Apologies for unusually long gap between posts but we’ve been busy boys these past few weeks. Picking up where Will left off, we didn’t end up going out in Brantôme on Mimi’s last night. Our village is up a small hill and earlier in the day, we saw a couple of abandoned cars that had become stuck on the icy road, so we thought better of taking the car out again. Sunday morning, we began our trip to England by dropping off Mimi at the train station in Angoulême. We took the ferry from Caen, in Normandie, to Portsmouth, which meant a 7 hour drive through the French countryside. It wasn’t a terribly exciting drive but we did have a lovely meal in Caen (pizza) before getting the ferry. Many port towns don’t have much to recommend themselves, so we were pleasantly surprised to find Caen very charming with two lovely cathedrals and a medieval castle, as well as a nice pedestrian area that had a Christmas fair on. It was a night crossing so after hitting the bar, we caught a few hours sleep and woke less than refreshed for the second part of our journey.
Arriving back in the UK was quite a shock due to the rain and darkness but mostly because of all the traffic on the motorway – even at 6:45 am. We first headed up to Reading to pay a visit to Mary Carol, David and Alice who moved there from London at the beginning of December. They’re now settled in and we were happy to learn that Mary Carol just found a job after many months of looking. We had breakfast in town at the Giraffe, which was a nice treat, and then headed into London. Even though we managed to avoid rush hour, it still took 2.5 hours to make our way to our old neighbourhood on the east side of town. We stopped off along the way to visit Mr Green and restock on supplies that we had managed to deplete while in France. We stayed with our former next-door neighbour Iain, who was kind enough to let us use his spare room.
He made us lunch and then Will somehow persuaded me that the best thing to do on a snowy afternoon before xmas was to venture into the City to run some errands. We caught the bus into town, got haircuts and hit a few shops, all in under an hour. It was then, however, that the sleet that had been falling all afternoon turned into big fat flakes of snow, which proceeded to bring traffic to a standstill. We got on a bus with no problem, but were forced to hop off early and walk the remainder of the way. That evening, we were meant to go out for a meal with Steve and Ian, our former landlords, who were in town from Moscow, but that was cancelled due to the snow. So instead we all hung out at Iain’s along with Fabian, Ludwig and his cousin Annabelle. We had planned to have French food, so I wasn’t at all unhappy when our back-up plan turned out to be Chinese take-away from our former local down the road. It also allowed me to say goodbye to the proprietor who was wondering why she hadn’t heard from me for the past few months.
The next day I met up for lunch with Louis, my former boss from Dresdner and Monim, one of the guys who used to be on my team. We met in Canary Wharf where Monim is working at the moment, so I got to experience the mayhem of lunchtime xmas shopping and lots of bankers in suits. I have to say it made me happy that I wasn’t one of them. Louis just got back from 7 weeks in the States so it was great to hear about his travels. From there I made my way to Streatham to see Cyril, Catherine and their two kids for dinner. I had a lovely evening with them as usual and am glad we had a chance to get caught up.
Will spent the evening drinking with some former coworkers so I found him a little worse for wear when I arrived back at Iain’s. The next day, we were meant to go out in Soho with a few people but that ended up being cancelled so we decided to head to Olney a day early. Apparently, the rest of London had a similar idea so it took us 2.5 hours to make a trip that usually takes half as long. That was on the 23rd, which is the anniversary of Will’s granddad’s death, so his parents had the rest of the family over for dinner that night. We had a nice time visiting with everyone but it was a bit of a long evening since we were both a bit tired from the previous night and the journey.
One of the reasons we were looking forward to being in the UK was to buy a few items which they don’t seem to sell in France. Well, I guess it’s possible that they do sell them here but to date, we hadn’t had any luck finding them. For example, we wanted a cheese dish to store/serve cheese and we were surprised that we hadn’t found one anywhere, this being the land of cheese. Anyway, we figured everything on our list would be available at John Lewis (department store) so, insane as it sounds, we decided to go there on xmas eve. Not only did they have everything, it wasn’t very crowded and there were so many sales people with nothing to do that we found everything in record time. We then met Anna at a pub in her home town for lunch, where we had a few beers and then went back to her place for a bit.
We spent xmas eve at Will’s parents’ where we had an Indian take-away, which was excellent as usual and even more enjoyable since it’s now such a rare treat. Christmas Day was spent in the usual way with champagne and smoked salmon for breakfast, followed by the opening of presents and then the xmas lunch. Anne and Andrew always make a great feast but this year it was exceptional; every dish was just perfect. We spent the rest of the day drinking and playing games and went to bed on the early side. On Boxing Day, we went to Dave and Rosie’s place for a drink before going to the pub for a few more as is traditional. Then it was home for bubble and squeak made from the leftovers and that too was tres delicieux.
We headed back to London on the morning of the 27th, which was thankfully uneventful. After stopping off at Iain’s, we went out to meet Zoe, a former coworker of Will’s, for lunch in Islington. That evening, we went out with Gavin for a few drinks in Rupert Street before having pizza, followed by a night cap at Compton’s. The next day, we got up, packed and loaded the car and then headed to Islington to further load the car with foodstuffs which are unavailable (or really expensive) in France. Our ferry didn’t leave until the evening so we headed down to Greenwich to Gavin’s to spend some more time with him before heading off.
We had a nice stroll through Greenwich park before having sushi for lunch. Will isn’t a big fan of fish (to put it mildly) so thanks to my Sweetie for being a good sport and indulging my craving. After chilling out at Gavin’s, we left London and made our way to Portsmouth to catch the ferry. Thankfully, there was little or no traffic in London so we made great time. The return crossing was spent in much the same way as the first with a few drinks before bed and then a rude awakening around 6 am. Then we had a 7.5 hour drive back across France with just one stop, for lunch. We had the foresight to compile a shopping list before we left so we stopped at the supermarket on the way back to ours and just managed to find room in the car to put the shopping. Now it’s over to Will to fill you in on the goings on since then….