Our Silver Wedding Anniversary

We spent the week of our 25th in Switzerland with a Great Rail Journeys tour group, and here we are the day after our anniversary on the Glacier Express! For more piccies from us and others see 'Never Mind the Matterhorn' at http://nevermindthematterhorn.blogspot.com/

The Royal Visit.

Not often we get a King visiting us, so to have not 'We three kings' but the 'Four bold Kings' referred to in the 'Eight Days of Carey' at the 1999 Carey Concert, was a boon.

Seriously, it has been a huge joy and pleasure for us to have Andrew and Cora with us as well as Bec and Tom, whom we have seen more frequently since the summer. We learned the game 'Take Two' using Scrabble® tiles, delighted Cora with rice pudding, Eccles cakes and lentil soup, and laughed a great deal, not least at The Two Ronnies, though a few of the topical references in the old 1970s and '80s sketches taxed the memory a bit.

We look forward to seeing you again at Carey in July, and your next visit here, as we are now officially part of the 'northern circuit'! We trust a good New Year celebration will be had by all at Chez Runciman including our Aidan. Who knows, one day we might get to visit you in Brasil!

Wishing our Reader a very Happy new year! Will post again soon.

I am still only 'almost' as bad at updating the blog as updating our family website; this is at least my FOURTH post here, whereas the website www.seversclan.org.uk still only has a home/ welcome page, and I'd guess most if not all the links have by now expired!

Since I am trying again to join the Carey Family Conference blog, and note I can add this as a link, supposing I succeed this time, hopefully you will have chased the link here to see if there's anything worth reading - well it is entitled 'ramblings'! At the request of no more than one person, I am here posting the ABBALEY HALL SINGALONG lyrics, and if I am admitted to the inner sanctum of the CFC spot, I'll copy them there too.



[after Gimme, Gimme, Gimme]:

Half past five and we're sitting at the table, having chilli for tea,
Having just arrived today at Cloverley...........
Suddenly without warning we're surrounded - black and yellow buzzing things
Crawl around our food and threaten us with stings!
Where is the Pest Control?
Get in your van and roll!

Kill me, kill me, kill me a wasp after twilight!
Won't somebody help us drive the menace away?
Kill me, kill me, kill me a wasp after twilight!
Zap the nest now, quick before the end of the day!

[after Waterloo]:

My, my!! Three portaloos this year! We can surrender -
Oh yeah! - to every call of nature day or night; there'll be no queues,
No waiting around in the dark, no hopping around in the cold...............

Portaloos! Without them what would the campers do?
Portaloos promise we'll never have far to go.
Portaloos give us relief when we need them to!
Portaloos serviced twice-weekly, we love you so!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
Portaloos, handy and dandy, those portaloos

[after Fernando]:

Can you hear the drums, Fernandezes?
It's just Aidan's in-car music playing loud for all to hear!
Welcome Paul and Liz Fernandez!
We're so glad to have you camping in your tent with us this year:
You can hear the sound of cattle mooing in the field, and now they're getting near

Happy Birthday Liz Fernandez!
Yet another year has passed and still you come to Cloverley;
And though you're older now Fernandezes,
You can still take part in all the Dutchman's cruel activities:
Passing water overhead and going blindfold through the maze is ecstacy!

Did you hope to see the stars at night, and bright moonlight, Fernandezes?
Instead you had to listen to the rain, the pounding rain, Fernandezes!
And though you had to use the Portaloos, there's no regret:
No doubt you'll come and do it all again, to see your friends, Fernandezes!
No doubt you'll come and do it all again, to see your friends, Fernandezes!

Well I'm almost as bad at updating our blog site as I am at developing our website, but new things take time to become habits. I've added a counter today to see if anyone is actually viewing our blog site - got to remember to deduct the number of times I check!!

Beth has started her A-level exams and I cooked our first barbecue of the year today! We got the details from Coralie's secondary school today - lots more expense on uniform etc.! She is looking forward to it, but will miss her present school, I'm sure. They were one group responsible for the village's first 'Party in the Park' last Saturday - an excellent day - afternoon of stalls, concerts and Morris Dancing, including the large scale 3-D map-model of the village the school kids had made. Anne got roped into the Morris Dancing! Then in the evening a local 'blues' band played [mostly R&B/popular rock but a bit of real blues too] - very good - just Anne and I went, and danced the night away!

We are gearing up to new cars next week - well we've had the Espace [our 5th] since we moved to Silsden 6 years ago, and no longer need such a large vehicle - so getting a Grand Scénic - still 7 seats but smaller - Anne chose red - so having had the Espace and current Mégane in Lazuli Blue, I thought I'd get a matching car [not new!] off the used car lot - +/- same Mégane [2 years newer] - but in similar met. red. Anne doesn't know about mine yet, so keep it quiet till after next Wednesday - she'll not read this page before then, I hope!! Till next posting, Adieu! Paul

Tonight, what with Aidan being at college, and Beth, as usual, sleeping over at a friend's house in Otley where she goes to church tomorrow, and Nathan, unusually, sleeping over at a friend's, we have only two children in bed here today - last time that was true it was Aidan and Beth, and they were nearly five and nearly three - for those of you with ONLY two children this is not strange, but it is unusually quiet!!

The party for the folk leaving us for Bonnie Scotland [nr Castle Douglas] was nice, and we saw a few mutual friends we don't see too often, so that was good too. One friend did a very highbrow game - lots of what SHE thought were common proverbs and sayings reduced to the initial letters of each word - e.g. N.L.A.G.H.I.T.M.!! Very hard I can assure you. Well goodnight to all our reader!

Hi, following the lead of Missionary friends in Brazil [Andrew and Cora King], we think there may be two or three of you out there who'd be interested [and amused if we can be witty enough] in hearing our news more frquently, so here is our Blog Site. Easier to organise and maintain than our still-undeveloped website, so maybe we'll keep it updated.

Today all bar Aidan [in Lancaster] met Grandma Severs for her 81st birthday today. Nice lunch in La Piazza in Skipton. Some friends from our church [Hall Green Baptist Chapel, Haworth] are about to move to the wilds of Scotland and are hosting a leaving party at church this evening. They had months of frustration with the Scottish 'sealed bid' method of house-buying, but just as their sale approaches completion this week, they have at last been successful in buying! God's timing is perfect, as usual.

If you want to keep up to date with our doings, why not add us to Favorites [sorry re US spelling, but that's how it appears in MS Internet Explorer!].