The Calm Before The Storm (Part II) - July 24th - August 2006
Well, good news for Kamay, no more training for me for the next year or so - so that means no more getting up at ridiculous times in the morning to ride the bike, or disappearing in the evenings and never being around at lunch times - I give her a month before she's bored with me being around. Good news for me too, after TLD I was bloody knackered and looking forward to a month at home seeing family and friends.
The day after TLD my parents were visiting my Nan in Bristol, so we drove over to see them and on the way back called into Cribbs Causeway to catch up with Rod, Kate and little Harry. The last time we'd seen them was at Adam & Helen's wedding, so Harry had grown loads, as had Kate. She was now 8 months pregnant with their second.
The trip to see my Nan was a little bit daunting, it was the first time that Kamay had seen her since our wedding, and since my Nan's operation to remove her cataract. You see, up until very recently, with the cataract and the degenerative macular disease, she's been as good as blind. So on my last trip to see her when she told me that all of that inter-racial marriages were causing a problem in the UK, I was a little bit worried that she'd never really seen Kamay. Luckily the meeting went well, she didn't look shocked and was obviously just talking about the black/white marriages, which of course are wrong (!?!? - she's 90, so I'm sure that in her day it was ok to think this).
We spent the rest of that first week in Swindon. The main highlights being meeting up with Sophie and her new fella Luic and a trip to South Cerney with K's mum, sister in law Ewa and niece Sophie. Basically South Cerney is a lake 10km from Swindon with some fields around it to play in and it's all very child friendly, so Sophie could play and us adults could sleep, relax. Best of all though is that there is a trail all around the lake and a place to hire bikes, including a tandem!!! After a bit of gentle persuasion I agreed to K's request to ride one with her. It was ace!! I'd never ridden one before, but it was actually pretty easy, although I'm not sure I'd fancy commuting across London at rush hour with one.
Our second weekend was spent in London where we had Dim Sum in Bayswater with the West Hampstead crowd of Dina, Sophie and Fiona, along with their partners, friends and parents!! It was Sophie's dad's birthday so he came along with the wife.
After Dim Sum, Kamay sat in the park with the girls talking about make up, fashion, ponies etc. while I went to Ealing Jazz Festival to see Nicholas' band. I missed their set, but spent a nice afternoon and evening with him, his friends and new girlfriend Alexandra.
Next up on our list for London was shopping. Although we (well Kamay) went in search of some proper retail therapy after nearly 2 years in the clothes desert of Bermuda, the only thing that we bought was travel paraphanalia - shoes, coats etc. The highlight though was complaining about some particularly tardy service in one of the camping shops and getting a 10% discount, what a result. After that we considered making up complaints in every other shop. The highlight for Kamay was satisfying her craving for Belgo's mussels after 2 years in the muscle desert of Martin. Then dinner was at Adam and Helen's, they're also pregnant, well obviously just one of them.
On the way back to Swindon we called in on my Aunt Margaret and Uncle Roger in Buckinghamshire and then Oxford in the afternoon.
On 3rd August we started our journey to Devon, calling at Bristol for the night and then Cheddar the morning after. In Bristol it was lunch again with Nan but now with Margaret and Roger and then a night in the pub for a "cousins night." Most of the major players made it out except for Steve and Lisa (baby) and Debbie (holiday). But in their places we had my Aunt Sara and Uncle Richard. Despite them not being cousins we thought it best not to say anything and they behaved themselves and didn't complain when their now grown up children cussed. During the evening we found out that Paul has finally worn down Marita and they are heading off to Gretna Green to get married in the New Year and then having a bigger family doo in Bristol the following month, sadly though we won't be back in time - saves us having to buy a present though!!
The stop in Cheddar was to stock up on some great cheese and to try to see K's friend Mel who was playing with her band at The Big Green Gathering. Sadly she was busy with sound checks but the cheese shops were open!! This planned dairy reduction thing is not going to work when I come home is it?
Kamay's mum and niece made it down to Paignton for a couple of days so we went with them to the beach and to Pennywell Farm. This, as the name suggests, is a farm - where they have some rides, some play areas a couple of shows and you get to feed some of the farm animals. I had a great time, Sophie was a bit scared of the animals but loved the trampolines and Kamay's allergies stopped her from getting too close to anything although she did enjoy the sheep dog demo.
