That evening we went into Canterbury to queue for the midnight release of the final Harry potter book. I was quite disappointed as Waterstones had advertised a street party and it was just a very long queue with an entertainer (fire eater/juggler) and one coffee shop open. To make it worse at about 00.45 people were walking along saying there were no queues in WHSmith’s!! Anyway 2 books were purchased and we headed home.
The next day we had really looked forward to. Helen and Chris have visited us in NZ (you may remember an account of spending a day on a yacht with them off Coromandel). They are avid sailors and have a lovely 40’ (I think) yacht which they charter out. A and H had noses fixed permanently to their books but looked up when Helen, seeing the books, mentioned that Timothy Spall (Scabbers/Peter Petigrew in the films) had his barge moored adjacent to them. (In fact on looking at the days photo’s later we realised we had earlier caught him in the background of a shot). She talked about how nice he was for a few minutes. As we left Alice got all excited when she saw him and, as they had the books in their hands already, I gave them a pen and they asked him to sign them – which he did, then asked if he was in the final instalment!! Great excitement and I guess they had the only HP books signed but a film cast member when they arrived back here! This excitement was tempered by disappointment. Chris had booked a days annual leave weeks in advance of our trip but got a call in the morning to say he needed to bring a ship in, his leave had not been processed and there was no one else to do it!!! He phoned as things developed and it looked for a while like he would get back in time to see us. Then the ship broke down!!!!! He was stuck on the Thames somewhere for the duration. Such a big disappointment for us all. The only consolation being, that we know we will see them in NZ before long and have been invited to spend some time sailing with them when they come – which will be great fun. They have a lovely life and much of it is based around the sea. In fact Helen gave up a high flying career in a law office in London to take some time out and ended up working in a chandlers (I just asked Eric how to describe that and he says “a boats bit shop”. He has a wicked hangover – more on that later!!). She has done lots of nautical courses and now has her ocean yachtmasters for which she deserves many congratulations. Well done Helen.
Leaving the yacht (And Mr Spall) we headed up to the yacht club to meet some of their friends and have lunch. The sun shone and we actually got a tad red! It was with sadness that we left Ramsgate but it was nice to get some insight into Helen and Chris’s lives as I have only really become acquainted with them since they visited us here. They are such a nice couple.
We had to head off mid afternoon for Blean where Pauline had arranged a family reunion. It was so strange that Mom and Daddy were not there!! It was the biggest Smith reunion for very many years, probably since my grandparents 70th wedding anniversary in 1989, (they celebrated their 72nd before my grandmother died!!). All my aunts and uncles are over 70 but there were 8 of them there, and with cousins who are great grandmothers there were generations galore!
Ryan, Devon, Eric, Emma, Harriette, Michelle, Alice and Sharron:
No comments:
Post a Comment