We arrived in Southampton after our British Rail experience (actually Scotrail, Virgin trains and something else) which took 12 hours due to a fault on the line during the middle leg of the journey! Our lovely hosts Sue Davidson and her husband David McBeath (sons John and David and dog Fergus) made us very welcome indeed. Sue is an old medical colleague of Doug's from his time living in the UK in the 80's. Our visit coincided with amazing weather-blue skies and 27c degrees (very warm for locals but not so much for us-just right). There was a GREAT DEAL of talking involved in this visit and just lovely to see them again. I had only met them once before when we stayed in 1990 (Holly was 22 months old). We spent Tuesday TALKing and walking in the New Forest and went to a lovely Inn (?The White Horse) for cream teas. Just a slight exaggeration there as when we went in to order we were told by a 'slightly' less than gracious waitress that-'I dont think we have any scones , I'll just look......nope (yes 'nope') we dont have any' OK I said we'll have tea and a dessert-that was OK except the cups came without saucers-in HAMPSHIRE!! can you believe it??? Then-"We dont have any teaspoons left are these OK? (two of the largest dessert spoons I have ever seen). Given the delightful setting we grimly bore with it all (tho I was very disappointed about the saucers and stirring a cup of tea with dessertspoons is not an aesthetic experience!! )

We spent the next day with Sue's sister Anne and another friend in the lovely town of Winchester and visited the Cathedral-definitely a prime place for a longer visit next time.

Today we have caught the train from Southampton to London- games fever is very evident. Our 'studio appartment' is very studio and not so much appartment however is clean, recently renovated and convenient in a classic terraced street in SW2 (near all the action in Hyde Park). Catching up with Drew tonight!!