VE Day

 The 8th of May 1945 was named 'Victory in Europe Day', and this is an actual copy of the Illustrated News magazine that came out the following week, showing amazing pictures of the celebrations that took place on that momentous day.

The 8th of May 1945 was also the day that my Mum was born!

So today we have been celebrating her 75th birthday, not quite in the way we had envisaged with family and friends gathered round, and lots of street parties going on all over the country, the coronavirus has put paid to that. But nevertheless a very special day just for the two of us!

We made a fresh strawberry gateau with clotted cream on top (naughty, but oh so nice)

Thank you Mum, you're the best!

It has been very poignant and thought-provoking over the last few days to watch programmes on the tele with people describing what it was like to live through the war, and then the relief and jubilation of knowing that it had all come to an end on VE day. What we owe to those heroic men and women who experienced it first hand cannot be expressed adequately in words. There is a resonance too with what we are going through at the moment with the Coronavirus epidemic, with everyone pulling together to combat a very different, invisible enemy.

The song 'We'll meet again' has taken on a new meaning for us all.

'We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day'

xxx