All Play and no Work…

Sometimes you work at a company where your colleagues become great friends and you share memories, laughs and tears. GPE was one of those for Sue and I. It was where we met and fell in love, where I was working with people who I had worked with in NZ, where many couples got together and where the social side of the company was as important as the work. Now many, many years later I have moved companies and am still working with some of the friends I met there. We regularly get together (usually around Christmas) for a walk, a drink and a meal.

Recently we had a meal at ours with Bill and Linda, Rob and Sally, Yendall and Sally with Hannah. There we had good food, good drink and plenty of cheerful banter. We shed a tear for our dear friend Lee who passed away unexpectedly in South Africa and we share many a tale or two.

It was a fine afternoon.

Shaken not Stirred…

One Saturday recently we got talking to our neighbour over the fence and he asked us around for his famous Vesper Martini, so we confessed we had not had one before and agreed to meet at Howard and Tracy’s later on. Well we were converts to the drink favoured by James Bond but with so much alcohol in it we were limited to two glasses lest we note be able to stagger back next door afterwards.

The Stork Cometh…

Congratulations go out to our friends Marc & Heather in Sweden who have announced they are to be parents to a girl. We are over the moon for them and wish them health and happiness to come.

Green Fingers…

Spring brings us back out into the garden and we have been busy on those rare days where the weather was nice working in the vegetable plot. Now we have more land available we have been setting up a fruit cage, burning cut down tree (I abandon Sue to be fire monitor when I went out with the lads down the road on our semi regular visit to the local curry house). We have also been planting seeds in a propagator, planting garlic and broad beans outside, moving the compost bin (when we roped in Sue’s sister Deb to help) and generally preparing the land. We also jet washed the patio and cleared out the shed so all we need now is for the weather to continue to improve.

On the Silver Screen…

We have found the Everyman Reigate is one of our cinemas of choice as they only have two smaller screens but have a lovely bar that sells fancy snacks, good coffee and wine by the bottle to take in with you. Also there is an old fashioned intermission where ice-creams are sold.

We saw the Grand Budapest Hotel here and I loved the quirky hyper-styled setting with fabulous actors hamming it up to a bonkers story, great fun.

We went with friends Chris and Carole and after the show we had a bite to eat in the Jolly Farmer a gastro-pub with a deli-shop full of expensive delights.

If you can’t fight, wear a big hat…

On a spur of the moment we decided to go to the Country 2 Country show that was being held at the O2 (the Dome). I had heard it promoted on the radio and it was a lovely day so we jumped on the train (and met the Brown’s who were also heading into town, though to Camden).

We hadn’t booked for any of the arena shows (too big a place and not that keen on C&W), but we heard that there were several pop-up stages around that would be playing free music. After a quick beer we found the Armadillo Restaurant with a stage right outside so we set up base there for lunch and watched a few acts while we had a relaxed meal and a few more drinks.

Afterwards we wondered down to the ‘town square’ and watched some more standing in a crowd of people, a large proportion of who were sporting Stetsons, denim and cowboy boots.

Several of the acts were UK based but some were from the US of A. We saw:

Hannah Jane Lewis

Hometown Show

Dexeter

Sticking Matches (who have several songs in the hit TV show Nashville)

Jill and Kate

The Shires

Jessica Clemmons