For Bill and Ange: the Family

Some of you will remember that our Shutterchance blogger friends, Bill and Ange, came to visit us a year ago, just about now.  So how appropriate that this post is about and for them!

It so happens they wanted to return the hospitality favor for two of our days while in England this trip.  And boy did they ever!  This is just the first of THREE posts on that time with them.

Lucky for us, they BOTH love to cook...together.  They even sing together while they do it.

More English you cannot get when you eat a meal like this!

And since we were there for two breakfasts....

Here's Bill's collage of moi eating what he's known for:  a bacon buttie.

He actually put it up on our Shutterchance photoblog.  HA!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

But eating, splendid as it was, was not all that we did!  Trust me.

 One of the most important things on our list was to see their new and only grandchild, Joseph,
who turns one on August 20.  He was almost 9 months old.

I sure hope you're ready to be gobsmacked.

To be honest, Bill has been showing Joesph to us since he was born.

By now, Astrid and I both feel that we, too, are the proud grandparents.

Bill grabbed him first.

Talk about a grandpa who is also a grandma, working off both sides of his brain.  Seriously.

And Joseph just observes, soaking it all in.

(I should mention that Astrid and I brought Joseph the Dutch cap...but more on that later.)

Is he A D O R A B L E or what!

The proud mother happens to be Helen, the younger of Bill and Ange's two girls.

Look at him after his tummy is full.

And that's when Ange got her hands on him...patiently waiting all that time.

I would have been DYING if I were the real grandma.

About that time Kathryn, daughter #1, stopped by before work.

She wanted to get in on the action, of course.  

And now you can also see the Dutch slippers we brought, besides the cap.
(Joseph's daddy also wears a cap, so apparently that's why this cap didn't seem to bother him at all.)

Those little hands and feet.  OMG!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Speaking of Kathryn, later in the afternoon we stopped by to see her at her place of work.

She works at The Hive library in nearby Worcester,

a partnership between the university of Worcester and the Worcestershire County Council.

And yes, that's the city of the famous Worcestershire sauce.  You got it.

 Here we are leaving The Hive, the four of us, living and loving life...just like busy honey bees.

And now let me tell you this:  I have seen very few families that love each other as fully as this one.
It starts with Bill and Ange themselves...husband and wife and then parents and grandparents.
It all trickles down, doesn't it!

THANK YOU, Bill and Ange.  You outdid yourselves on our behalf.
Next up, everything else you showed us in your neck of the woods....