Time-consuming but fun

Here’s the second photo-montage – also of our home in Arabella Street, Roath, in Cardiff in 1984 – 88.  It is quite time-consuming tidying up these montages now that I have them in digital form – but a lot of fun.  I was a bit shocked to see how ill my mother looked at that time.  This would have been around 6 years after my dad died and the strain of that time shows on her face.  Her health was one of the reasons we decided to all buy a house together in 1988.  This turned out to not be such a good idea from some perspectives, but it did give Mum a few years of less worry and I was able to help her improve her health.  That part must have worked out at least as she is now 97!
The cake I am cutting is I believe the top tier of our wedding cake which would place that part of the montage in 1987.  We saved the top tier for the year of the birth of our first child.  The man sitting at the table with me was our neighbour, Chris Barr.  He was a thoroughly decent person and sadly died of a heart attack not many years later.  The chap on the left was a work colleague of ’ö-Dzin’s who we have unfortunately lost touch with.  The little lad is my nephew James, who now has a son of his own.