Kanga And Wombats Adventures

19.11.19

When we are in England, we always make a point of visiting Avril and Bob, my dad’s cousin and her husband, who live in the Chilterns, Buckinghamshire. A beautiful part of the country.

Both are in their 80’s now, and Bob has recently had several mini strokes so he’s not as active as he was when these photos were taken in 2016.

My younger brother Bruce and I lived with Avril and Bob and their 3 kids, Helen, David and Tony way back in 1973, for about 3 months.

And it was Avril and Bob, who in 1982, first introduced us to canalling by taking us for lunch at a canalside pub near their house. We immediately booked a week on a canal barge with Dotty and Jenny who were both travelling in England too.

Avril, Bob and the kids joined us for a day on the canals where you can see we went all out for lunch!

And Helen’s son Troy is currently in Australia and stayed with us earlier in the year.

So there’s lots of connections there!

It was great to see them again! They picked us up from Princes Risborough Station and whisked us away for a pub lunch in the countryside at The Boot.

As an added bonus, Helen and Tony were there too!

We had a lovely lunch catching up on family news then went back to ‘theirs’ for tea, cake and reminiscing over family photos.

This picture was taken in 1958 when Avril came out to Australia and lived with my Grandma and Papa for a year. She was Grandma’s niece.

And these are my great grandparents, (Avril’s grandparents), Edmund and Annabella with my dad on grandfather’s knee. It was taken when my Grandma took my dad back to England for a visit in 1930. It was the only time she ever went back!

A very English day!