After the trials and travails of fine wine and heaps of degustation it was off to the UK to catch up with me mates, or some of them at least, me Mam and a few remaining relos. And the latter was most unexpected but more of that later.
Hol and meself flew the old budget airline to Stansted and we were decidedly hungry, so the plan was to find a decent place to mung and it was surprisingly difficult. To add to the problem Hol was meeting up with her sister in London for a few days before flying back home a few days before me.
That’s how we somehow found ourselves in Chelmsford for a magnificent pub meal before I wandered off to sunny Aylesbury and Hol shot off to London courtesy of the railway system. My mother is quite remarkable really, she has just turned 90 and she still keeps the house clean and tidy and she looks incredibly fit for an old girl. She is getting forgetful though as she forgot I was coming but she hid it very well. So after a few days of repeating myself I escaped to the countryside in Ipswich. It seems to becoming an annual thing this meeting up of old friends and again thanks to Sarah for pulling it all together and getting the motley crew together at her local. I feel rather sad that so many village pubs are closing though full credit to Washbrook villagers in that they saved the Brook by buying it. I can safely say that a good time was had by me and I hope the rest of them as well, it certainly looks as if they did. A real bonus was meeting up with my old mate Colin who used to be my immediate boss for years at Chantry High School. Again another really nice pub meal, goes without saying really.
We also met up with Andy who did his PhD adjacent to Hol in Creswick, funnily enough he lives in the same village as my Mum grew up in. Hol came up from London, Andy from Oxford and me from Aylesbury what a cosmopolitan lot we are. And of course we went to a pub for lunch and it was sensational. Well I remember it as sensational perhaps I was just getting over sandwiches every meal at me mums
It seemed that I was doomed to miss out on catching up with the nephews, but good old Barry and Pauline, his missus had the ideal solution. It appears that Pauline had bought four tickets at an auction for the Rugby League Cup Final at Wembley and Barry wondered if I was interested. Silly question. So the Saturday before leaving for home saw me catching a train to London and after faffing around trying find a pub with the aforementioned nephews firmly ensconced I succeeded in finding them. By this time I was several pints behind and I was doomed not to catch up with them. Now this threw up an anomaly, imagine a pub in an area that was simply heaving with people on a hot sunny day and they are 90% rugby fans who may enjoy imbibing an alcoholic beverage or fifteen. If you owned that pub would you open up for the heaving masses or would you stick with a rigid opening time. Unless there are mitigating circumstances, I know that there are pubs in Ipswich that have restricted opening because they are built on religious turf or something like that. But really you would think they would apply for a special license well the pub we were going to adjourn too remained firmly closed.
And so I caught the plane back to gods own country and surprise surprise on the third leg I had a whole row of seats to myself, just like business class.
Hol and meself flew the old budget airline to Stansted and we were decidedly hungry, so the plan was to find a decent place to mung and it was surprisingly difficult. To add to the problem Hol was meeting up with her sister in London for a few days before flying back home a few days before me.
That’s how we somehow found ourselves in Chelmsford for a magnificent pub meal before I wandered off to sunny Aylesbury and Hol shot off to London courtesy of the railway system. My mother is quite remarkable really, she has just turned 90 and she still keeps the house clean and tidy and she looks incredibly fit for an old girl. She is getting forgetful though as she forgot I was coming but she hid it very well. So after a few days of repeating myself I escaped to the countryside in Ipswich. It seems to becoming an annual thing this meeting up of old friends and again thanks to Sarah for pulling it all together and getting the motley crew together at her local. I feel rather sad that so many village pubs are closing though full credit to Washbrook villagers in that they saved the Brook by buying it. I can safely say that a good time was had by me and I hope the rest of them as well, it certainly looks as if they did. A real bonus was meeting up with my old mate Colin who used to be my immediate boss for years at Chantry High School. Again another really nice pub meal, goes without saying really.
We also met up with Andy who did his PhD adjacent to Hol in Creswick, funnily enough he lives in the same village as my Mum grew up in. Hol came up from London, Andy from Oxford and me from Aylesbury what a cosmopolitan lot we are. And of course we went to a pub for lunch and it was sensational. Well I remember it as sensational perhaps I was just getting over sandwiches every meal at me mums
It seemed that I was doomed to miss out on catching up with the nephews, but good old Barry and Pauline, his missus had the ideal solution. It appears that Pauline had bought four tickets at an auction for the Rugby League Cup Final at Wembley and Barry wondered if I was interested. Silly question. So the Saturday before leaving for home saw me catching a train to London and after faffing around trying find a pub with the aforementioned nephews firmly ensconced I succeeded in finding them. By this time I was several pints behind and I was doomed not to catch up with them. Now this threw up an anomaly, imagine a pub in an area that was simply heaving with people on a hot sunny day and they are 90% rugby fans who may enjoy imbibing an alcoholic beverage or fifteen. If you owned that pub would you open up for the heaving masses or would you stick with a rigid opening time. Unless there are mitigating circumstances, I know that there are pubs in Ipswich that have restricted opening because they are built on religious turf or something like that. But really you would think they would apply for a special license well the pub we were going to adjourn too remained firmly closed.
And so I caught the plane back to gods own country and surprise surprise on the third leg I had a whole row of seats to myself, just like business class.