More visitors from Oz

Uncle Les was showing Alick around Southall, basically telling him how much had changed and how much hadn’t. They wandered down Trinity Road and Uncle Les pointed out number 55, the house he grew up in. Alick was a bit surprised when Uncle Les then walked up to the front door and started knocking. In fact, Alick decided to walk away from this wild man knocking up some poor unsuspecting Indian woman.

Looking not dissimilar to something out of Harry Potter, Uncle Les then regaled the quivering woman with tales about his youth spent within her house. He pointed upstairs to the bedroom he shared with his brothers as a lad. It’s not certain how much of this the woman understood or even heard, given she just shut the door in his face and fled to safety.

The reason I am sharing the above is not only because it’s funny (particularly if you see Uncle Les at the moment) but because he repeated a similar thing in our street today. Due, almost entirely, because of Plan Change.

We had a plan. We were all going to meet up for lunch at 12:30. I figured we’d walk up to the pub and eat after starting at the house but Uncle Buster rang to suggest we meet at the Nelson Arms. I told him parking could be a problem (apart from the normal traffic, the Heritage Open Days weekend started today) and also asked if he knew where it was. He had, after all, only been once and we walked in on that occasion.

He said they’d be fine because he’d have Uncle Les in the car. This was an interesting remark given I don’t think Uncle Les has ever been to Farnham and, if he has, it would have been about 40 years ago…at least. (Given his current appearance, he may have been living here among the Druids.)

So, I duly set off at midday for the pub, ordered a pint and sat and read the Times. It turned out to be the first time I’ve read the Times, cover to cover in a long time. And then, eventually, my phone rang. It was Loris.

She wanted to know where I was. I told her I was in the pub. She said they were outside the house annoying the dogs. I wondered why. She said Uncle Buster was worried about the parking situation. I gave her directions, saying I’d meet them at the end of the park in 15 minutes.

And so we, finally, met up for lunch and had a lovely time. Chatting, being generally noisy and entertaining the barmaid who said her usual clientèle were snooty and stuck up and we were a breath of fresh air. Her family is from the East End of London and so, she said, the salt of the earth.

Uncle Les told me how he’d thought we lived two doors back from where we actually live. He’d knocked on the door of the Dead House and, when a timorous woman opened the door a crack, asked if Gary Cook lived there. She stared in disbelief at this strange gnome-like apparition and pointed towards our house telling him the correct number. And then slammed the door. Most peculiar.

Anyway, after a few pints of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord and various meals (Uncle Les told the barmaid he was a vegetarian so could he have a side salad and chips but with copious amounts of cheese on the salad which, of course, he was given as opposed to the usual salad of just leaves) we headed for home through a gloriously sunny park. Naturally I bored them all with Farnham Park stories, especially my favourite stile story but eventually, and thankfully, we arrived home.

Coffee was had on the terrace after there were many ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ over the extension (even from Uncle Les who’d never seen the old house) and during the garden tour. Fusses were made of the dogs though, to be fair, there’s not a lot of choice when it comes to Freya who hurls herself at you regardless. She managed to entertain Alick quite adequately. Emma, of course, stood behind me quivering at all the loud Reavell men.

Eventually, I waved them off, remarking on Uncle Buster’s political affiliations proudly displayed on his car window, and the house returned to the relative quiet of me talking to myself…and telling Freya off for weeing in the house.

(Day-z) Me, Alick (Freya), Uncle Les, Uncle Buster & Loris