After the Swindon retreat, I drove back to Sarah’s and then on Monday we went to Oxford. A lot of the UK towns have a system called park and ride; it works very well. You park up pretty close to the city, and then there are busses waiting there to take you into the city center. The cost includes the parking and the bus ride and is very reasonable, about 6 pounds (9$).
Sarah was looking for some specific clothes, which was a belated birthday present from me, and also we wanted to go visit a particular bookshop. Given that Oxford is a university town, the bookshop was very impressive, and I could have stayed in there for hours.
Tuesday brought the “rinse and repeat” part. Rob arrived at Heathrow and caught the coach out to Reading, and then I drove us both back to Wales to see my mother again. This was a quick visit, and we used it as an overnight spot to then go up to the Welsh Valleys to see all of Rob’s family. Below is some old photos of me that are at my mums, including one of me completing half marathon ahead of the London marathon. And one of Rob and my mum
Tuesday was actually the anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, and this is the town that his relatives still live in. Any of you that have watched the Crown on Netflix will know what this relates to, but if you have not, on Oct 21st 1966, just after 9am, a mountain of coal waste slid down and completely covered the local school and some of the village. We lost 116 children and 28 adults. Rob’s uncle’s 2 daughters were off school that day with the flu and so were saved. But Uncle Tom was the local policeman and had the horrible job of working with the rest of the town and the subsequent rescue teams to recover everyone. As you can imagine, this had a profound effect on everyone and still does to this day. Although I was brought up some 20 miles away on the coast, I still remember clearly our teacher coming into the classroom that morning in tears to tell us.
OK onto happier things, the Welsh are very warm and welcoming, especially up in the valleys. There is nothing that gives them greater pleasure than to feed you. So despite phone calls to say, “ no need,” we were greeted by a full house of relatives, a couple of bottles of prosecco, and a very nice curry.
We left late afternoon and went back to Sarah’s and had dinner out at our favorite pub.
Friday morning we travelled up to Holland on the sea, and that will be the next update.