We had a very easy journey back to the village, which was lucky as the following days were foggy and caused problems for many travellers. Our great friends Ann and Nick offered space on their (fortunately large) drive for Henrietta. This meant that we could park it there and have easy access from our house – very useful given all of the visits that we would have to make.
We arrived back of the house and were greeted by 'No Name', a very friendly neighbour's cat, who ran into the house as soon as I opened the door! This is a very common occurrence with any open door or window treated as an invitation and, even in the early hours of the morning, No Name will be there purring like an engine. Despite the fact that the heating had been on full since that morning, the house was very cold and it would take a few days of continuous heat and wood fires to warm it up.
Thursday evening was a Foster Yeoman Reunion attended by most of those that were made redundant and many of those who stayed at Marston House (the Head Office). It was great to see all of my ex-colleagues and I almost wished that I was back there until I remembered how much I was enjoying The Odyssey. I must say that the only drawback of our trip is not seeing our friends and relatives as often as we would like. Anyway, it was a wonderful evening and I hope that it will be repeated many times in the future.
Friday was Henrietta's MOT day, combined with a trip to Bath whilst she was being tested. Bath consisted of last minute Christmas shopping but we were also able to visit Jane's workplace – Bath Rugby ticket office – and caught up on all of the news. There was much talk of the Bath v Gloucester clash on 4th January, a top of the table clash and a West Country derby, which had already sold out. We got back to the Riverside MOT Centre in Melksham (highly recommended for motorhome servicing), Henrietta had passed the MOT with flying colours.
We made our first journey to Weymouth on Saturday and it was great to see my mother, Jane's parents and my brother and sister-in-law. Norman passed over all of the redirected mail which would keep us occupied for the rest of the break. Our son Simon joined us in the evening and we caught up on all of his news (he doesn't have a blog!). His partner Katie joined us on Christmas Eve and, as last year, we had a early Christmas celebration with presents and a full Christmas dinner. The village has a wonderful tradition of carol singing in front of the Post Office on Christmas Eve and there is a lovely atmosphere. The weather was good (dry and mild) this year and a great time was had by all – I really enjoy singing carols and many of our friends were there, so it was great to see them again after many months.
Katie left on Christmas morning to visit her parents and Simon, Jane and I went down to Weymouth to celebrate Christmas with my mother and Jane's parents. After a large lunch with too much 'bubble and squeak', we left our parents to have a snooze whilst we went for a quick wall down to the sea. It was very quiet to start with but we were soon joined by many other families walking off their Christmas lunch.
The next few days were spent sorting out the house and the motorhome but there was time for some much needed clothes shopping on my part. I also used some of the Christmas present money given to me by Jane's parents to buy a wireless Broadband router and a Roberts World Radio. The router is for the house, enabling us both to use the Broadband Internet at the same time and use the laptop downstairs such as I am doing now. The World Radio will mean that we will be able to listen into the BBC World Service in all of those countries where we will not be able to receive satellite television.
Another most enjoyable reunion took place on the 29th – John and Peg had invited us and the rest of BAGs to their house for a party. BAGs (Butleigh Ambling Group) has been going for many years and its members are all very good friends. We take it in turns to organise a walk each month and the combination of social interaction, the walk and a pub lunch half way round, are fantastic. The reunion was very relaxed and great fun – we hope that we might be able to join a walk on our next trip home.
New Year's Eve was spent with many of our village friends. Quizzes filled the evening between too much eating and drinking but charades at 01:30 proved too much of a challenge – how do you mime 'Larousse Gastronomique'?
Photos: Carol singing outside the village post office on Christmas Eve; Late Christmas Evening sun on the cliffs of Weymouth Bay; Christmas sunset over Nothe Fort.
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