Birthday journey

After a long night's sleep, I seem to have had lots of bits and pieces to do after breakfast, including a trip to Tesco's for wine to take with us for Kath's birthday weekend, and some emails. I was rather chaotic in getting everything ready to leave on time to rendezvous with Owain at Newport train station for the journey to Kenilworth, and as a result forgot my medication, and had to turn back for it after stopping for fuel at the Tesco Extra filling station on Western Avenue. We lost a quarter of an hour queuing for a pump and altogether were half an hour late meeting Owain. In the end our journey time was four hours without a break. It's the longest time I've sat behind the wheel of a car, driving or queuing, in three years or longer. And without no discomfort. It's a sign of real progress, a return to normal, age notwithstanding.

We arrived at the small boutique hotel in Kenilworth where we were staying, and installed ourselves in our small but comfortable room with ensuite, and then walked up to Kath and Anto's for supper. Two of Kath's oldest friends were staying, 'Little' Kath and Emma. It was great to see them both in the flesh for the first time in more than a decade. Rhiannon's boy friend Connor a fellow student from college was also staying.  After the meal we walked to Lil' Green cocktail bar in the square at the top of Warwich Road, where we took over the upstairs lounge, and welcomed a succession of Kath's friends and colleagues who dropped by for a drink.

I confess I was nervous about this. I don't much like pubs and bars at the best of times. They are noisy with background music and chatter. I'm finding it harder to hear nowadays than a few years ago, and even harder to sustain shouted conversations. I don't know why we do this to ourselves. In a pandemic season with everyone bunched up trying to make conversation against the sea of noise, I'm even less at ease, but Kath and Anto and their friends are in their element. The clientele were of such an age that ninety five percent of them would by now have been vaccinated - even Rhiannon at 17 has had her first jab now - so the risk started out being pretty low. I'm adverse to any kind of risk when it comes to contagious disease, but we stuck it out for two hours, then walked back to our hotel, tired out and went straight to bed.