During the 10 days or so in Devon we managed to spend most of it doing "stuff" with family which was just what we wanted. We even managed a few days out with my 3 nephews Huey, Duey and Louie, or as they're known to their parents Aiden, Josh and Jamie. This was the first time that K had met the newest edition because E&Y were too mean about letting her have time off for his christening. We had a tough day at the zoo followed by easier days at Bicton Park and the swimming pool (the zoo was just me and K, the others we had adult supervision). Aiden had his first bike race along Paignton sea front, he came 2nd, and won $3 in prize money. We also managed dinner out with my folks, dinner at David and Liz's and drinks with Matt & Lorraine and Jay & Stu and a big family get together with everyone except Robert, who was in Sydney (the place), but in his place we had Liz and Stu's mum Denise.
Week 4 was back in Swindon along with a quick side trip to London. On Monday night we went out for another celebratory birthday dinner with Popo. I swear that she's had more celebrations than the queen. There's a lady in town that knows Popo and she wanted to treat her (& us) to dinner at her restaurant. The food was fantastic and Popo made sure to order lots of vegetarian dishes. We also got to learn a bit more about her story. As we were about to leave Kamay asked her how she and her grandfather had met - an hour later we left!! There was a bit of translation needed courtesy of K's mum, but it was pretty much an hour long monologue, so I won't repeat it all hear, although it was a really interesting story and I'm sure that she'd repeat it for you if you call her and ask nicely.
Mid week I had a quick trip to London, just to sort out our Thai visa's, so I went up in the afternoon and spent the evening catching up with Nicholas. Then it was onto the Thai embassy the following morning, where I waited for about 3 hours!!! Man it was painful. But luckily I got everything done and we were one step closer to being ready to leave.
I also managed to meet up with Colin, Eira and another new addition to our friends, Megan. Unfortunately they'd been working Col too hard at work and he was even later getting there than me, and he wasn't feeling or looking 100%. Hope you're feeling better now Col. While I was catching up with them K was meeting her friend in Swindon, Anna.
Our final trip before the big one was back to London to catch up with friends (very little shopping this time around). On the way up we saw K's friend Katie in Portsmouth, who very bravely cooked a veggie recipe that she'd never tried before - and it paid off! Then in London we stayed with Dina and we met with Allison (my old boss at Herbert Smith), the old Dixon Wilson crowd, Kamay's KPMG lot, Dave (from my client LSSO), CP, Kulraj and Kiran, Nicholas and Alexandra. I even managed to get back to The Gate, probably one of the finest vegetarian restaurants in London - I knew that there was no way of convincing CP etc to try it, but the Dixon Wilson lot humoured me and pretended to enjoy it. I'm sure that as soon as I left they were all off for a kebab though.
Then after a bit of final packing and generally getting worried that if we didn't take the kitchen sink we were bound to need it, we were ready to fly out!!!
The day after TLD my parents were visiting my Nan in Bristol, so we drove over to see them and on the way back called into Cribbs Causeway to catch up with Rod, Kate and little Harry. The last time we'd seen them was at Adam & Helen's wedding, so Harry had grown loads, as had Kate. She was now 8 months pregnant with their second.
The trip to see my Nan was a little bit daunting, it was the first time that Kamay had seen her since our wedding, and since my Nan's operation to remove her cataract. You see, up until very recently, with the cataract and the degenerative macular disease, she's been as good as blind. So on my last trip to see her when she told me that all of that inter-racial marriages were causing a problem in the UK, I was a little bit worried that she'd never really seen Kamay. Luckily the meeting went well, she didn't look shocked and was obviously just talking about the black/white marriages, which of course are wrong (!?!? - she's 90, so I'm sure that in her day it was ok to think this).
We spent the rest of that first week in Swindon. The main highlights being meeting up with Sophie and her new fella Luic and a trip to South Cerney with K's mum, sister in law Ewa and niece Sophie. Basically South Cerney is a lake 10km from Swindon with some fields around it to play in and it's all very child friendly, so Sophie could play and us adults could sleep, relax. Best of all though is that there is a trail all around the lake and a place to hire bikes, including a tandem!!! After a bit of gentle persuasion I agreed to K's request to ride one with her. It was ace!! I'd never ridden one before, but it was actually pretty easy, although I'm not sure I'd fancy commuting across London at rush hour with one.
Our second weekend was spent in London where we had Dim Sum in Bayswater with the West Hampstead crowd of Dina, Sophie and Fiona, along with their partners, friends and parents!! It was Sophie's dad's birthday so he came along with the wife.
After Dim Sum, Kamay sat in the park with the girls talking about make up, fashion, ponies etc. while I went to Ealing Jazz Festival to see Nicholas' band. I missed their set, but spent a nice afternoon and evening with him, his friends and new girlfriend Alexandra.
