As if by magic, suddenly it was time for the annual get-together of my ‘AV5’ group, kindly hosted as ever by Janine down at the cottage. And we packed a lot into a couple of days!
Started off with a trip down to Chichester Festival Theatre to see this year’s headline musical, My Fair Lady. Not perhaps a tip top fave of mine as it’s a bit ‘of a certain era’, rather misogynistic and in this case – too long, at 3 hours. Possibly not helped by the Government warning about ‘no BBQ’s’ going off on people’s phones all evening – every time they were turned on, e.g. the interval, in the loos etc, it was booming out several hundred times over. And several times during the performance, despite the request before the start to turn off all phones, I suspect quite a few of the elderly viewers may not quite have known how to do it.
Saturday was our busy, busy day – began with walking Maddie before the heat got too much. Then we left her cooling in the cottage as we all headed to Littlehampton (or ‘LA’ – Little ‘Ampton’, as the locals call it) to check out the waterside festival. Kicked off with 4 of us on the log flume in the fairground, to try and get wet before we traipsed round in the never-ending sunshine. Clare & I hit the RNLI’s tombola and for the grand sum of 60pm came away with one winning ticket which was for a handy box of shortbread – a perfect gift to leave behind for Ross. Plus nailed some quite good free colour pencils from the wind farm stand, which will do nicely for one of the great nieces/nephews…
Got the next day’s sourdough from Lidl – aren’t we classy – checked out the Dunkirk boats that were lined up on the quayside (impressive, though we got gin envy from those on board), listened to the steel band for a bit and then took a jacket potato to eat by the boating lake. Janine was on the cockles and oysters – well, she was an LA girl as a youth!
Then we hit the Crazy Golf – Buccaneer Bay – and all got far too hot (and a bit bothered) as there was zero shade and we needed to get back to see Maddie. So we did – Clare even nabbing a lightning dunk in the sea before we headed off.
Had a lovely evening in the coot garden, trying out the new seating area by the garden room & workshop, till the peace was shattered with the arrival of Mark & Charlie’s dog, Lottie, who I’ve got for a few days while they escape to Frankfurt for some pampering. Cue lots of canine running around but luckily no drinks spillage.
Sat out eating, nattering & drinking till about 11.30 – aren’t we daring?! Always lot to chat about, even 30 years on from meeting. And the added bonus for me – I will always be the youngest of this particular group, hurrah!
Big thanks to J for hosting – same place, same month next year, all being well x
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.