Verrassing

...ARE YOU DOING HERE? Said Mum.

 

Last weekend was a weekend of family fun. My Father (John Boy/AmsterDAD) and James (London) orchestrated a successful full Whelan trip to England's fine capital, without my Mother having any idea! Robert (Copenhagen), Alex (Barcelona), and I (Rotterdam) flew to England on Saturday and all met at Westminster Millennium Pier in anticipation of Mildred's arrival (sometimes that is what we call our Mum even though 1) Her name is Sarah 2) She hates being called Mildred). Prior to boarding a boat tour along the Thames, Dad, James, and Mum arrived. As she walked up to us, Alex gave a, 'Hello', I turned around beaming, and Rob ran in (I think he actually ran from Gatwick?) yelling, 'SURPRISE!' to which she cried (success), and insisted that we 'weren't meant to be here!!?'.

 

 

Post-tears (well, I hoped she'd of collapsed with happiness, but never mind), and howls of delight, we bopped along the Thames and went along the rest of the weekend doing Whelan-related things. Dad and I did some Apollo Gardening malarkey (Apollo being his gardening company, and we visited Clapham's Homebase to see what was going on in the world of hanging baskets/once I had to carry a heavy spade from Leeds to Sheffield for that business so I feel I am part of the team), encouraged by white wine drinking (I am on crutches so can't walk around/very happy to sit in Black & Blue Wine Bar in Borough Market), the brothers embarked on loud games of 'BRAIN' with various family friends after our meal on Saturday night (a category based drinking game) in James' lovely new house in Balham, and we had long conversations about Christmas activities (carols, quizzes, and the like).

 

 

So distracted by the excitement I didn't take any photographs of the trip. However, I passed the camera onto Robert during the boat tour and these are the images worth showing. I've edited them to make them look all kooky, because when I remark 'worth showing' I mean they're rubbish, and making them sepia/black and white was the only restoration I could somehow perform.

 

A lovely weekend, and great excitement for the up-coming Whelan family Christmas.

Big thumbs up and shout out for Mildred.