Time flies when you’re having fun, so the decision to be made was how were we going to celebrate our Golden Wedding Anniversary on the 5th of September?? An exotic cruise,  bungee jumping or maybe sky diving ???
No, we headed back to where it all began to celebrate with ‘old’ friends on the Island of Jersey where we met and married. We even returned to the same restaurant that we partied at that weekend 50 years ago.
It was just one big nostalgia trip both for us and those friends that were still around and made it to the Old Court House. We raised glasses to both our sets of parents Norma and Pete, Maggie and Tuffy who weren’t as fortunate as us to make it to this milestone anniversary and then we all ate and drank probably just a bit too much!

Staying with very special old friends for a full fortnight gave us every opportunity to act the tourist and sightsee with a mate who travelled all the way from Oz to be back on the Islands.
Photos below show just how beautiful the Channel Islands are as we visited castles, beaches, historic farms and fabulous restaurants on Jersey before heading to Guernsey for a few days and onward by ferry to enjoy day trips to the smaller islands of Sark and Herm.

View from Elizabeth Castle which dates back to the 16th Century, where King Charles 11 took refuge during the English Civil War and when Sir Walter Raleigh was Governor of Jersey.

Cannon firing re-enactment which takes place daily. The highly informative and amusing ‘soldier’ on hearing we had just celebrated our anniversary gave us a One Gun Salute to the amusement of the gathered crowd 😂

Another visit was to Hamptonne Farm a 15th century Jersey farmhouse housing a Country Life Museum.

The old cider press an essential part of Jersey’s farming tradition.

A worthwhile visit where we learnt about Jersey rural life over the centuries.

A rather overcast day in front of St Aubins Fort, but who cares when your hosts have prepared these beauties for dinner !

And so we took to the seas with a trip to neighbouring Guernsey for a few days, again catching up with ‘old’ friends before heading over to Herm and Sark on the local ferries. Both days the sun shone and the sea was like a millpond – how lucky were we!!

Herm is an island of approximately 60 residents and measures 1.5 miles long by less than half a mile wide and is somewhat hilly when all you can do is walk around it, no vehicles allowed other than a tractor as a fire engine and some quad bikes to transport visitor luggage.

The way to get around Sark is by horse and cart and as many people now know is where the legendary dressage rider Carl Hester grew up and as a young lad used to drive the visitors around the island.

The Island letter box painted gold in honour of Carl’s Olympic gold medals 😂

And here are more scenes around the Islands.

It seems that due to the lack of light pollution on Sark it’s a great place to star gaze.

And so we headed back after our very first (but possibly not last) visit to Sark.

The Channel Islands some changed, some never likely to change 💕