Afan - Day 8 - The Final Day

It's the final day of our trip and we were all sad, especially Aarshia and Alesha who both wanted to stay for a month! Aaahhhh, to be young and innocent again! Before we packed up, the girls entertained us with a dance.

Then, it was time to pack up and head home…. but not without one final get together in Bath for a Turkish lunch…. which is where is discovered that my camera battery was dead and my camera bag was buried in the boot somewhere! Bath is a lovely place, which we need to revisit properly! After lunch, we stopped off at Marshfield’s Farm, which is a milk farm where they milk their own cows and turn it into amazing ice cream. The ice cream really is delicious. If you go to bath, we highly recommend stopping off there. You can also buy it in some supermarkets, plus in Byfleet village!

A million thanks to Kobir Bhai who took a random idea of a family holiday during a random conversation and made it happen in the best possible way! And a special thank you to Romi for sleeping in the living area for a week (I bet George has fixed that toilet by now!). I can’t believe not a single Bhabi of his volunteered to swap places with him for one night!

I don't really have any particular highlights as such because every day was an amazing highlight. But there were a couple of general things that made my heart sing; the fact that everyone did their part in the house, everyone cooked, and those who couldn't, cleaned, tidied, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher. I loved the fact that wherever we were we all looked after all the kids like we would our own. When some people went off on a hike, sat down for a chat, went zip lining, biking, water-fights in the river, no one ever needed to worry about their child for a second.

Dear Bhai, BhabiJaan, Lipa, Eman, Lisa, Khaja, Nishita, Romi, Tarek, Sabera, Taman, Shamima, Umar, Aaryan, Yusuf, Farhan, Aamirah, Aarshia, Alveena, Alesha and Aafraz and Aydin; I hope that like me, you all add an amazing time and enjoyed all the activities we did. I hope that you found physical and mental strength within you that you didn't know you had. I hope that this week has left you with memories that will last a lifetime and with stories that we will re-tell each other at our gatherings for years to come. I hope that this week made us a stronger, closer and happier family. I hope these photos helped to bring back happy memories. And finally, I hope that we do this again soon, InshaAllah.

Today’s photos can be downloaded from HERE.

And finally, a slideshow of the highlights. There was only one song I could use as it was sung constantly by Aarshia and Bhai!