Once the Easter holidays were over, we then commenced an approximately three month farewell period, in which we tried to see, spend time with, and say goodbye to as many people as possible before we moved to America.  It started with     

 At the end of April we were privileged to be visited by an old missionary companion of Tim's.  Lars Holmboe is from Denmark, and he and his wife, Anna-Dorthe and their three children took a few days holiday to England, and decided to add us on their list of things to see!  They made the rather long drive from Stansted airport to Boston early Sunday morning to come to church with us, and we then had them over for Sunday dinner afterwards.  Lars was one of Tim's favorite companions, but Tim hadn't seen him since his mission, so it was great to catch up.  Scandinavians usually have fantastic English, so communication was not an issue - even their 12 year old son was quite conversant.  Lars is a high school literature teacher, so we talked a lot about education.  He got along famously with Abigail, which is always a good thing.  Here are the companions together, who have both accumulated quite a few more people since their missionary days!  By the way, it was still really cold!

     The next weekend was the first May bank holiday weekend, and so we took advantage of the extra day off school and made two road trips in two days to see family and friends.  On the fast Sunday Tim's cousin Johnnie and his wife Jennie were having their new baby, Benjamin, blessed in South End ward, which is in Essex.  We always struggle to get to church on time, so we fretted about how early we needed to leave in order to get to blessing which was at least a three hour drive south.  I think we left before 7am, and got there with one minute to spare!  We saw Peter and Lynne, cousins Heather, Lindsay, and David and his wife Claire and their children, and uncle Bob.  Oh - I almost forgot.  It was finally WARM!  Spring arrived the first week in May. 

     They had a lovely munch and mingle after the blessing, with good food and great company. Tim got to see a woman who he baptized on his mission, Anna Jones, who now lives in South End ward, and that was great for him to visit with her after so long.
     Jennie is a Kitsell, and the Bleakleys have lots of connections with that family, so it was good to catch up with that side as well.  In fact, Jennie's grandfather was the Stake Patriarch in Tim's stake when Tim was growing up, so he gave Tim his patriarchal blessing.  When we were dating, Tim went on and on about how unique and original is patriarchal blessing was, so I was thrilled when Brother Kitsell came to Benjamin's blessing and I was finally able to meet him.

     Here we are chatting about babies, breastfeeding, and other experiences of motherhood:

Verity with baby Benjamin:

 

 

     Although the day was fab, it was also very long, and we got home late.   But somehow we were able to persuade the kids to get back in the car the next day and drive three hours in precisely the opposite direction to the previous trip!  We went to go see Neil Nath and his wife, Jessica, who live in the north of England, near Darlington.  Neil was Tim's lab partner turned best friend when he was at Cambridge, and Neil was the best man at our wedding.  But once we all left Cambridge our paths rarely crossed again.  Neil married Jessica, who is the sister of a good friend of ours, so we have a double connection with them which is nice.  They have just had their first child, James, so we went to see the baby and to say goodbye before we moved overseas.

     They live near a town called Barnard Castle, which, not surprisingly, has a large castle. Jessica had to feed the baby and Neil had some work to do for a few hours, so we decided to take a quick look around this charming town and the castle.

     Very imposing from the outside:

 

 

 

     And very spacious on the inside - what is preserved is not just the ruin of the castle, but also much of the outside wall so you get a sense of the space of the mini-community that would have existed on the 'castle grounds' as it were, inside both the outer wall and the inner wall.

 

 

    The kids enjoyed climbing up the stairs into the towers to look out the narrow windows:

 

 

 

And the not-so-narrow windows, from which the views were amazing:

 

 

     They also enjoyed doing rolling down the slopes, and laying against the ivy which was very prolific:

     Soon Neil and Jessica joined us and we walked around the town.  Here is a stately home which was built by some aristocrats who needed a place specifically designated to hold all of items they accumulated on their trips abroad. It's a museum now, but since it was a bank holiday we didn't get a chance to go in. 

 

I was very impressed with Barnard Castle as a town; as a rule Cornwall and the Lake District are my favorite places in England, but there are some very nice spots in the northeast of England.