Next up on our list for London was shopping. Although we (well Kamay) went in search of some proper retail therapy after nearly 2 years in the clothes desert of Bermuda, the only thing that we bought was travel paraphanalia - shoes, coats etc. The highlight though was complaining about some particularly tardy service in one of the camping shops and getting a 10% discount, what a result. After that we considered making up complaints in every other shop. The highlight for Kamay was satisfying her craving for Belgo's mussels after 2 years in the muscle desert of Martin. Then dinner was at Adam and Helen's, they're also pregnant, well obviously just one of them.
On the way back to Swindon we called in on my Aunt Margaret and Uncle Roger in Buckinghamshire and then Oxford in the afternoon.
On 3rd August we started our journey to Devon, calling at Bristol for the night and then Cheddar the morning after. In Bristol it was lunch again with Nan but now with Margaret and Roger and then a night in the pub for a "cousins night." Most of the major players made it out except for Steve and Lisa (baby) and Debbie (holiday). But in their places we had my Aunt Sara and Uncle Richard. Despite them not being cousins we thought it best not to say anything and they behaved themselves and didn't complain when their now grown up children cussed. During the evening we found out that Paul has finally worn down Marita and they are heading off to Gretna Green to get married in the New Year and then having a bigger family doo in Bristol the following month, sadly though we won't be back in time - saves us having to buy a present though!!
The stop in Cheddar was to stock up on some great cheese and to try to see K's friend Mel who was playing with her band at The Big Green Gathering. Sadly she was busy with sound checks but the cheese shops were open!! This planned dairy reduction thing is not going to work when I come home is it?
Kamay's mum and niece made it down to Paignton for a couple of days so we went with them to the beach and to Pennywell Farm. This, as the name suggests, is a farm - where they have some rides, some play areas a couple of shows and you get to feed some of the farm animals. I had a great time, Sophie was a bit scared of the animals but loved the trampolines and Kamay's allergies stopped her from getting too close to anything although she did enjoy the sheep dog demo.
During the 10 days or so in Devon we managed to spend most of it doing "stuff" with family which was just what we wanted. We even managed a few days out with my 3 nephews Huey, Duey and Louie, or as they're known to their parents Aiden, Josh and Jamie. This was the first time that K had met the newest edition because E&Y were too mean about letting her have time off for his christening. We had a tough day at the zoo followed by easier days at Bicton Park and the swimming pool (the zoo was just me and K, the others we had adult supervision). Aiden had his first bike race along Paignton sea front, he came 2nd, and won $3 in prize money. We also managed dinner out with my folks, dinner at David and Liz's and drinks with Matt & Lorraine and Jay & Stu and a big family get together with everyone except Robert, who was in Sydney (the place), but in his place we had Liz and Stu's mum Denise.
Week 4 was back in Swindon along with a quick side trip to London. On Monday night we went out for another celebratory birthday dinner with Popo. I swear that she's had more celebrations than the queen. There's a lady in town that knows Popo and she wanted to treat her (& us) to dinner at her restaurant. The food was fantastic and Popo made sure to order lots of vegetarian dishes. We also got to learn a bit more about her story. As we were about to leave Kamay asked her how she and her grandfather had met - an hour later we left!! There was a bit of translation needed courtesy of K's mum, but it was pretty much an hour long monologue, so I won't repeat it all hear, although it was a really interesting story and I'm sure that she'd repeat it for you if you call her and ask nicely.
Mid week I had a quick trip to London, just to sort out our Thai visa's, so I went up in the afternoon and spent the evening catching up with Nicholas. Then it was onto the Thai embassy the following morning, where I waited for about 3 hours!!! Man it was painful. But luckily I got everything done and we were one step closer to being ready to leave.
I also managed to meet up with Colin, Eira and another new addition to our friends, Megan. Unfortunately they'd been working Col too hard at work and he was even later getting there than me, and he wasn't feeling or looking 100%. Hope you're feeling better now Col. While I was catching up with them K was meeting her friend in Swindon, Anna.
Our final trip before the big one was back to London to catch up with friends (very little shopping this time around). On the way up we saw K's friend Katie in Portsmouth, who very bravely cooked a veggie recipe that she'd never tried before - and it paid off! Then in London we stayed with Dina and we met with Allison (my old boss at Herbert Smith), the old Dixon Wilson crowd, Kamay's KPMG lot, Dave (from my client LSSO), CP, Kulraj and Kiran, Nicholas and Alexandra. I even managed to get back to The Gate, probably one of the finest vegetarian restaurants in London - I knew that there was no way of convincing CP etc to try it, but the Dixon Wilson lot humoured me and pretended to enjoy it. I'm sure that as soon as I left they were all off for a kebab though.
Then after a bit of final packing and generally getting worried that if we didn't take the kitchen sink we were bound to need it, we were ready to fly out!!!
posted by Shippo at 3:11 AM
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