Meeting old friends - People who have only known me since I've moved here to Hampshire are always surprised that I spent 20 month working in the HQ of HM Customs and Excise. As with all of my memories, I look at that time through rose tinted glasses. I remember long lunches with lots of alcohol, trips to scotland playing basketball with even more alcohol and trips to RAF airbases and post offices. I'm sure I worked hard really inbetween these times and I really can't have been drunk all the time surely. Anyway, a few months after I started, I had to go on an EO induction course. (You have to bear with me - there is a logical strand here really.) I have to say I think this course was run by the most inappropriate trainers I have ever met and I have been on loads of courses so it ,ust have been definately bad. One seemd on the edge of tears and temper tantrums and the other one introduced himself by saying that he was studying for a psychology degree so would be taking notes. However, there was a sliver lining to this. I met 4 fantastic women (actually, we were probably girls then since it was 1986) who I've kept in sporadic contact with ever since. We all actually met up last weekend with our respective men and children in tow. Infact, the original 5 had now quadrupled to 20. ( 9 adults and 11 children aged between 4 to 13) I think the hostess was very brave as there were so many of us to feed and accommodate. Unsurprisingly, this had apparently been agreed in a drunken evening in a pub in London. Rather a common theme of alcohol here isn't there!!!
Our hosts lived in a converted coach house with a big garden and a trampoline. Luckily, the weather was kind and we did spend most of the time outside. Times had changed as unbelievably, no alcohol was consumed until quite late in the afternoon.
The weather was so good that we even all went down the beach and the children got in the sea. It did look at one point that Laura and one of the other girls were going to float off to the Isle of Wight but got them back.
Later in the afternoon, there was a great tent erection activity. We needed 4 tents and they were all different makes and sizes and as far as I recall nobody had ever put up 3 of them as they were either borrowed or new. It was achieved without too much bloodshed and tents allocated. Luckily for me and hubby, we got beds inside and our 3 children had a tent to themselves.
We managed to get the children fed and watching Dr Who so we could have an adult dinner. It was wonderful. Lots of different curries and enough rice to feed about 30 people and naan bread for about 20. The children helped us out with the bread. Not sure what happened to the rice!!
I'm pleased to report by the morning, I counted 11 bottles of wine that had been drunk and 6 bottles of lager.
To return back to the evening though. The children did settle about 10ish in the tents and little by little the men retired to their beds. Laura came in at 1am and then settled upstairs with us. The lack of men allowed us to relive old times and having chats like women do!! I'm not going into details here but I'm sure you all know what I mean. This went onto 3am. Not bad for someone who had their second chemo 2 days ago.
The men did the honourable thing in the morning and looked after the children while the women slept in a little bit (apart from me who woke up at 7.45am with cramp!!). I don't think anybody in the tents got much sleep as it started to rain very heavily at 5am. Apparently, AJ and Woody tried to get back into the house at 5am as they were frightened by the rain and lightening but the door was stiff so they went back to the tent. Hopefully, they've not been scarred for life.
The weather cheered up and it was back to the beach before a barbecue and home.
It was such a brilliant weekend and I'm sure we all really enjoyed it and a huge thank you to the hosts and all the organising that was done so that we all brought the right things. OK so we forgot the towels but we coped.