Last night's storm with its rain and great gusty winds has moved on;  the sky is clearing in the west and the air is still, so early in the morning.  I take my coffee on to the deck and the fragrance of the apple blossoms  is sweet and faint from the orchard.  They are out in full bloom this morning to celebrate the day of anniversary, - sixty-six years since we 'pledged our troth'.   Young and eager and as fresh as the apple blossoms that proclaimed the day in the wartime song, our song,  - 'I'll be with you in apple blossom time.....'

Just days before Charles had sailed into New York Harbour to bands and balloons and streamers, returning from Europe.  It was a bittersweet homecoming as he left his two brothers buried in France and Holland, and it would be fifty years before we returned to bring plaques, embedded with stone from the hills of home, to their graves.


Occasionally the old ardour surfaces;  occasionally life is a little tempestuous;  but on the whole we have settled quite nicely into being ancient and nostalgic; filled with memories and gratitude for a life well lived, a love well preserved, and a family well loved.