Gold and then some


Congratulations to my Mum and Dad on their fifty-seventh wedding anniversary!
I took this pic in April this year, outside their new cottage in their fabulous retirement village (Club Med) in Albany, on the south coast of Western Australia. They hadn't been there long, but Mum had already made a start on the rose garden - this weekend she told me she'd actually taken over their neighbour's front garden as he wasn't keen, so this part of the village will be looking pretty lush by now!
Mum and Dad were married in London, at a registry office, in 1950. Soon after, Dad spent two years in hospital, having contracted TB in Malta, when he was in the Royal Air Force on his way to Korea.
Not an auspicious start to married life - but it doesn't seem to have mattered!
Dad is from Norfolk, but Mum is a Hertfordshire girl who grew up in the tiny village of Sarratt. During the war, as a girl of 11 or 12, she was evacuated to Southampton (you do have to wonder why!) and lived in appalling conditions in a house there whose owner treated her as little more than a servant.
Anyway - happy days now in their resort in Australia, with loads of great friends, parties every week, quiz nights, walks with Jenny (the Jack Russell), Sunday roasts and DVDs on their huge wide-screen telly.
I love them lots and wish I was closer ...