Nonsense weather forecast

Today they said it would be nice in the morning and bad in the afternoon, so I got up early with a nice weather and put a double load in the washing machine. 10 minutes later, it was all covered and threatened to rain, so I rushed to the park even before breakfast, in such a hurry that I even forgot my camera !

As of this afternoon that was supposed to be so bad it has been excellent and we are in T-Shirt since 1pm . . .


Project 365+1 - Day 132 : Unforgettable

Funnily enough I thought it was an extremely difficult word. Getting older I now have a bit more than half of a century to go and dig into to remember so many unforgettable things, big ones, small ones, things that are only unforgettable to me and would sound so silly to others. I've been busy on that all morning, then I made my choice.

If there is one thing my parents and I agree on it's that Christmas is all about children.
I never had any so as soon as I was an adult living abroad there was no point of one of us traveling just to spend one specific day together when we could do that any other time we wanted.

As a single person, I think the last Christmas I had spent with my parents was in 1993 when I briefly left Germany to come back to France for a couple of months and then went back there again.

When I got married and moved to England I inherited 2 steps kids and that changed a lot. They and my parents met and liked each other. The kids considered my parents like their grand parents and vice-versa for my parents.  Due to the known problems caused by their mum, we never could get them to France so my parents were only seeing them when they visited us.

In 2009 I got obsessed with the fact that my parents weren't getting younger, the kids were getting older so it was necessary to have a kids Christmas all together right now.
I had begged my parents for several years, but they didn't want to come due to the harsh british weather and I hardly could blame them for that.

But that year, I had decided it would be different. In November DH and I flew to Marseille to ask them to come for Xmas. It was an expensive question but I knew they couldn't refuse if we were there to ask, so of course they said yes and everybody was over the moon.

What nobody knew is that it was the start of an unforgettable time but much more unforgettable than we could have dreamed of.

They were supposed to fly on on December 22nd with EasyJet and on that morning before driving to Gatwick, we checked if the flight would be on time. If you have only one memory of December 2009 it must be snow chaos.

And it was snow chaos on that day. 6 hours before departure their EasyJet flight got cancelled. I was in absolute tears as I was seeing the worse Xmas of my life ahead. Hubby took over and he promised he would do anything to get them here one way or another.
I called my parents, explained what happened (what devastated them too ) and asked them to go to the airport anyway and wait that we call them again.

We started looking for alternative flights but due to Xmas time there were very few left and additionally with flights being cancelled everybody was also trying to rebook. It was such a nerve wrecking time for me but Hubby was so fantastic. He kept calm and eventually he managed booking 2 flights with BA at an absolutely extortionate price, but he said we would worry about that later.

I called my parents at the airport and asked them to pass their phone to a staff member.
I must say that Marseille airport people were fantastic, I told them about the BA reservation, they checked, found it and put my completely mentally exhausted parents on the plane.

We then drove to Gatwick, we had packed blankets, water and sandwiches just in case we would have bad traveling conditions, but it wasn't too bad and by the time I saw my parents exiting the arrival terminal, I was close to fainting.

Having got my parents to UK for Xmas was already an unforgettable event as such but I had planned a lot of other things for this Xmas to make it special.

I can't put my hands on the original photos but I did a Scrapbook for them as a memory of their trip and I have photos of  it, so here they are. No fantastic quality photos and French journaling by the way . . .

That's the front page

I had bought a Santa costume for my dad, so on 24th morning before the kids came down, he got dressed and my mum was supposed to be Rudolf.

Then I called Hubby and the Kids. My dad really played his role and it was so funny because I had bought a bell and he was shaking it and saying " Ho Ho Ho " as I explained him, although it doesn't have any meaning for French people, but he loved doing that.

 Then it was time for presents

There were plenty of thing happening like Sophie making a Cup stacking demo and Hubby and the Kids giving an opening concert with guitar and battery. It would be too many pictures to show !

Then we were able to make a group photo.

My parents left on December 30th to fly back home. When I remember that special time we spent with them, it still moves something in my stomach and I am not sure if I want to smile or to cry.

I think it took us all a while to get over the rollercoaster of emotions we went through, but one thing is sure :  That Christmas ? None of us will forget, ever !

Take care everybody, xxx