorstep. My little sister, who I was next to surprise, started crying (although she claims this was shock, not an overwhelming love for her big sister …).
My first day back in the UK was typically English. Anna joined us for the day and we went for a walk through the woodland, had ice-creams and visited a pretty village. The afternoon was sent at a pick-your-own fruit farm, over the course of which we may or may not have snaffled a strawberry or two. That evening, we had a mega picnic outside, complete with Pimms.
The other two surprises occurred on the weekend at my grandad’s 99thparty. Amazingly, yet unsurprisingly for people who know him, my granddad knew right away that I, out of his many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, wasn’t supposed to be there. There were other cousins and their children to greet as well and then finally my brother arrived with his kids and I was able to surprise him too.
The rest of my time in the UK was spent working and seeing as many people as possible. I was in the country for 8 days and only in Devon for 4 so everyone was squeezed in for a where possible. From chips in the local pub to a BBQ and movie in our field, this brief time reminded me that perhaps the weather in the UK isn’t always so bad. I even managed to see two friends from Warwick as I travelled through London.
The final weekend was spent in Italy where I visited friends from Kampot. The logic here was that, compared to Cambodia, Italy is close … Sabina left in May (there’s a blog about that) and returned to her family home just north of Venice. I had three beautiful days in the mountains with her and her family where we caught up on one another’s lives, ate delicious food and drank spritz and Prosecco. It was short but sweet and definitely worth the two-hour flight. Also, my nice camera got an outing …
After one more night in London, which I spent with my niece and nephew, it was time to head back to Cambodia. The whole trip took less than 2 weeks and was definitely busy but totally worth it. Back in Kampot it proceeded to rain for weeks on end, resulting in terrible flooding and people being forced out of their homes. For once in my life, I found myself wishing I was back in the UK to escape the terrible weather – fairly sure that sentence has never been said before. Life is full of surprises.
Few people in the world today were alive on 1st July 1916, but the impact of this day sent shockwaves through England and continues to be something widely taught in schools because of the repercussions on society as a whole. The Battle of the Somme raged for five months, turning a tiny strip of land in France, barely fifteen miles long, into a muddy, bloody, quagmire. Although the offensive push was precluded by days of heavy artillery fire, the barbed defences of the deeply entrenched Germans were impenetrable and as the British and South African soldiers poured over the lip of their “safe” trenches and into No Man’s Land, they were systematically gunned down as they attempted to advance. There were tiny victories, snatching a few metres here and there as they advanced depressingly slowly towards the well-dug-in Germans. After 141 days of endless fighting on both sides, there was little alive left on the landscape and well over one million men had been killed. An average of four miles had been gained. Villages and farms had be razed to the ground.
Lemon in Cambodia 