Yesterday we travelled to Oxfordshire to have lunch with my Aunty Janet (we joked about me calling her this childhood name all day before setting out yesterday).
It was great to see Janet and her family. As often happens, you live an hour away and don’t see each other for years at a time. It’s only when you’re together that all the memories come back - the times myself and my cousins spent together when we were small. The time Jamie threw a tennis ball through the living room and left his Mum holding the handle of the tea cup she was drinking from…
The main reason for visiting was down to my cousin from San Francisco (the blonde girl in the photo). She is over here studying at the moment for a degree. She hadn’t seen Janet since our wedding 5 years ago, so we used her visit as an excuse to visit too.
We thought a visit to Auntie Janet couldn’t pass without some sort of cake - so W made a death by chocolate cake…
I even helped make it - well… I stirred the mixture, and sprinkled the chocolate flakes on the top… it was suitably rich, heavy and made everybody feel suitably ill (but in that good way that only chocolate cake can).
Bizarrely, Aunty Janet is now the closest of my side of the family - my parents live several hours to the south west in Cornwall, and my brother lives several hours north of us in Lincolnshire. Even W’s family live 45 minutes away.
I’ve never thought about it before - we have no family we can just wander round to for a cup of tea. That’s a bit sad really…