Imagine. Pesto, tomato and mozzarella on fresh brown bread, prawn and seafood sauce, beef and horseradish, Mexican dips and nachos, houmous and smoked salmon pate with rye crackers followed by fresh fruit salad with spicy orange Greek yoghurt. Lush. The picnic was bundled into a couple of cool bags and with suncream and hats, we jumped in the car to meet some of the Old Boy’s colleagues in the idyllic and quaint old village of Cookham, west of London.
‘Rock on the Moor’ 80’s music festival attracted 10,000 people of every age who brought chairs, picnics and silly Rod Steward wigs to enjoy some serious nostalgia.
Despite being a music lover, somehow festivals had passed me by so I was delighted when the Old Boy came home with two tickets to the event. With me being a right girlie, he was worried that I would be put off by slumming it in a field. I had to remind him that I was a farmer’s daughter and that bumpy fields with cow pats, insects in my sarnies and outdoor toilets (aka hedges) were what I grew up with!
So we were to meet up with a few of his colleagues who I didn’t know. But soon we were sharing food, laughter and life stories and reminiscing over old music bands and long forgotten artists who had been resurrected for the day!
The thirty odd years in between had been quite a journey for some of us and different songs from Nik Kershaw or T’Pau placed me back in carefree and child-free times.
My ‘new best friend’ Maxine and I shared stories and she gasped at the potted history of my son Toby who had survived near death experiences and many major health conditions. She marvelled at how positive and accepting I was of it all and how I carried no anger against the world. It was interesting to have her shine a light on it as I hadn’t really thought about that before.
It always seemed to me that there was no point in picking off the old scabs and inspecting the rawness beneath only to then whinge about the pain. As I wrote in my diary the other night, “I have been the best mum and the worst mum in equal measure. But I have done the best I can”
So as I reflected on how we revelled in remembering the music of the past, I realised that I had not got stuck there. As much as the music of ABC and Kim Wilde was enjoyable, I’m just as at home in the present and love a bit of Bruno Mars, Kings of Leon and the elaborate and intoxicating poetry of Eminem – if you just ignore the F words and really listen, it’s very intelligent!
And of course promoting the Osteopathic cause is never far from my mind and I explained to my new friend’s husband how Osteopathy could relieve the back pain he was in after a fall on a millionaire’s rig in Monaco a few months ago! They also decided that both their mothers would benefit from some treatment too!
Recommendations and phone number passed on, my work here was done and I left the festival late that night with flowers in my hair and a slightly weaving friend on my arm! I steered her home to the hotel with a warm feeling of a great day out and new happy memories made.
The next morning the Old Boy prodded me in the ribs and asked me what time it was. Thoughts of when his next meal will be are never far from his mind and he was clearly hankering after his full English breakfast! I squinted at my watch and deciphered in the gloom that it was about 8.30am. While I dragged my fuzzy brain back into the world, he showered, then ran me a bath and brought me tea and a bourbon biscuit.
So I was in the bath and out the bath, tea drunk and half dressed when he decided to check the time and suddenly announced ‘Oh no it’s 5.30am!’ Somehow in the dark, I must have read my watch upside down so it was quickly back to bed for another three hours’ sleep!
There was much hilarity at breakfast about this and a slap on the wrist of the one who, it turned out, had decided to swivel the illuminated time on the clock radio towards the wall to ‘stop the glare’. That little inconvenience would have been preferable to the glare he got over the ketchup bottle and teapot I can tell you!
