Family wedding

June 6 was a gloriously happy day being nephew's wedding in a garden, in Geneva, Switzerland. Hordes of us invaded to meet his wife's family and celebrate their marriage.
The invitation to us all meant we four siblings, met for the first time since our mother died, nine years ago. We flew or trained in from the US, Scotland and England. Who knows when or if we’ll meet again? Nephew, T, has three cousins who married quietly during the years of Covid and lock down, my daughter on another continent, giving us only 23 hours’ notice! 

The build up days of the week before the wedding included an evening get-together. Our side met Friday evening at an Auberge where half the family were staying. Prosecco and nibbles followed by pizza or pasta if you wanted to avoid gluten.  I got to meet my nephew, C's new wife, and nephew, G's girl friend. I left after we'd got through a couple of bottles of wine or more, but the twenty and thirty year olds went to a whiskey bar found a wonderfully smooth one, made locally, so local that it was the bartender who made. It's great that these cousins too have got see each other and meet their partners after so many years - the last meet up being their grandparents 60th wedding anniversary in 2010.

My grateful thanks to T & I for inviting us all, and to I's parents for hosting us in their garden.

Exam results

The A level results have come out. I'm delighted for my nephew who has earned the place he wanted at the university he wanted. His mother is justifiably proud.
Ten years ago, I was in the same position, and my son won the place he wanted. He went on to the right university for him, coming out with a good degree, and then went on to get a Masters as well. A week later, on a French airfield, my daughter rang her school from the public pay phone to get her GCSE results. With no speaker phone, she repeated out loud what they told her for her nervous mother standing next to her.  She did herself and her school proud.
Like ten years ago, I've been planning to go to France, but things conspire. Elderly aunt might need some support this week; planes no longer fly to Grenoble; trains take seven hours, and no way am I driving 500 miles.  How did I do it in 1997 with two small children in the car? Even taking several days with a stop in Paris at friends and at a campsite on the way down, on my own, a single parent, - how did I do it? But I would now like to go away for a holiday in the sun.
At tae kwon do, I (discretely) asked a mother what her son's results were. His mother looked grumpy, muttered quietly what his results were but pointed out that anyhow he didn't need them to get where he wanted to go. Neither did I when I did my A-levels - I already had my place at training college so I had no motivation to do really well at my A-levels so I think he's done fine. I was on the point of telling his mother this and congratulating her to have got him through his first 18 years and he could start his adult life, when she grumbled about all these people on Facebook announcing their offspring's wonderful results.  It's funny because she's being putting on Facebook what a wonderful holiday her family was having in several different countries - it sounds wonderful and I'd love to do that too.  Was she boasting about her holiday, but grumbling when others boast about their children's successes?  No.  She was just sharing her pleasure.

Newly married nephew

We went down to Folkestone for a night, via Canterbury register office where we saw my nephew happily married to his lovely new wife.


Newly married nephew and wife will live in Folkestone.

Nephew's restaurant

When I was a teenager, I expressed an interest in learning to cook, so my parents gave me a cookery book, inscribed:

"Waiting hopefully for the results."

Good results didn't appear that quickly, so I was intrigued to find in today's Financial Times an article on an 18 year-old Canadian chef who has his own restaurant. It must be good if he's made it into the British FT. See the restaurant web site here.

Of more importance is my nephew who is training as a chef in the States. Perhaps he'll learn to cook more quickly than I did. I couldn't run a restaurant - I get stressed when I have to cook for more than a few friends and family. Will nephew make it into the FT when he gets his own restaurant? And will he get his own restaurant? I hope so, and then maybe I'll go and try it out. So now I'm waiting hopefully for the results of his training.