Goodbye Betty

So we got some sad news at the beginning of June. Matt's Godmother, Betty, on the Isle of Man had passed away peacefully in hospital.  She had had an operation, she came round from it and was happily chatting away, but passed away that night.

Port Erin sunset

We will always look back on our time at the Isle of Man in 2007 with fondness.  I went mainly to appease Matt, not really expecting to enjoy it that much, especially as we were staying with his elderly relatives, but Geoff and Betty couldn't have been any more warm and welcoming if they tried and the races were fab, especially because the weather was very good to us.

Calf Sound

Basically Betty was a very lovely lady, very welcoming and wanted us to be relaxed and feel at home in her house.  Geoff is a grumpy old man, but with a wicked sense of humour.  Both of them like a tipple: Matt and Geoff finished 2 bottles of whisky and Betty and I drank our way through all the gin in the house and then moved on to the Cointreau.  We had trouble keeping up with them and had a hangover pretty much every morning!

It was a good holiday.  Matt was quite upset to hear of Betty's passing and wanted to pay his respects to her, so we quickly put things in place so we could pop across to the island to say goodbye.  Tom spent Sunday with Grannie and Grandpa and took him to school on Monday morning and then he spent Monday afternoon and night with the Holmans on the campsite so he was more than happy.

Big fat seal

We got the lunchtime sailing from Heysham to Douglas on the Sunday and came back on the evening sailing on Monday - so a very quick visit.  We were blessed, once again with amazing weather - bright sunshine, very very hot so once again the island looked amazing.  The crossing was uneventful, we drove straight across the island to Port Erin where we checked straight into our AirBnB room in a house.  This was a slightly weird set up - we literally were renting a room in a house. We had to use the family bathroom across the landing.  All drawers and wardrobe were full of clothes  and items, there were no hot drink making facilities.  However, it was just round the corner from Geoff's house so it was ideal, and it was literally just a place to put our heads down for the night.

After some polite conversation with the owners of the house, we headed to Geoff's house to meet up with Kathy, Paul and some family.  Geoff was exactly the same as we remembered, maybe a bit thinner, but he was in good humour, his hospitality was the same (big measures of whisky for Matt - I wasn't drinking as I was driving!) I finally got to meet Kathy's daughter, Sam and her partner Russ and a number of Aunties and Uncles.  We went down to the pub for a couple of drinks (this family can ALL drink!).  I ended up buying a mini bottle of wine from the bar and took it back to our bedroom and drank it in bed.  Now, the problem with sleeping in someone else's house: you've been drinking in the evening, so need the loo in the middle of the night.  Do you flush or don't you?  At home we don't flush.  Always a problem, it's OK if it is family, but when we got back to the house, there was no-one around to ask.  Just walking to the bathroom was noisy enough, with creaking doors, locks that were stiff etc.   I tried not to go to the loo, but of course the more you think about it the more you need to do it!  We decided to flush in the end, I wonder if we woke them all?

Snaefell Mountain Railway

The next morning we got up and chatted to our hosts - they had breakfast for us - every type of cereal you could imagine - shame neither of us like cereal!  They didn't have any bread, but found us some sandwich rolls in the end.  We then asked for an iron and ironed our funeral outfits.  Then we were hanging around for a while.  As it was such a gorgeous day we decided to cut our losses and went and did a little sight seeing.  We drove down to the Calf of Mann, as it wasn't that far to go and it was somewhere that Betty introduced us to.  It was beautiful, we saw plenty of seals, and it was so clear, that we could see the mountains of Northern Ireland.  We then headed back to Port Erin and took our places at the back of the church.

Our vessel - the Ben-my-Chree

Tell you what it was the most well attended funeral I have ever been too - it was standing room only in the church and it wasn't a small church!  Kathy and Steven spoke very well about Betty and brought her to life in the room.  There was a good atmosphere and a lot of love.  We then went to the graveyard to say our goodbyes and then back to Port Erin for the reception.  We met some more family (including Amy and Patrick - Steven's children who we met 10 years ago when they were 10 and 15 - so they are quite different now).  When the room emptied, we took Kathy back to Geoff's house and then made our excuses so we could get in a quick TT lap of the island in - was a fantastic day to do it - it was still gorgeously sunny and clear and hot!  Can't say I managed to go at the same speed as the TT bikes, but that meant we were able to see the island properly.  We stopped off at Bungalow and were lucky to see the old train trundle down from Snaefell.

Then down to Douglas and past the finishing line.  We parked along the prom and walked down to a cafe to have the biggest ice cream I have ever had in my life - very lovely it was too.  We found one shop that was open, so we bought Tom a T-shirt and then we then checked into the Ferry Terminal.

We had a very pleasant trip back to Heysham, we were in the Premier Lounge and enjoyed free drinks, snacks, a nice quiet atmosphere and the best view on the boat.

We got home around 1am.  It was a very quick trip to the island - we will be back!