France

We have recently returned from a trip to France to collect some stuff we had left at a friends house in late 2019, intending to collect it the following Easter Covid got in the way so almost two years later we finally got there. The trip had its ups and downs, It was lovely to see our friends we had made there over the years, although the ones who where storing our stuff were away on holiday until the last week we were there. We visited our french friend and neighbour who lived opposite our old house, who was delighted to see us, we had briefly glanced at our old house and garden and were shocked at its sorry appearance. Cutting a long story short, she told us the new owners were unhappy and claiming that the house was uninhabitable and had been asking for our address and phone details with the view of taking us to court. It all left us a bit upset, having owned the house for 19 years and lived there for over 12 years, it had been a large part of our lives, we put it behind us and moved on in the knowledge that we had handed over a home that was far from perfect, but needed the TLC a 250 year old house deserved.

Arras

On the way home we called in at a small village called Fampoux, close to the town of Arras in northern France. Over lockdown I had done a far bit of research in my family tree. I had discovered my grandmother had eight brothers and a sister, many had died young, two brothers in WW1 within two weeks in August 1917. We found the grave of Peter in one of the six sites in the village. Martin the other brother is buried about 60 km away in Belgium. I was taken aback to discover that buried a few metres from Peter was the grave of his nephew Francis aged 19. I was aware of him in my family tree but had no idea he had been killed in the conflict eight days earlier than his uncle.