100th Birthday in Oxford

My twin brother and sister (Bill and Lulu) celebrated their joint 50th birthdays on Saturday September 28th (the actual day was the 29th).  We drove up from Paris to England for the weekend to join them at the party at Lulu's house in Combe near Oxford.

On Friday we drove 2.5 hours to Calais and drove the car onto the car train for the 30 minute ride under the English Channel.  We weren't sure what to expect from an underground/underwater tunnel. Pippa was worried that we should be bringing our own scuba gear.  It was actually really cool to drive our car onto a train and then just hang out in and out of the car while we traveled under the water.

We popped out of the tunnel at Dover and then had another 2.5 hour drive to Oxford.  Although the drive was long, the saving of 4 train fares ($800) helped soothe the pain, and the overall door-to-door travel time was nearly the same.  We arrived very late at night and were greeted by happy siblings, nieces and nephews and cousins and all the stress of driving instantly melted away.

We woke in my nephew, Jamie's comfortable bed (he and others slept out in the garden in tents) and gradually rolled outside into the misty morning to have coffee and breakfast by the campfire in the garden.  Bill lit the fire and started breakfast and gradually sleepy people emerged from tents and the house.

Although our family tries to stay in touch through email and Skype, it isn't as fun or as nurturing as staying together under the same roof and waking up together with bed head and morning breath.

Cousins and siblings who hadn't seen each other for over a year were instantly connected and friends again over scrambled eggs, sausages and fried tomatoes.

The party was a "festival" theme.  For those who haven't been to one in a while, or ever, festivals have made a revival in recent years since Woodstock and now are an almost weekly occurrence around the UK during the summer.  In good festival fashion, Lu and Bill's party was to have proper English cream tea (tea and crumpets), 2 bands, dancing, a paella stand and fireworks.  Lulu had been planning this for many weeks and we turned up for the day of the event and just had to help with the setup.  Some were more helpful than others....

In the late afternoon people started arriving and the party moved into action.  The food was amazing and the bands were great. One was my nephew Adam Campbell's band, Blank Frank (he plays drums and sings, and filling in on other instruments when needed).

The party went late into the night with fireworks and long conversations around the many campfires throughout the gardens.  I chatted with friends I hadn't seen in 20 years and met lots of new ones as well.

The following morning, those who stayed rolled out of bed for another campfire breakfast, this one to celebrate the actual day of the twins' birthday and mine that was the following day.  It was a glorious sunny morning and we all swapped stories from the night before, laughing over the timelessness of personalities and wishing the family members who didn't make it could have been there (Mum and Jamie in Australia and Dad and Adrienne departed).

Some of the girls even managed to find the energy to do some more dancing.

After a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausages, fried tomatoes and baked beans this time, we said our goodbyes and made plans for more visits and sadly set off back to Paris.

For me, the weekend visit was a wonderful validation of part of the reason we came to Paris - easy access to my side of the family in England.  Jemma and Pippa both remarked with amazement at what a large family they never fully realized they had.  It will go down in our family history as one of those (hopefully many) unforgettable lifetime events.

You can see the full photo album at http://goo.gl/lthZvU.  Thanks as always for reading.