Visitors

The following week saw me return to work, finally.  I had been really looking forward to getting back into harness, so the teacher-only day filled with speeches about exam results and the school’s position in the local league tables was a little disappointing.  So was the lack of guidance with regard to the systems within the school.  And as for the students themselves from Wednesday afterwards – more on that later.  Needless to say I was pretty knackered by Friday, having become quite used to being a ‘lady what does lunch’, as Mark puts it. 

On Saturday we went to Emma’s fourth birthday party, at the local church hall.  It was a glorious day so lots of out-of-doors fun and games were had.  The birthday lunch was served on tables outside and everyone had a great time.  

That evening we finally visited our local pub to find it had a lovely atmosphere and a great menu of pub meals.

Sunday got off to a quiet start, and we then joined Mark and family for a long walk at Virginia Water in the afternoon.  This a beautiful park on royal land, close to Windsor Castle.  We even got to see part of a polo match on the Prince’s Ground.  It was not made clear which Prince though.

The following week saw us with the first of our overnight visitors.  Ruby Harfield came to stay for a few nights, en route from London to Edinburgh.  It was so very lovely to see her and hear all her news of Camp America and travels in Florida and New York.  She has had an amazing adventure, which is now continuing in Europe.  We will see her again in a couple of weeks’ time before she heads home to NZ.

Once we had farewelled Ruby, we prepared for a weekend of visitors.  We had a busy Saturday, first going into London on the train to watch the All Blacks play South Africa.  The Walkabout pubs show the Rugby Championship games live, and we had missed the last one.  We made it safely to the pub on the Embankment for the 8.35am kick-off!  It was a tight game all right, and we were very relieved that the All Blacks held on for the win.  Lucky for us that Morne Steyn was so off his game.

We got home in plenty of time to drive out to Heathrow to meet our friend Nicola (who lives in Edinburgh).  She had to be in London for work, so she came to spend Saturday night with us before going into London on Sunday.  Nick and Fleur from London also wanted to catch up with her, so they came up on Saturday afternoon.  We all went for a walk along the river before driving out to Shere to have dinner in the lovely old pub there.  Nicola was most impressed with the picturesque buildings in Shere and everyone liked the pub.  Unfortunately it was rather busy so our dinner took a long time to come – but the company was great and we found plenty to talk about.   It was incredibly dark walking back to the car; the light pollution was almost nil and there was no moon yet.  There were plenty of stars though – and plenty of aeroplanes too!  Nick and Fleur came back in to our flat for a hot drink before catching the train back to London.

On Sunday we drove down to Winkworth Arboretum, near Godalming.  This is a National Trust property with beautiful planting of native shrubs and trees.  It is apparently particularly lovely in autumn, so we wanted to see it before the colours change too much so we have something to compare it to later in the season.  Nicola was saying that she had left her National Trust card at home but in the end it didn’t matter.  It turned out to be an open day with free entry anyway!

We had hoped to get brunch somewhere, but the best to little café could do was sandwiches and scones.  This sufficed, and there was a great jazz band to listen too while we ate.  The Arboretum is huge, and we only had time to walk a small number of the paths.  We chose the walk to the boathouse, which was at the head of a lovely little man-made lake stocked with trout.  There were a couple of gentleman out in wooden dinghies fly-casting; the whole area was very peaceful (apart from Nicola).  On our walk back up to the car, we detoured past the Badger’s Bowl.  This proved to be a very large clearing and while there were no badgers there was a falconer giving a display and talk.  It was great fun to watch, and really gave us an insight into the phrase ‘bird-brained’.  These may have been trained birds, but they were quick to forget their training if something else caught their attention.

At the top of the slope above the Badger’s Bowl was a timber look-out.  We climbed this to admire the view, and Nicola took great delight in the fact that it was quite wiggly.  As I am not so fond of heights, and we were about five or six metres up, I was not so delighted.  I think Nicola thought I was a bit of a kill-joy.

It was time to return home, as Nicola did not want to be too late into London.  She still had a few things to sort out before her day in court for work on Monday.

So, our spare room has now been used and we look forward to the arrival of Selwyn on Tuesday as our third staying guest.