Johans Diary.

I've been very busy and haven't had time to write to you. Momma and Poppa have been doing a lot of shopping and I don't know how they are going to get it all into our cases. Farfar took us to a shop in the mountains, at Springwood, so that Poppa could buy some fancy boots to take home with us. They went into the shop with one box to change for a bigger size and came out with three boxes!!

A big and important event happened last weekend. It was a party for Momma and Farfar's birthday but I think Farfar is older than Momma. The party was at my Auntie Beckys house which was good cause I could play with my cousins. This is some of what Farfar wrote to his sister, my Great Auntie Joy who lives in a place called America......

'My birthday was a great success. What made it even more special was having Elin, Jim and Johan here and we were a complete family once again, even if only for a short time. Another important milestone was that Elins birthday is the day before mine so yet again another reason to have a joint celebration. As it happens we were both passing big milestones, birthdays with a zero on the end.

I hate fuss and bother and told the family that I hoped they weren’t planning anything out of the ordinary to celebrate my birthday. This was before we knew that Elin and Jim were coming. Becky suggested that we all get together at her house for a BBQ to celebrate the joint event. That sounded great and not too stressful for me. Becky did a great job of organizing everything and everybody. I had a feeling that all was not as it was supposed to be from little snatches of telephone conversations overheard. The day before, Saturday, we swapped Elin, Jim and Johan for Alex so that they could catch up with Becky and Graham, help with the final cleaning up after Beckys move and to get things ready for the BBQ. When Alex was in bed and having a story he said, “Grumpy, do you want to know a secret?”, I said that it wouldn’t be a secret then and he said he couldn’t tell me anyway. This got me worried. I thought that if the family had planned a big surprise for me, I would be having very strong words with Becky as she knows how I feel.

Came the great day, Alex, Di and a very apprehensive me drove across to Beckys for about 12.30. As we drove up the street I was so happy to see that there weren’t strange cars outside the house or in the drive. You have no idea how relieved I felt. Now I could relax and enjoy my family, at a family BBQ. Stopping in the drive we could smell that the BBQ was well and truly lit. We were met at the door by Grahams mother who helped us unload the car and take in, what seemed to be, a lot of bags and dishes. I wondered where Ben was as he is usually the guardian of the front door. Becky said that he, Elin, Jim and Johan were outside helping Graham with the BBQ.

Just about then my world changed dramatically as the rear garage door shot open and all these people yelled Happy Birthday!

I was caught so unawares that I was dumbstruck. There were a lot of friends, their families, old work colleagues and even our next door neighbours. At the end of the day, when they had all left I was still in a state of high emotion. We had a terrific day!!! It was one of those hectic times, trying to eat, drink and catch up with lots of people, some not seen for a few years. I had a great time and take back what ever I was going to say to Becky. I had so not expected anything like this happening that I never considered that it could get any better until someone said it was time for presents. You could have knocked me down with a feather. In all this, no one had forgotten that it was Elins birthday too and she also received gifts. One of my cards was home made and featured lots of old photographs, the front one being of me but everyone thought it was Jim, including Jim.

It was such a busy time and there are so many little things that happened that its hard to remember them all at once, they keep coming to me at odd times.

When the day was nearly over and most people had left we realised that very few photographs had been taken with everyone so busy. A nice group photograph would have been nice but I have the memories to keep me warm and fuzzy.

You can tell he had a great time!! Here's some photographs of the great day.

There were lots of people, some inside and some outside.



Even in this picture there are two cameras but not many photographs were taken.



Here's Momma and Farfar starting to open their card sand presents. Farfar says not to look too close at his card or his bald spot!!




My cousin Ben helping Farfar open cards.



Some were big presents but I wasn't really interest so went off talking with Momma.



I did help to sort out the wrapping paper though!



This is cousin Ben getting ready to help Momma and Farfar to light the candles on the nice cake that Farmor made.



Farfar catching up with his old friend Larry. He was very funny and made us all laugh.



Happy people. Farmor, Auntie Becky and her friends Tanya and Rachael.



Me with Momma and Poppa.



Some of my new friends.





This is a very important photograph!! My Auntie Becky, who is very clever with cameras and computers, sorted out a lot of old family photographs which were showing all day on the big TV. We only noticed this photograph later. Poppa took this photo of me, while Momma and Farfar were watching me, just at that split second when on the screen was a photo of me as a baby with Momma, Mormor and Mormormor. Isn't that magic!!



Another strange thing happened. One of the birthday cards for Farfar had this photograph taken of him on Boxing Day 1989 on the front. Poppa saw it and wondered how someone had got a photo of him!

It really was a wonderful day, even if I didn't get to bed until very late!