I am trying not to dwell on the fact that, right now, you should be reading day 4 of a month’s worth of daily holiday posts from Ireland. It is a bit difficult to make much newsworthy from life chez-moi. As mentioned in my previous post, I chose to honour my World War 2 ancestors on VE Day. As a family historian I was excited that my children and grandchildren did the same. All that indoctrination gentle persuasion must have worked. They had the advantage of places to display pictures and bunting that are visible from the road. Still, we did our best. Here are our collective family efforts.

In other other news, I have had to temporarily (who am I kidding?) abandon joining Joe Wicks for his daily P.E. sessions. Currently, I can barely move having done something to my back, possibly not as a result of doing star jumps and Pikachus (really best not to ask).

I have spent half my life on Zoom, including 24 hours (in two 12 hour stints) over a weekend, hosting a hastily arranged worldwide Braund family reunion. This wasn’t what we planned but had the huge advantage that those who could never attend our face-to-face gatherings were able to join in. We had 53 people from five countries drop in over the weekend, ranging in age from 1 to 80 something. I’ve also taken part in virtual coffee mornings, piano lessons, family history classes and author chats. It is a whole new world but one that we are adapting to. We even managed to get 8/9 family members on screen looking almost normal, well as normal as we get anyway. The 9th family member was present but was working from home at the time.

The garden is coming on. The flower seeds seem to have been eaten but peas, beans and tomatoes have survived.  The cherry blossom and clematis have come and gone. Now we are enjoying the laburnum and guelder rose. The birds have been delightful, with Mr and Mrs Blue-tit currently feeding their brood. We also had a visit from a field mouse, who stayed around long enough to be photographed.