Dad would have been 99 today. He passed away suddenly and painlessly in 2014 at the age of 86. A life lived to the full – from poverty to comfort with adventure and love along the way. The more I think about his life the more I admire him. I just wish I could tell him.

There are hundreds of photos and more in the book. Too many for one post.

Dad shared his birthday date with a beloved cousin of mum. She is 80 today and I was her bridesmaid many moons ago. Happy birthday dear cousin.

Remembering a complicated and wonderful father, grandfather and great-grandfather. You are always in my thoughts. I am trying to follow your example of making the most of every Gd-gifted day.

Willow is the boss and pushes the young’uns out of her way to get to the forage first.

The wild ducks on the goose pond are a source of great delight to me. They could have settled anywhere but they seem to have made this their home.

Marking the end of the fighting in World War I

The agreement between Germany and the Allied Powers was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of November 1918

Here’s a brooch I wear every Remembrance Sunday(I wore it this year at our Remembrance service in the village).

My paternal grandfather, grandpa Sam survived the infamous Battle of the Somme. A terrible ordeal resulting in over one million casualties.

I don’t think that our family or the country adequately acknowledged the sacrifices and trauma that all those soldiers suffered and endured in their nightmares for the rest of their lives.

I’ve written before about one of the fallen – a sheep farmer’s son from New Zealand, a boy who met my grandma Kate (who later became Sam’s second wife) when he was passing through London on his way to fight in France. Here are the three postcards – hand-embroidered silk postcards, that he sent Kate from “somewhere in France”.

That lad, thousands of miles from home, never returned from the blood stained, muddy fields of battle. I remember him too and grieve for his family who lost a precious son. Would my grandma have gone to live with him in New Zealand had he survived? Who knows but that chance was cut off and Kate and Sam survived into old age in an ill-tempered marriage that produced their only child, my father. Which is why I am able to write this Armistice Remembrance message today.

Rest in peace. We will not forget.

And spot the woodpecker that swooped in to see if there were any peanuts (they’d’ all gone). We need to buy another bag. We may have to crowd-fund for sunflower hearts and peanuts for the birds!!!

Hooray for the woodburner and the cats and the company of goats and sheep.

The town of St Neots has, for the past ten days, been decorated with wreaths and hangings of knotted red poppies. Each wreath featured a white poppy to commemorate all victims of war including conscientious objectors.

This morning we held our annual service of remembrance in the Colmworth country park next to the silhouette of the unknown soldier

As always, I thought of my grandpa Sam who signed up early in the first world war and remarkably survived the Battle of the Somme when it is thought one million combatants died. His brother also survived and returned uninjured from the so-called Great War.

Today, in Ukraine, trench warfare has returned and soldiers and civilians die in their hundreds of thousands.

Wars continue to be fought in the Middle East, in Sudan and elsewhere. Many conflicts abate without resolution – their embers ready to reignite at any time.

It seems as though we human beings have never learnt the lessons of history and are therefore doomed to repeat them.

Thanks to our wonderful friends and neighbours for their generous hospitality 🎆