13-14.08 - Days 211-212 - Chelmsford and London
Tuesday 13th August - Chelmsford / London (Day 211)
Tuesday, after school work is completed in the morning we head round to Hannah and Dan’s house. Sienna and Seb are very keen to play with Holly and Charlie again (and not just to play Switch). Hannah has kindly found some old packed away toys that ours enjoy and the two elder kids graciously join in and play with them.
Another glorious day and we enjoy lunch in the garden. After going through some old photos in Buckingham and also in Norwich, more trips down memory lane as Hannah digs into the archives of our younger selves.
We all head out to the local park to walk Pepper and give the kids a run around. Kate insert: the kids are introduced to a game called London - only slightly dangerous as one person walks around the play park with their eyes closed trying to find the others. The others can move freely but if caught on the ground when the person seeking shouts ‘London’ they are automatically out (although a slight honesty system is required given the eyes closed part). Then as the seeker shouts ‘London’ everyone still in needs to move to another piece of play park equipment allowing the seeker to hear them and find them. Simple!
The kids pick it up fast and all really enjoy it and like laughing at seekers with their eyes closed. Play is briefly paused when Pepper tries to chase a squirrel who is teasing her on the other side of the park fence and somehow head butts the fence post - perhaps she was also seeking with her eyes closed.
Back to Matt: on the drive back I get dropped at Chelmsford train station - heading first to Stratford to meet Mike - a friend from our time in Aztec in Sydney 10-15 years ago who is now back in the UK with Sally and his 2 girls and working where I had worked in London at TNS / Kantar in 2004-08 - small world or industry at least.
From Stratford I head back to Peckham where a sofa bed at Bron and Dean’s flat awaits. In the meantime once the kids are in bed Kate nips out to meet up with Greg from her school days. Catching up on the last 20+ years and remembering / piecing together random school tales.
Wednesday 14th August - Chelmsford / London (Day 212)
After dropping Wally at doggy daycare in Peckham, Dean and I wander past the shops and market stalls opening for the day up into Dulwich Hill and a lap of Dulwich Park which reminds me of Centennial Park in Sydney with a road, pavement and horse track loop plus ponds and playing fields in the middle. We are also in the land of more expensive houses. My step count is off to a flyer and I’ll end at 32,000 for the day.
Hopping on a train to London Bridge I meet with Krish for lunch at Borough Market for a great lunch at Oma - reminding us of the one smart restaurant we went to whilst in South America in Buenos Aires.
Dean catches me up and he and I head to another of the Sixes venues to resume our battle of bat versus ball. We eviscerate our scores from last time, ending up 125 and 85 off 54 balls. I wonder if one of these has opened in Sydney by now?
We walk from London Bridge over Tower Bridge past the still hoards of tourists arriving up in Spitalfields and watch some actual cricketers on a pop-up large screen in The Hundred tournament. After a Leffe for old times sake it’s farewell and onwards.
I meet Dan at London Liverpool Street and we train back to Chelmsford, and after a sneaky drink at the Railway Inn, meet Hannah, Kate, Matt and Vicky next door at the Brewhouse Brewery before dinner for the 6 of us at Cote.
No kids in sight for any of us! Kate insert: Another lovely evening catching up with good friends chatting like we caught up just last week (OK maybe we did actually see them last week - the benefit of being back in the UK for a couple of months), but it’s nice to slip back into familiar habits so easily.