A trip to Oxford

When I was in London I had arranged to meet up with some friends.

One of them, Melissa, lived in Oxford which was an hour and a half away on the bus. That didn't sound too long but by the time I dropped Holly off at the Guildhall, took a tube across London, walked the ten minutes to the bus station and stood in the queue to buy my ticket for 20 minutes, it was nearly 11am.

I enjoyed the bus journey as it was quiet until the bus driver made a stop, opened the door and in flew a wasp. Now for everyone who knows me, I HATE wasps and am totally terrified of them. As my seat was right behind the driver, I got a birds eye view of him driving and trying to swot the damn thing with his newspaper which was just getting the wasp more pissed off!

Cartoon by Dave Simmer of Blogography and is used in accordance with  his Creative Commons Licence

After dive bombing him numerous times, it took off across to the other side of the window and buzzed in a very pissed off way by the door. The next thing, the guy in the seat opposite me, hangs over the railing and just grabs the wasps in his fingers, crushes it and flings it away! MY HERO!

My face is a picture and I must have been looking at him admiringly cos the next thing, he caught my eye and smiled. I smiled back, wondering how he'd acquired that skill. The spell was broken when his phone rang and he started yabbering in Spanish at the top of his voice to the caller who must have been deaf!

I finally arrived in Oxford at 12.30. I'd to find the Starbucks there where Jo and Lawrence were meeting me to take me up to Melissa's house.

Jo and Lawrence in 2009

Now I met Melissa at a Unique support group conference held near Birmingham. We had to fly there whereas for Melissa it was an hour's journey in the car. How jealous was I? We hit it off straight away and we spent the first evening sharing a red wine or two in the hotel bar. The next night we set the dance floor alight (Melissa, Holly and I) til the early hours and having consumed more red wine we staggered up to bed.

Melissa and Joseph in 2009

This was the start of a beautiful friendship. She has been up to Scotland to visit, we've gone on holiday with the kids together and that's how I met her friend Jo and son Lawrence.

Arriving at Melissa's house there were lots of hugs and she had lunch all ready and waiting for us. Her little boy Joseph has grown so so much since I last saw him and he is walking better and speaking better and has made great improvements. Joseph showed me some pics and videos on the laptop and then Melissa showed me pics of her new house, which she moves into in September.

I was only there for two hours as I had to leave by 3pm to have any chance of getting back into London on time for collecting Holly from the Guildhall. It was the quickest 2 hours ever and I had a lovely time catching up with them all.  It was Jo's birthday the next day and I was reminded of our holiday 2 years ago when she celebrated it while on holiday with us and we chatted about the house we'd stayed in and the fun we had.

Before I knew it, it was time to go and I was sad to leave but for all the time it took to get there, it was totally worth it.

There is another conference coming up in April so I hope to see her then, if all goes to plan.

As I got on the bus to go back, it was the same driver and he said "that was a short visit" and I laughed and said "yeah, short but sweet".