On the doorstep ........and an amazing surprise

There is a recent family tradition of making big birthdays and other celebrations last not just a day but several weeks! Our ruby wedding anniversary celebrations more than extended that tradition!!

We wanted to start with a sporting up market weekend with the family?? After scouring the UK we found the perfect solution - about 8 miles!! from home!!! The Four Seasons at Odiham.

________A beautiful setting for the production team of the 'great surprise'

______The elegant bar - the scene, later where they delivered it! In fact on that very sofa!!! The first activity got the celebrations off to a bang!!! Clay pigeon shooting! (Left) a shooting stall (right) the trainer gets a grip with Jo.

(Below) J takes aim and proved to be pretty good particularly at the rabbit simulation .........and obviously enjoyed it

On a sporty afternoon the 'boys' did a bit of fly fishing - well learning how to do it (right) on the private lake - and the girls did a bit of pampering in the spa (left)

After C J A and Charlie had opened the evening's proceedings with pink champagne we turned our attention to another activity - more drinking!.

A very special occasion - and Vega Sicilia Spain's best and very rare red wine - only an option when normal restraint go out of the window for a weekend!!

After gently pouring through a warmed decanter neck G seriously anticipates the result. But this was nothing compared with what came after it - the most amazing surprise either of us had ever experienced.

Caroline Joanna and Ali had spent six months contacting and talking to our friends and relatives without us ever suspecting a thing and with contributions from all of them had produced a beautifully bound and professionally printed 56 page (we have more friends than I thougth!!) hard backed book. Contributions ranged from poems, to photographs to cartoons to simple congratulations to records of the wedding together creating with a photographic and narrative record of our forty years. They had called it "Project Ruby" and what a project.

So much detail had gone into its production that one page (right) even had a background of the actual foot prints of Lucy and Milly (grand children).

It was and is beyond belief. Charlie took the shot (left) just after they had presented "The Book" to us and (right) we start to investigate it!











_____G and J study "The Book" - tears and laughter from Jacky G tries to hide his feelings!











Probably THE picture of this whole record - Jacky cry laughs at one of the pages in "The Book"

It was an unforgettable evening. Even without 'the book' the Four Seasons excellent chef, the once in a lifetime wine and the laughter of the family would have made it very special. With 'the book' it was a start to our celebrations we could never have dreamed of.

And 'the Book'? Here are few clips based on stories or pictures sent in by friends or unearthed by daughters!!!

______Marriage 16 September 1967______________

Friendship 1967.........2007..............?.........._____________

.......and fun

Tuaregs! Sahara winter 2006 ______________________________Golfers Hankley 2007

___________The next generation Charlie and Ali's wedding at Loseley House

______________________The last page - three generations........

______________the family, Summer 2007. outside Kings Hill House

And so to a bit of an anti climax! The following morning was a little less emotional with a bit of riding (Charlie) and a spot of tennis.

_Caroline fooling ________________Jo nifty__________________Ali serious_______

Below a final photograph of "the gang" in frivolous mood - capturing both the humour and elegance of a fabulous weekend - hard for the rest of the celebrations to match.

Budapest or Buda and Pest

After leaving the Four Seasons after lunch we took an eveniong flight to Budapest arriving in darkness so this view with J of the Houses of Parliament across the Danube from the hotel door (left) first thing the next morning was all the more dramatic - and from the Royal Palace even more striking - but not much sign of the 'blue ' Danube

Heroes square (below right) the memorial to the 1956 uprising when students tried to knock out Russion tanks with molotof cocktails

Our only full night in Budapest started the musical theme which stayed with us throughout the rest of the trip. The 'Operatta Boat' paraded up and down the Danube while we ate dinner, looked up at the lights of the city (left below) and watched with two Transylvanian Israelis and three Norwegians (on our table) music and dancing ranging from high opera (right below), violin solos, Irish jigs through to ...................

to Turkish belly dancing and racy 1930s American!!

J in action - first posing by the Citadel overlooking the Danube and second attacking a must do in Budapest - a Hungarian goulash!!

Every place has its little surprises as with this copy of Dracula's castle (the original is in Transylvania which borders on Hungary) and (right) a double decker bus turned into a cafe looking down on the Danube from the old Citadel

Budapest is a spa so your average public swimming pool looks more like a mosque - or an opera house - see later.

The 'silver weeping willow' behind the Dehany Street synagogue is one of many memorials across eastern Europe to the many thousands of jews who perished in the second world war. This striking example is to the 600,000 jews who were killed by the Germans in Hungary.









The final shot of Budapest is this 'tongueless' lion for no particular reason except Jacky liked it. It was sitting at the end of one of the supports for a suspension bridge

The grey Danube

And so to Vienna, not by plane or train but by river hydrofoil - something which had always been on my list since accidentally finding out, and being puzzled by, the fact that a boat to Vienna took the same length of time as the train - so either a slow train or a quick boat!!






















Out of Budapest the Danube turned out to be even wider much less 'blue' than the songs would have you believe.

It was also far less inhabited than we had expected with only an occasional village along the whole of its 250 miles.

If the river is large so are the passenger boats (below) Even the Basilica (right) at Esztergom joins in the 'big picture' It's the largest Catholic church in Hungary!!

And you can't leave out these barges - twice the length of a fooball field

Bratislava (right) is capital of Slovakia which for much of the journey was the country on the right or northern bank. Apparently the old city is attractive but this is all we saw of it

The Vienna to Budapest return service heading down stream. The combined speed of the two vessels - 90 mph (135km/h)

The shot (below left) gives a good impression of the size of the locks - 200 metres long and a 55 ft drop - leading to the need for this tricky little gismo (right) a floating capstan.

Alongside a giant Romanian barge (below left) which then exits head of us, (right) its bow already through the exit 200 metres away.














Vienna is now just a few kilometres ahead