While I was in England I had a message from the woman who looks after the women’s club website; she’d had a message to ask me to contact a Patrick Mahue, the great grandson of Isabelle Mahue, who owned our house in the Gers earlier in the 20th century.

I got in touch with Patrick, a Canadian/French/Englishman and arranged that he’d call me when I was home.

What a fascinating call it was! I was intrigued to know how he’d found me; he’d been searching the internet for his great grandmother and had been led to my blog post about a writing competition that I won, with an article about our garden, including how we found a broken metal fireback, inscribed with “Isabelle Mahue, 1935”. Quite how he then found that I’m part of the Landes and Pays Basques International Women’s Club, I’m not sure.

We talked for nearly two hours; my memory is poor at the best of times, and there was so much information about Isabelle, her story and that of the house and family, that I can’t remember it all, but some of it stayed. Neighbours had told us that the fireback was probably bought to celebrate Isabelle buying the house, but no – the house had been in the family for generations. Other things that we were told, such as Isabelle being “as wide as she was tall” also turned out to be fiction. She’d been widowed during the war and had never got over her husband’s death, suffering from what I’m sure would now be diagnosed as depression.

It was amazing to hear Patrick’s story, all the way from Canada and he’s promised to send me more information on paper (well, email) as and when he continues his research into his ancestry.

So thank you Patrick, I look forward enormously to the next installment.

I’d promised Alex I’d help with a bit of child care over the summer holidays, so when I noticed that “the Simon and Garfunkel story” was on at Harrogate theatre on July 28th, that decided my dates.

I went with an old friend, Liz,  and as it happened, we were sitting next to the sister in law of the guy playing Paul Simon, over on holiday from America. It was a great show, part tribute show, part life story, with images, projected onto a screen behind the performers, of contemporary world events and other relevant stuff. The musicians; the two main men and their backing group of electric guitar, bass and drums were all consummate musicians and performers. The guy playing Art Garfunkel, wearing what I suspect was a wig, had the most beautiful voice and could hold notes, seemingly effortlessly, for ages.

When Alex wasn’t working one day, we went to a local farm, where you can see and pet various animals and their babies. Obviously it wasn’t the right time of year for babies, they were mostly adolescent, including the goat who took a real fancy to Alex’s jeans and seemed determined to have a mouthful of them, but a fun visit anyway. Apart from the standard farm animals, there were rabbits and guinea pigs, ducks and Shetland ponies…….. and a maise maze. Not having a sense of direction of my own, I stuck with Alex for this, she’s pretty good, but the girls arrived at the fort in the centre ages before we did.

Later in the week Gemma, Chris and Elliott arrived, having spent some time with Chris’s family. At last I got to meet my newest grandson, who’s just adorable, lively and smiley and is obviously going to be as tall as his dad.  I was also lucky enough to meet Chris’s parents for the first time, as they’d driven all the way up from near Bristol for a couple of days. I think they enjoyed their stay, never having visited Harrogate before, but it’s a long drive for two days.

On Saturday Alex, Immy and I went to a sound and light show at the Leeds City museum; it was set to Vivaldi’s “the Four Seasons” in the central, circular, domed room. There were bean bags on the floor to lie on and enjoy the images projected onto the ceiling; it was superb.

I managed to catch up with quite a few friends during my stay too, squeezing in as many visits as I could between childcare duties, as well as a day in York with Immy, Gemma, Chris and Elliott, an afternoon at Harlow Car gardens with Immy, Jean and Doug and a morning’s mountain biking on a track in Wetherby.

All too soon it was time to leave; my last couple of days were to be spent with my brother and his partner in London. Gemma took me to the railway station and sweet talked the guard into allowing her to join me on the platform until the train left; a couple of minutes later, we were joined by Alex, Graham, Belle and Immy, swiftly followed by Chris, who’d “taken Elliott for a walk”, to the station. They’d had it planned for ages – I couldn’t hold back the tears, it was so lovely that they’d all come to wave me off! My brother suggested that it might be because they were pleased to get rid of me, but I ignored that!

Next stop Peter and Penny’s, where we managed to fit in a visit to my ex-sister in law’s, an afternoon at the Tate and a trip to the Bridge theatre to see the most amazing, spectacular production of “a Midsummer Night’s Dream” that I’ve ever seen. It was Peter’s second time and Penny’s fourth and I can well see why they’d both go back again – it was brilliant, with far too much to take in on a single viewing!

Then home for a much needed rest, as usual at the end of a visiting holiday; it was a quite cultural sort of trip and one I’ll remember fondly for a long time. A couple of days trying to get over the bronchitis I’d caught (I blame the man on the train who coughed incessantly all the way from Peterborough to York) and it was time to prepare for the arrival of my French grandchildren early Friday morning;  I looked after them while Kieran drove to Bordeaux to collect Gemma, Chris and Elliott from the airport for the next stage of their holidays.