Bridging the Gap

I wasn't due at Judy and David's for lunch until, well lunchtime, but as often happens when I'm going somewhere later I got nothing done. I did a bit of this, a bit of that, sharpened pencils, that sort of thing, and then suddenly it was past time to go and I arrived later than planned. They had already rung me to see if I had forgotten. It was lovely to catch up, though terribly sad to hear that Angela had died. Angela lived in the lodge at the end of their drive, and was a real character. She was never afraid to speak her mind, and in response to our old neighbours planting a cotoneaster hedge hissed at them, "This is not Surrey you know!" She was a horticulturalist, award winning as it turns out, and in retirement lived for her own garden. At her funeral they played the theme from Desert Island Discs as the coffin went in, and the Archers going out. I used to collect the Observer for her every Sunday, and once after she'd told me how much she loved Mars bars I bought her one and popped it through the letterbox as a surprise. But she was furious. "Someone THREW a Mars bar into my hall," she told me the following weekend. "So rude." I admitted it was me, a little treat, but she was already so cross that she just glared at me and didn't thank me until the following Sunday, with a sheepish grin. They definitely broke that mould.

David's youngest son Chris, full of unaffected charm and devilish good looks, is staying with them while he works to make his fortune dealing in Bit coins, so lunch was an even more entertaining occasion than usual. Afterwards the four of us played bridge until tea time. Judy and David hardly play bridge at all now since we moved away, and they thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon. I promised I'd have them over for lunch as soon as one or other daughter is staying with me, and that pleased them. But in another month Caroline will be returning from wintering with her son, farmer Jan, in Iowa, and our happy foursome will resume. Caroline has been emailing me to update me on the family history she is writing, which she wants me to edit. I've been encouraging her for years to write her story, and she's been doing it all winter. It begins with filling the back of a Transit van with old mattresses and piling the three tiny children in on top of them as they drove overland to Communist Poland. Her husband was a Polish aristocrat expat who hadn't been home since joining the RAF early in the war. Caroline's stories are wonderful, and I'm looking forward to reading this account.

I'd left the heating on, expecting to be gone only a few hours, and it was good to come in out of the bleak and rainy evening to a cosy house. In two days I'll have been here two years. It's hard now to remember feeling so at home anywhere else.