Author: Marion Fuller-Sessions

Retired and downsized, and sadly now widowed, but keeping in touch with family and friends and friends far and wide via my blog

Crowns, Weddings and Walls! What a year…

What a year indeed…

Sam and NickIn January Nick and Sam announced their engagement, in April we finally bought and moved into Crown Cottage.

In May the Problem of the Wall – about which more another day – reared its unwelcome head, so one way and another, we have spent many months unravelling, decluttering, downsizing… Continue reading Crowns, Weddings and Walls! What a year…

Confessions…

Still thinking about our schooldays…

‘After all, we’re raising you as future leaders of our country’ our nuns used to tell us, more than somewhat threateningly, when they felt the need to justify some harsh but apparently entirely necessary ruling.

So much for training up the country’s leaders, more frequently Continue reading Confessions…

Excellent Women?

So dreadful has been the news recently that, since lying awake nearly all night on November 8th listening to the news as the horror unfolded, I have hidden happily away from current affairs as best I can, absorbed in another, safer, world of books.

Excellent WomenI have been reading – with great enjoyment – two very peaceful and charming books, as far removed from Trump (and even Brexit) as is remotely possible: ‘Excellent Women’ by Barbara Pym, and ‘Terms and Conditions’ by Ysenda Maxtone Graham. Continue reading Excellent Women?

The Nutcracker

And quickie news catch-up

I am sure you probably all know that the Royal Ballet is producing the Nutcracker at Christmas. This is just a hasty note to let you all know that Nick has just told us that if you are interested and likely to be near a computer this evening, October 27th 2016,  The Nutcracker rehearsal is being streamed live on YouTube, apparently starting at 7.20. Sam our soon-to-be daughter-in-law will be appearing, although I am not quite sure when, rehearsing her lot (the corps de ballet). Nick most certainly will not be seen on the screen, although you can see them both here.

It is also by way of an apology/explanation for another long silence. There have been serious problems with the blog which we think and hope our good friend and web guru, Jeremy Brough, has now sorted out. It was all to do with backups, backs up backing up back ups and so on, making our web hosts annoyed and rather demanding, and perhaps more importantly, seriously slowing everything down.

And the grandmother mother of the bridegroom thinks she has found a dress. Having struggled as many of you know, trawling through acts of matronly dresses modelled by preteens with hollow cheeks and trout lips I have actually chosen one that could be thought mutton dressed as lamb, notably because it is on the short side. And in the shop it was just hanging on an ageless rail, not defined by anyone young or old.

Nick and Sam Sept. 2015
Nick (not a ballet dancer) and Sam who most certainly is

The other problem is that although the front is multi-coloured, from behind it is all black. I certainly don’t want anyone reading anything into that. We are so happy about getting Sam and Nick getting wed. However, I am assured that short is okay, and that black is the new wedding white, or something like that. Let’s hope it will pass muster. It’s beautifully comfy and  unrevealing so that is all to the good.

Meanwhile, happy watching tonight!

Letters from the Front

Uncle Bobby WW1 1918
Bobby, aged 20, a year later

Nearly 100 years ago, aged just 19, my father’s eldest brother, Lionel Reid Hall – Bobby to his family and friends, Uncle Bobby to my sister, brother and me, Grandpa/Grandpop to the Jacksons, Whitlocks and Constantines – was posted to France on 25th February 1917.

Cold, wet, and at first often bored, and missing his family and many friends, he wrote regularly and reassuringly from the trenches to his loving and obviously anxious family living in Lichfield. Continue reading Letters from the Front