just a short note

April 18

We have been computer-less for the Easter weekend and have done lots, but that will have to wait for another time. I will just give you a quick outline.

We landed and went to stay with Kathy's relatives in Waltham Cross near London for a few days. We got to see a lot of the countryside and all the relatives.

From there to Cheltenham. More relatives. Stayed with Michael and Sheila Cheeseman. This time Cravens on the other side of the family. Got to find yet another branch of the family on Kathy's dad's mother's side in a little church in Inkberrow, Worcestershire, John Savage, once the High Sherriff of Worcestershire. Unfortunately he died nearly four hundred years ago. His full-sized effigy, carved in alabaster lies on a carved bed of stone above his grave inside the east wing of the church. Michael took something like 150 pictures which we have on a disk. We will get some popcorn and show them sometime.

From Cheltenham we went to Northumberland and stayed from Wednesday to Saturday with John Whitley, my childhood friend, and his wife, Judith. They put us up in one of their houses in the little village of Beadnell on the coast. After a couple of days of sightseeing (castles, kipper factories, the usual stuff), we left most of uor luggage and were driven to Durham to meet up with the Cheeseman's again, who took us to a Craven reunion, Sylvia Cheeseman's (nee Craven) 90th birthday party in the banqueting hall, no less, on the estate of Gibside, near Durham. There we were wined and dined for two days, staying over at Sylvia's sister Marjorie's flat across the river from Durham Cathedral and Castle.

The Cheesemans (again) offered to drive us to Sheffield as they were taking their son back to the University there. Instead they drove us right into cousin Leslie's farmyard in Brampton-en-le-Morthen and let us out at the farmhouse door.
That was yesterday. We had good farmhouse grub and a walk this morning to Thurcroft, surprising Uncle Ernest and Aunt Lily. I am off to the football match tonight with Les while Kathy does the milking.

Tomorrow we are going back to Northumberland (and another football game) on a bus to continue our visit there for another week before returning to South Yorkshire for the last 10 days of our tour de football.

It is not always easy to find a computer, so we will send another message when we can.