29 December 2010

The restless Michael was on his way again mid-morning this time to catch the euro express to Lille, France and then onward to some very good friends of his in Belgium. He will be back,. he’s never away for long.

At lunchtime, two of my cricketing buddies Paul Newman and Roger Goodwin, braved what was left of the winter elements and drove from London, together with Judith, a friend of Paul’s-another cricket aficionado-and Christine Rogers wife. They very kindly gave me lunch next door at the Cricketers public house. These lunches are becoming such a regular event that I will be acquiring a reputation of being a pub man which I have never been.

It was great fun seeing these two ‘reprobates’ out of what would normally be the cricket season and, of course, we were able to ramble on extensively about the success of our team in Australia. Alice had so much to do after Christmas she decided against joining us for lunch but invited them all back for a coffee so was able to meet  ‘the girls’ who she had not met before but had, of course, heard about. She liked them both and they got on well. They all went off mid-afternoon before the fog descended. It was not without a twinge of sadness that I took this to be the final social event of the Christmas festive season.

I received a telephone call, this afternoon, from Cyprus from one of my ex-pupils, Anna Styliano, enquiring how I was and wishing us all a happy New Year. I’ve grown very fond of Anna over the last 15 or so years and apart from being one of my pupils she became  a good friend and always looked after me wonderfully well when I was in Cyprus and stop. It was kind of her to think of me at Christmas, particularly as she has a large family of her own will stop. As I have regularly visited Cyprus over the past 10 or 12 years, on some sort of teaching assignment or other, I got to know the Styliano family very well and they will be one of the many things I shall miss in the future..