New York May 2025

While in London towards the end of this mega trip, I learned that KLM had canceled my flight home. So I took my refund and started shopping around for routes home. I found I could take Jetblue from Heathrow to JFK on Wednesday May 7 and then Delta home on Thursday afternoon. So what to do with one solo evening in New York City? Have dinner with my friend Duane of course! Duane picked The Clam in the West Village, which turned out to be terrific. Cocktails, seafood, crisp white wine and great company - thank you KLM!

Thursday I arrived home, happy with this long trip and very happy to be home with Laura!

London May 2025

From Chipping Norton I returned to London for Sunday May 4 through Tuesday May 6.

Sunday evening I met up with Paul and Laurence again, this time at Laurence's favorite Korean restaurant - Bulgogi in Notting Hill Gate. Laurence brought his extended family with him and a good time was once again had by all.

Monday was a bank holiday in England and I took a day trip out to Wickford to spend the day with Irene, Sarah, James and Kelly. They took me to the Festival Leisure Park which has a great selection of restaurants, plus crazy golf, pool tables and lots of other amusements. We had a great lunch in Wagamamas and then we played all the available games like we were teenagers again! It turns out that Irene has a bit of a hole in one habit at crazy golf!

Tuesday, I had arranged to meet a very good friend of mine from my Marconi days - Paul Carnell. We seem to manage to meet up every 10 years or so to drink beer, break bread and reminisce. Paul was kind enough to come into London to meet me and after a couple of pints in the Jack Horner on Tottenham Court Road, we moved to the excellent Sicilian restaurant next door to my hotel: Bricco e Bacco. I had eaten lunch there the previous week and looked forward to going back as their specialty is dry aged steaks on the bone for two people to share. Paul seemed to enjoy being the victim of this experiment. As usual we pledged to not let another 10 years go by without meeting up, and now that I am retired there is no excuse.

Chipping Norton May 2025

From London I took the train to Chipping Norton in the Cotswolds, where I met up with 8 of my friends from the University of Birmingham. Some background is necessary here. The nine of us have been meeting for the weekend on the first Friday in May since 1981, so this was our 45th anniversary. I think I have made it to over 30 of these events and several of the group have made it to all of them. Until last year, we always met in the village of Abbots Bromley For 40 or so years, the village had enough good pubs, restaurants and places to stay that we stayed loyal to our tradition. Last year we realized that AB no longer met our needs and decided to move our annual retreat to Chipping Norton, which is a much larger and more vibrant town, with good hiking and other things to do on the Saturday.

Friday evening is always beers, then dinner, then more beers. Good times!

On the Saturday, our outing was to Blenheim Palace, which is was the family seat of the Dukes of Marlborough and notable as the birthplace and ancestral home of Winston Churchill. The grounds are fabulous and the interiors are vast and exquisite, despite being under massive renovations.

A vote of the group decided that we will be back next year!