Cousinly

We had a gathering of cousins today. I picked up Cousin One at her place and we drove to Gormanston to meet Cousin Two and visit Cousin Three who's resident in a nursing home there. It was Cousin Two's idea that we visit together, since Cousin Three has fairly advanced dementia and it's very stressful to visit him alone. We spent an hour there, trying our best, but unsuccessfully,  to get Cousin Three's attention or even a glimmer of recognition.

After our visit, Cousin Two led the way to his house in Carlingford (county Louth) where we met Cousin Four and had a wonderful barbecue lunch together. The house is spectacularly situated on a height overlooking Carlingford Lough. It was the perfect place to be on a glorious day like today, and especially welcome after our nursing home visit. We spent a leisurely time together, relaxing and reminiscing together. A cousinly convocation such as this is a very rare thing in our family (normally occurring these days when there's a funeral to attend), so today was rather special.