You’re not doing very well with your blog, said Second Youngest the other day.

I’m afraid he is right.

Having promised good news… and having written a (fairly gruelling) blog last year when I posted every day without fail… and which I never got near to finishing but I’d completed my contract with myself of a year and a day… and having taken on this blog for fun… (and I confess, sometimes now not finding what I am passionately committed to as much fun as I always have…)

Well, here I am back again anyway.

Having a tea party at 4 o’clock, to celebrate VE Day and all our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents did for us.

And here are my father’s poppies (sorry about the photobombing: occupational hazard of being a Great Dane) which he wore every Remembrance Sunday until the last one… and never will again.

And the only weapon he would agree to bear, his Red Cross arm band… as he served in the Medical Corps.

(One grim night he fully expected to be shot, for refusing to carry more.)

And the only medals he was ever entitled to, for long service… as an oft-shamed and so-brave Conscientious Objector.

So proud of him my heart could burst.

Please join us!