A weekend gadding about

A few weeks ago we had an invitation in the post to a surprise party in Winchester for The Builder's eldest granddaughter, Chloe, who is turning 21.  Naturally we accepted, and I booked us into a pub in Winchester for the night.

The party was this weekend. (Warning, dates on the calendar are much closer than you think!!)

So we took ourselves down to Winchester on Saturday afternoon, ignored all the culture and history on offer and popped, instead, into an O'Neill's Irish pub for a spot of late lunch and a drink. We also popped into Marks and Spencer to grab a bottle of wine for the party - and found as well bottles of Rhubarb and Custard flavoured fizzy drink. We just had to have one of those as well (and found, rather surprisingly given that there appears to be neither rhubarb nor custard in the ingredients, that it was extremely tasty and in fact tasted exactly like rhubarb and custard sweets do!)

Now, the intention had been to stay in central Winchester, walk to the party so that no one had to worry about driving back, then go to the pub after with The Builder's son Ian, and then walk back to the hotel.  Sadly - this is not what actually happened.  For Barb and Greg, who had been intending to drop into Salisbury on their way to Winchester from Warminster and collect The Builder's mother and bring her with them, alas had to cry off because they were both poorly sick.  So we drove from Winchester to Salisbury and collected Gwen and took her to the party - and then, not wishing to make her walk all the way back in the middle of the night, obviously had to take her back home again afterwards.  Under the circumstances it would have been easier to have stayed in Salisbury!!  But the hotel was booked and paid for so couldn't be changed. And if we had changed it we would have missed out on the little treat that was the Westgate Hotel.  It looks ever so slightly seedy, ever so slightly down at heel. But our room was lovely, the welcome was as warm as toast and the breakfast they served on Sunday morning was absolutely delicious.  We will definitely go there again if staying in Winchester! And Gwen had a super time at the party so it was all well worth it.

The party was great fun. Somehow everyone had managed to keep it a secret from Chloe (though I think she was a bit puzzled by the bottles of wine and beer her mother had brought into the house in preparation!) and she truly was surprised when, expecting to be going out to a family dinner, she arrived in the church hall and found all of us there. There were lots of family there and many of her friends. A surprising number of ex and present partners intermingled happily. We played pass the parcel and ate sandwiches and cakes and drank wine (and rhubarb and custard fizz!) and generally had a fabulous time. Then we took Gwen back to Salisbury, returned unto Winchester and The Builder was finally able to have a couple of very well-deserved glasses of wine

Click on the photo to see the party album

Sunday dawned wet and gloomy and miserable. But undeterred, after our magnificent breakfast, we made our way to Docklands in London where we were meeting Freyja for lunch. We went through the wind and the rain from her room on campus to the nearest DLR station and then headed towards Canary Wharf, to the West India Quay, a former riverside warehouse which is now a restaurant and shopping area on the Isle of Dogs. We had a really nice lunch in a Mediterranean style restaurant - and when we had finished the rain had stopped and the sun was making a shy and nervous appearance. So we mooched back to Freyja's place and took a pleasant stroll across the river (via a bridge, of course) to look at a house that she is considering moving into for the summer. She can't come back to Sheffield when the Olympics come to East London (in mid-June, I think - the American team and its attendants will be staying in her block in the halls of residence and obviously need to be in place well before the games start), because she is, of course, taking part herself.  I have to say that the area she is thinking of moving to is really rather nice.  I really, really covet one of the flats by the river which have terrace gardens on long balconies and truly amazing views of the river and the skyline.  Alas - it would be a long and very expensive commute to work so might not be very practical.

Click on Freyja to see the London album

It didn't start raining again, not properly, until we had got home. And then it rained and rained and rained and rained and RAINED!

I was showing Freyja the photos from the party when we were having lunch yesterday and she made the comment that it was a bit weird that I had this whole other family loitering down on the south coast.  I suppose it must be - I hadn't thought about it like that before. But it's true - a whole other family, some of whom she hasn't met. Must be very strange!

Oh. And an update on Stella and her health. She is now better, blood pressure stabilised, out of hospital and gallivanting about with Tony on holiday at the Country Club in Inverloch. It seems it probably wasn't a heart attack but a particularly nasty angina attack - but it was the seriously yo-yoing blood pressure which was causing the cardiologist concern