Back in 2012, when I was a Presenter at the Talking Newspaper, Tony organised a lunch at The Fox in Bourne. It was a chance for all the presenters to get together and, among other things, discuss how things were going. Given the way the schedules worked, the paths of the presenters crossed only occasionally so it was a good chance for us all to catch up. It was an excellent lunch but it was not repeated, which was a shame. The engineers, on the other hand, have a couple every year.
We also had a pre-Christmas lunch at The Fox in 2017, the year that Bob, Fiona, Andrew, Lauren, Jason, Denise and Jenny came over. We were put upstairs, out of everyone’s way, so we could be as noisy as we wanted.
On both of those occasions, The Fox was offering good pub food. Then, in 2019, the pub kitchen became Yiayias at The Fox, a Greek restaurant. I remember reading about it, at one of the Farnham Talking newspaper sessions when it opened. I’ve wanted to go but, because of various things, haven’t had the chance.
Then, when she heard I was back, Ann decided to organise a lunch with a handful of people to give me a jolly sending off, so to speak. Having decided to organise it, she passed on the actual job of organising it to Charles who decided we’d all eat at Yiayias at The Fox. And we did that today.
Mirinda was coming as well but, unfortunately, she had dinner with her ex-team in London tonight. Equally unfortunately, she missed a lot of fun.
3 days to go
We were a raucous group of seven with Charles, Janet (his wife), Ann (Tim’s wife), Tim, Clive, Ann and me. We covered a lot of subjects. From modern art and how much Rothko leaves a couple of us cold, to the oddness that is how Google Translate thinks that Trosa means panties. It was also suggested that I write a Christmas panto radio play for the readers and presenters to record this year.
It was such fun and a few hours of laughter. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I’m really going to miss them. Though, of course, I invited them all over to Trosa. Ann then suggested they hire a minibus and make a special FATN holiday/excursion of it. I said they’d be very welcome but the guest house may get a bit crowded.
While lunch was a joyous time, earlier in the day, a trip to the dump was anything but. It marked the day I parted company with my flying boots. I’ve had them for many years. They have travelled the world with me, keeping my feet warm in the coldest conditions.
A sad, sad thing.
Oh, I should mention that I had the moussaka at Yiayias and it wasn’t as good as mine.
