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Published: November 15th 2012
Some old (Er) some new
Steve,Nathan,Mike me,Leah,Jo Sharon and Nicky.
5 minutes ago Nathan was just a Baby now he is 21, Leah is 18, where has the time gone.Wallop,
Ok when I mentioned that word at the end of the last blog it’s not what you all might be thinking.
Leaving Fareham in the county of Hampshire, it is again a beautiful hot sunny day we headed back up the M27 and towards The Wallops! For those of you not familiar with this lovely little part of England, we have the lovely villages of Nether Wallop, Middle Wallop and Over Wallop (
http://www.thewallops.net/index.htm) where our friends Mike and Jo live.
Mike and Jo are some of our oldest friends, when we first got together and bought a house that was being built on a new estate and when we moved in the place was still a building site, however not long after that there were signs of new neighbours and some of those new neighbours turned out to be Mike and Jo even when we all moved on, the friendship remained.
I was reflecting on this drive that our time in England was slipping away, it did not feel so long ago that we had first arrived and we had plenty of time ahead of us, now we
How good is this
Every fed us, it was brilliant are on our last week in England and while we are still saying “Hello” to people, it is also time to say “goodbye”. It was so easy at the beginning of the trip and now it is getting harder.
On the drive over to Mike and Jo, I telephoned and gave them our eta, Mike said that they would have lunch ready and waiting, I said ”don’t worry too much about lunch for us, we have eaten way too much on our trip so far” Mike said “don’t worry it will be a buffet style so you will be able to suit yourself.”
In the time since we left England, Mike and Jo have completely rebuilt their house, they had the plans to do this before we left so we were not sure what to expect, but nestled down a country lane their new house stood out magnificently in the top corner of a paddock.
As we drove down the lane and up to the gate we see an additional vehicle in the driveway, both Andy and I guess straight away that they have invited someone else to our reunion, Steve
Steve and Sharon
Our Old neighbours and Sharon who were also our old neighbours from all that time ago, with their now grown up children Nathan and Leah. Nathan had even brought his girlfriend with him, and for a scary moment I remember the night that Steve had started his car up in the wee hours of the morning when Sharon had gone into labour with Nathan. Where did that time go?
Andy also recalls, when Nathan was just a baby, he and Mike used to dip his dummy in Mike’s mums home brew, Andy always said that Mike’s mum’s home brew could have powered the space shuttle, may be that’s why Nathan was never any bother.
We rang the bell and suddenly we were eagerly greeted by what felt like a huge crowd of people, I didn’t know where to start, but what a terrific welcome! I followed Jo into the kitchen and I find that Jo had clearly been very busy in the cooking department (so had Sharon!), a beautiful spread of food awaited us that I can only describe as a perfect display of food waiting for a photo shoot into a cookery book!
Food in the Graden,
See the UK does have good weather, 1 days in a year is not bad All thoughts of not being hungry faded away as my mouth watered at the sight of Jo’s cheese and prosciutto twisties, scotch eggs, pork pie, cheese, pate, salad, chocolate cheesecake and finally Sharon’s famous pavlova (Sharon always used to make a pavlova for our get togethers).
I felt very humbled at the sight of this glorious spread as all we had brought was ourselves. So far this tour has also been all about food, but then food is so sociable and everyone has made so much of a big effort to keep us fed and watered, for which we are truly grateful!
A cup of tea was soon on the go and in no time at all the chatter was in full swing as if we had never left at all, there were a lot of years to catch up on. It was delightful to have proper conversations with Nathan and Leah, they are so well grounded and polite young adults and a real credit to their Mum and dad.
As it was a lovely sunny day, we all sat out in the garden to have our lunch and in the
style of true British weather, no sooner than we had sat outside the wind blew up and as it became very chilly we decamped indoors for our desert. And what a choice of desert it was, between the cheesecake and the pavlova, the only decent thing to do was to have a small portion of both!
We ate, we chatted, drank tea and swapped stories to our hearts content and then eventually (I have no idea what time) the party had to disperse, we said our goodbyes to Steve, Sharon, Nathan Leah and Nicky. Then Mike and Jo gave us a tour of the house and told us stories of the build, the house looked so different to the last time we saw it.
We settled in for the rest of the evening, of course we did not need any dinner, but absolutely had to snack on some of the left over’s from lunch! Both of us exhausted, we retired early and were probably asleep before we got into bed.
The following morning, Andy was his usual spritely self, a cup of tea appeared on the bedside cabinet signalling my arrival
Opp's
Sorry Mike, My fat ass broke the chair into the day. I joined everyone in the kitchen, where we were looking through photographs and decided on what we were doing for the day.
The first item on the agenda was of course to have breakfast, Mike and Jo wanted to take us to a place in Stockbridge that they particularly liked, however, when we got there it was closed, believe it or not they were closed for a week while they refurbished. Disappointed we found somewhere else nearby for breakfast.
It was lovely to drive into Stockbridge though, it is such a beautiful country town, dare I use the word quaint, there was a faint pang of missing lovely places like this.
Settling in to village life Jo decided to take up campanology and found herself ringing the bells for St Andrews Church in Nether Wallop and St Peter’s Church in Middle Wallop, so after our breakfast we headed off to Nether Wallop to see the church and where Jo explained to us how it all worked.
After an exhausting morning of sightseeing we headed back to Mike and Jo’s for a rest, but that did
not last long as we decided to take a walk into the village of Over Wallop down the lanes and across the fields, eventually coming across St Peter’s church where again, Jo showed us “the ropes”.
It was lovely to have a good walk, it was a cool and overcast day and we felt refreshed for the exercise, of course it helped the appetite too! As soon as we were back indoors, Jo got the dinner on and cooked us a delicious roast dinner.
Tuesday morning meant another parting of the ways, Mike and Jo had things to do and we had places to go, so with our little cases packed, we had breakfast, loaded the car and said our goodbyes and drove off down the lane, back toward Southampton for the last time.
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