Met up with a bunch of the girls from my old hockey team last night – very luckily for me in Wimbledon, despite the majority of them being from the Epsom area.
Had a slight kerfuffle 2 hours before the meet time, when I twigged that a takeaway a couple of doors away from the Italian place we had booked for the 10 of us to have dinner, had caught fire! 60 firefighters apparently filled The Broadway, resulting in the takeaway ending up in ashes, the Old Frizzle pub next door being somewhat frazzled and our restaurant being closed for the night.
Luckily we managed to nab a table in Franco Manca, so at least those who wanted pizza had an easy replacement. Here we all are – from the front left, George, Caro (my twinnie), Jo (also known as ‘Jobe’ since she got her OBE), Vanessa, Becks, Jill, Hilary, me and Claire – squinting as she masters a whole table selfie.
Good to catch up with everyone’s news – and my how the chat has changed from 20 years ago when we were a tad more in our heyday. Lots of discussion now around retirement – when you can afford it, what to do with your time when it rolls round, shifting from playing competitive Saturday hockey to weekday walking hockey, and how to manage still having responsibilities for offspring, even when they are at uni, when you’d like to get some travel in!
Some of us have known each other for far longer than ever the last 20 years, so it’s good to get a date in the diary and roll out even on a frizzzzzing cold night in slightly fire-damaged Wimbers x