Sunday 26 September 2010

Last of the Summer Wine

This weekend was what melvtopia should be all about: finding positive from negative.  At noon on Thursday, I was preparing to leave work and head to Luton airport for a weekend of footie, tapas and sun in Lisbon.  Then, thanks to the cheese eating, surrender monkey French air traffic controllers, our flight was cancelled.  The transfer option next morning was full, so very quickly the weekend unravelled and we had no option but to cancel.

And then, out of the jaws of defeat, Soapy retrieved a victory, with the offer of a weekend at his holiday home in the Isle of Wight.  A round of phone calls later and it was game on - so on Friday afternoon Soapy, Simon, Nigel, Ian and I boarded the ferry to Yarmouth and a weekend of outdoors, fresh air and - as it turned out - plenty of sunshine.

After a few beers in Yarmouth we headed to the house in Freshwater, which is stunning, with plenty of room for all of us.  On Friday night we ate at a local pub where we enjoyed conversation which veered between raucous and melancholy.

Saturday saw full English breakfasts all round followed by a drive to Ryde where we played bowls (Chiswick Casuals official records will show that I won both games) and then pitch and putt (played in glorious sunshine) that Nigel won with style.

Dinner was at the Blue Crab, a pleasant hour's walk from the house, but the highlight of the night - maybe the weekend - was the bus drive home. The bus driver may have looked like a mild mannered, bespectacled woman but must have really been Damon Hill in disguise - she drove like a demon with little regard for anything or anyone else on the road.  It was like a scene from Harry Potter, and either exhilarating or sick-making depending on your point of view.  A nightcap at The Vine and that was our Saturday.

This morning we rose relatively early so decided to go for an earlier ferry than originally planned, and shared a ferry with none other than the ginger spice girl herself, Geri Halliwell.  Which is fitting because what we wanted was a trip to Lisbon, but in the end what we really really wanted was a weekend away with good mates, and we got that.  I hope you see what I did there.