A family reunion of sorts

These pictures are from our second day in England. This was the big Family Day, which involved a lot of house hunting, ceremonies and eating and drinking.

In addition to celebrating my Father's birthday, we were bringing the ashes of my Grandparents to England to have them buried in a small cemetery in the town of Ackworth, close to the remains of my grandmother's parents. We met my Aunt and cousins (who came from Toronto for the same reason as us) around mid-day at a pub and had a drink together and a nice chat. The burial ceremony was held at 2 in the afternoon and, to my Father's surprise, he was able to meet two women whom he and his sister had gone to school with 50 years ago. Both women said that they recognized my Father immediately, even with the beard(^_^). It was a nice afternoon and I'm sure that my Grandparents are happy where they are now. I will definitely have to visit Ackworth again later in my life.

The rest of the afternoon was spent looking for the 3 houses that my Father, Aunt and Grandparents had lived in before moving to Canada. Surprisingly, they were all only about 5-10 minutes away from each other by car. I've included a picture of the final house that they lived in (the best of the bunch). We also located the house where my Great Grandparents lived, which was also nearby.

We had dinner at a pub (buffets are called carverys in England, and it's pretty good; the meat at least)and then drove to another pub to have a drink and meet one of my distant English relations. Her name is Susan Fletcher and she was a second cousin to my Grandmother (which makes us 4th cousins). I began to contact her and her brother Ian 2 years ago shortly before my Grandmother died. She was really nice and fun to talk to and I hope I can meet her again someday. Her brother lives with his family in Australia and he always tells me that I'm welcome to visit them since I'm nearby. I hope I can make a trip to Sydney sometime next year(^_^).

So that was Day 2. We our goodbyes to Susan and to my Aunt and cousins, who decided to drive to London the next day for some sightseeing. By the end I was a little drunk from all the beer and cider I'd had at the pubs, but we decided to make the next day our "lay about day." So I didn't have to worry about getting up early. I'll post some pictures of from the third day soon.