We flew from Carcassonne to Manchester and then hired a car for a couple of days. We had booked a small simple car, but when we arrived at the
Hertz depot at Manchester airport, we were presented with a huge, black. automatic Merc. It took us about 15 minutes to work out how to adjust the seats! The seat control panel was on the door!
We had booked 3 nights in a conveniently situated pub.
The first evening, John's niece, Belinda and her partner Robin, came over to eat with us.
In the morning, we went to see the Trafford Centre and pay a visit to the AppleStore in the hope that they would be able to stop John's iPhone dying on a regular basis.
This was our first visit to the Trafford Centre
and the next night, Pat's cousins, Bernard, John and Iris and John and Enid all came over to eat with us.
On Sunday, we drove over to Appleton, ready for the 40th anniversary celebration. Olive and Peter had booked a meal at Bistro Pierre in Stockton Heath.
By the time we arrived at the restaurant, guests were gathering including Kate (Olive and Peter's daughter) with Andy and grandsons Ben and Thomas all of who whom we know.
Andy and Kate both work for the environmental agency and after heavy rain, Andy was on alert for opening an incident room, should the rivers start to flood.
After a very agreeable meal, we all returned to the house of the cutting of the cake.
Views over our tables
Finally, we all retired back to Olive and Peter's bungalow for the cutting of the cake and tea.
The next day, we returned to the airport and took a flight to Belfast for the next stage of our family week.
In Belfast, we stayed with John's second cousin Paddy and Alec, who picked us up from the airport and entertained us that evening. The next day we met with cousins Sandra, Roberta and Anna at Belfast castle and the went on with Sandra to the Titanic Museum. This was a really well presented display of the history of Belfast, the time and the building and loss of the passengers and ship. Film of the ship at the bottom of the Atlantic fishes off the display. A full day would not be long enough to do it justice.
After that, we had dinner with Paddy and Alec, Paddy's brother Sam and Carole and a distant cousin, Doreen at the picturesque Merchant hotel.
Our next destination was Donegal and the very comfortable Castle Grove hotel.
The following day, we went to meet more distant cousins who live very close to where the Stewart family lived more than a century ago. Joy has four children under 6 and so has her hands full. She and her mother Marbeth joined us for dinner at the Castle Grove.
Despite our worries about getting to the airport in Dublin in time for our flight, sandra got us there with with time in hand.
We returned to Carcassonne airport to pouring rain, worse that we had seen all week, the joined friends in the local restaurant for dinner.
We now have two weeks at home before the next trip.
- Pat and John on tour
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