Saying goodbye to England: Weddings and kitchen raids

Our last dash to the UK was a little hectic. The prime reason to be there was Katy’s 40th and Ed & Emma’s wedding, both in Southwold, Suffolk. We also had to pick up a bunch of stuff from various places around England and get it to our removers in Swindon, whose 5th job for us was to ship some of the furniture I had inherited from Mum back to Oz, so we decided to put some of the stuff we weren’t in a hurry for in there too (if you ever need a remover in the Wiltshire area, you can’t go wrong with Kingsley and the team at New Horizons).

We spent the first night with Mel in London (after dashing around town trying to get cameras repaired and finding shoes and hats for the wedding), enjoyed a great curry, some lovely Guinness in a proper boozer on a long spring evening (it made me rather nostalgic about London), then did some ridiculous dancing back at Mels.

London

Then it was off to Southwold. I didn’t know the area, largely because it’s friggin hard to get to. Our first stop was Ipswich to pick up my morning suit and that’s a town that doesn’t make you want to hang around. As it was a hot day, shirts appeared optional and the shirtless option is invariably taken by those who really should stay covered. There was also a group of about 15 old people standing around the car park ticket machine, getting militant about the new machines that required them to punch in their cars registration numbers first. Those that could read the instructions couldn’t remember the numbers, and those who got that far couldn’t see the letters and numbers on the keys. It was carnage. Those in the queue entertained each other with car park ticket related stories, like the time Mabel went to the hospital for a 4 hour appointment, but it only took one hour……and she’d already payed for 4 hours parking. Fascinating……. It was an interesting way for me to spend 15 minutes of my finite life….

Getting closer to Southwold, we could why people love it, and when I went on a run the next day beside canals, through fishing villages and along the the Southwold promenade, I had my love for the English countryside reinforced.

It was great catching up with the family for Katy’s birthday on night one. Besides Nic, Jodie and I, it was exclusively Lewis and Caths immediate family so we felt very privileged to be invited. It could only have been better if Katy was there too!! That’s right; a very ill husband and a very young child was a combination not compatible with a flight from their home in Milan. Lets hope we can do something before her 50th.

The wedding the following day was pretty much the perfect English wedding. It had all the right ingredients; a beautiful church, a sunny day, a reception in a converted barn set in English farmland, great food and booze, superb speeches (the Best Man really, really nailed it), some great bad dancing but most importantly a bride and groom who clearly loved each other, were best of friends and had lovely friends.

It was great to see John, Pauline, Caroline and the extended family and it was also the first family gathering I had been too without Mum. As she was a big character there was something missing. The slight tension between J and Mum, and constant trips to the bar to ensure Mum was topped up was also missing but I think we would have all preferred to have her celebrating with everyone else.

J ensured that the evening ended in style. On return to the hotel, feeling a bit peckish, she and Nic mounted a restaurant raid, figuring that cereals and stuff maybe left out overnight. The good news is that she was right. The bad news was that the doors were alarmed..... Think wailing noise, owner having to come out and me coming downstairs to see the staff checking the CCTV. J fessed up and they had a reasonable sense of humour about it. It reminded me of kitchen raids in Officers Messes we used to mount as drunken, young, hungry officers.......... Quote from a chef, shouted in the kitchen ‘And the fuckers have nicked all the bacon as well!’.

The wedding and Southwold

From Southwold we made a dash across to Bristol for a night with Guy and Lou. Guy had been a little unwell and a little grumpy at the Tower, so I was determined to see if the grumpiness was related to the illness or a new permanent state. Fortunately it was the former. It was lovely to see them both, Georgina and the Rampe, pride and joy; the garden.

Then a final night in the UK with Nik and Jacqui in Netheravon. Tom and Fiona also came over and we had a pleasant evening BBQ (and it stayed warm and sunny), chatting, drinking and having an occasional jump on a trampoline. There, I ‘enjoyed’ my last run in the UK. Netheravon is on the edge of the huge military training area of Salisbury Plain, a place I know well. It’s a bit of a obstacle for most people as live firing and fast moving armoured vehicles provide plenty of hazards so often you can’t use the roads on the edge of it. To cut a long story short, at the 10km point with two to go, I found myself blocked by red range flags and two choices; another 10km running or asking Jacqui to come and pick me up………. Thank you Jacqui.

After a nip into the storage centre in Swindon, we hit Gatwick and on to the African stage of our adventure with a flight to Kigali in Rwanda on Rwandair.

Netheravon