July 4-6, Dunsden, Caversham, Market Harborough

July 4, Dunsden, near Henley

Phil drove over to Caversham to pick me up.  Just before he arrived, the phone rang...it was Janet.  Emma had received her exam results after five years in Veterinary School.  She was in Paris with friends anxiously awaiting the news. They all passed!  She will now start her job as a large animal vet.  Needless to say, we were all, thrilled.  Phil lingered a while to have tea and biscuits with Margaret and Ken.  Then off to Dundsen, a tiny village, to their new home.  What a great job they have done converting and adding on to an old house.  The layout is open, white and bright with all sorts of techno mod cons!  Sophie was in London with Rufus (almost 3) to see a play version of a popular children's book: "The Tiger Who Came to Tea".  Phil had done all the shopping and needed to make salads and such, so I took a nap.  Between 5 and 5:30 everyone arrived: Sophie and Rufus, Gina with Mia, Amy and Luke (4, another new member of the family I hadn't met) in tow, fresh from winning medals at their sports day.  Matt, Gina's husband, arrived a bit later from the office.  Phil provided a wonderful beefburger barbecue with homemade celeriac and carrot salad, Durham wheat salad and a green salad with Buffalo mozzarella and grape tomatoes.  The children had ice lollies for dessert and we had local strawberries and cream. Yum.  The children all had a whale of a time running race, playing games and such.  I caught up on everyone's lives.  

When it came time to say goodbye, poor little Rufus was inconsolable.  He adores his cousins.  I had brought him a copy of "Harold and the Purple Crayon" and asked him if he would like me to read it to him...well, he wasn't ready for that yet.  But he sat down between me and Phil and allowed Phil to read it.  Well, he was transfixed....went very quiet, was taken up to bed and fell promptly asleep.  The next morning, when I came down, he ran over to me, took my hand, led me to the couch and asked me to read  the "little book".  Well, this time, I embellished and asked questions etc.  Then he wanted me to move ahead....to the dragon.  He had remembered the dragon who guards the apple tree and he loved it.  It really is a wonderful children's book.  Then he turned to me and said: "I love you, Elaine."  Well, what more is there to say!

July 5, back to Caversham.

Phil had gone out very early to deliver one if his prototype eclectic boats to Henley for the Henley Regatta....advertising, basically.  This is his avocation...one of his many hobbies.  He is an inventor and his main pursuit is the commercialized of a process for making industrial diamonds, for which he has a patent.  Anyway, when he came back, he and Rufus and I went over to Shiplake to see Matt and Gina's new home...they have just moved in, but it is still a construction site.  Well, it is something one sees only in magazines.  He's got ALL the mod tech cons.  Unbelievable control room! And the latest things here is hit air handlers that recirculate and reuse hot air generated within the house.  Apparently when all is said and done, his very large will use the kilowatt age of a house half the size.  We gave ourselves the tour because they were all going off in different directions and the plumbers and electricians were there.  So back to Dunsden and then we all piled into Sophie's car to take me back to Caversham.

Margaret, Ken and I went out for dinner to the Woody Nook and had another super meal.

July 6 Travel to Market Harborough, Leicesteshire

Margaret and Ken took me to Reading to catch the train to London Paddington.  After a long walk to the taxi rank, I took a taxi across to St. Pancras, the wonderful old Victorian station which was rescued from demolition years ago.  The main building is now a hotel.  Eurostar and Thalys trains have been moved over from Waterloo and the station has been considerably enlarged with wonderful shops and cafes.   In fact, it is several stations in one.  From the taxi rank to the ticket office for the East Midlands trains was a very long walk.  Then another long walk and an elevator to the raised tracks.  I had allowed myself one hour to get from Paddington to this train.  I made it in 45 minutes.  

One hour and fifteen minutes later, I arrived in Market Harborough and Paul met me.  He and Della live in the village of Great Bowden, where they had lived many many years ago.  You will all by now have realized that the UK is a country of villages, some extremely tiny and hard to find on a map, so one usually gives the name of the nearest town.

Of course, our main topic of conversation was my time with their three children in London and Henley and the grandchildren.  By the time bedtime rolled around, we were deep into family history and back in the 1920’s!