On Sunday we were scheduled to drive to Chippenham to George and Christine's place and then we were all going to Abingdon in the one car to neet the rest of the gang for lunch. Getting to Chippenham was easy enough - just a matter of following Walcot Street in the opposite direction to the city onto the A4. Once in Chippenham I did a bit of 'nose following' and lucked out onto the correct road and then it was just a short drive to Christine and George's house. The choice of which weekend to meet up with Christine and Goerge was contingent on a few factors, one of which was that while we were on the first part of journey - I to Russia and then the UK, Pat to the UK - Christine was in Sydney visiting their daughter Caroline who is pregnant with her second child. Christine arrived back in London only on Saturday morning (3rd).
It was good to meet up with them again though we have kept in touch and have met them a couple or so times in Australia. I'd also visited George in 1995 during a company visit to Milton Keynes so I had a good idea of where there house is which helped with the navigation.
We duly set off for Abingdon in Georges comfortable Jaguar. Abingdon had been chosen for lunch as it is where Ed my old boss from Nairobi lives with his wife Pat. Ed was about to have a cataract operation and Pat didn't want him driving long distances. We were also to meet up with others there - Chris and his partner Rosie, and Ian, unfortunately without his wife Jean who had a prior engagement. In no time at all we were at The Four Pillars Motel in Abingdon where Ed had booked lunch. All of the others were already there and it was great to catch up with them all again. I had visited Ed and Pat also back in 1995 on another company trip and again in August this year during a very short visit to London. However, my Pat had not seen them at all in the 30+ years since we left Kenya although she has been diligent in keeping in touch by letter.
By the time we got to the lunch table we were in full swing with the intervening years peeling away. Christine had brought a photograph taken at a Halloween fancy dress party which had been hosted by Jean and Ian back in 1973. We men had been roped into dressing up as the seven dwarfs and there were a couple of dwarfs not present so it was a question of 'do you know who the other dwarfs were?'. To fill out the memory Ian had brought along some red conical hats and name signs so we the five dwarfs present had to be photographed in the hat and with name card - see below.
A man from another table was kind enough to take some photographs for us - five of the seven dwarfs and partners 33 years older.
The hotel waiting staff were very tolerant as were other lunch parties because there was a lot of hilarity going on at our table. Actually one of the other large lunch parties was for a christening and as they were leaving one of the ladies presented us all with a piece of the christening cake.
Having started lunch at about 1:30 it was close to 5pm when we broke up to go our separate ways. We went back to Chippenham with George and Christine. George was trying to point out some of the sights along the way such as Avebury Ring but it was a bit too dark to see anything. We also went through Marlborough where there is famous Public (private) School. George did mention some current celebrity who had gone there but since celebrities don't register on my radar I've forgotten whom he mentioned (sorry George).
After a bit more discussion at Christine and George's place we headed back to Bath to prepare for our onward journey tomorrow - Monday.
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