Fui Ling and Stephen hosted a BBQ at
home today. Irene and I were able to
sleep in for a while so that was nice.
Tristram had a golf tournament in the morning and Fui Ling had to go to
the club as she was a coordinator.
Stephen had to run some errands and he invited Petros to go with
him. They took the Aston Martin, which
was a thrill for Petros. Irene and I
helped to make the salad for the BBQ. Irene made it look quite pretty and she
also made some dressing. Ming Yee, who has a Volvo SUV, took us over to the
Tesco so I could top-up my cell phone account.
I was not able to add money online or over the phone as I did not have a
UK credit card and it would not accept a Canadian one. I was also thinking of buying a portable hard
drive to put all the photos on it but Fui Ling said she had an old one that I
could have. Fui Ling also asked us to
pick up lemonade for the Pimm’s Cup that she was going to make, bread and
milk. I also got some blood orange juice
for breakfast.
After getting my phone topped up, we
went back to the house. Guests were
already starting to arrive for the BBQ.
Most of them were school friends of Stephen’s and they meet at each
other’s homes up to 4 times a year. There was Ross, who is at least 6 ft 7
inches tall; his wife (Clare?) and their daughter, Melissa? (their son, Trevor
was at the golf tournament with Tristram and Ross would pick them up later);
Anne and David and their dog, a cocker spaniel named Barney, 2 teenage
daughters, a nurse with her dog, Molly, a lurcher, an Iranian woman, Fariba??
and her husband Paul?? who does IT
benchmarking stuff. I’ve probably got everybody’s names and relationships
confused.
We all took off for a walk around the
canal with the 2 dogs, their respective owners, assorted offspring and Ming
Yee. Barney would make little forays
into the canal and come back with wet paws.
Fortunately, he did not go too far in or he would have been really
wet. Molly was totally well
behaved. Apparently, she was a rescue,
and a bit jumpy. We saw horses grazing
in a field, a man and his son fishing under a bridge, a heron in the water,
which then took off in flight at our approach.
We waved at people on river houseboats as they motored by, dodged
cyclists and exchanged greetings with many other dog walkers. We turned around to go back to the house the
same way we had come in order to avoid taking the dogs on the main road.
When we got back to the house, Stephen was
hard at work, grilling chicken, lamb, ribs and sausages. Apparently, the sausages were a great
favourite at their BBQ. Fui Ling had the
task of ensuring everything was properly cooked. Everybody enjoyed the jugs of Pimm’s Cup that
Fui Ling made. The more energetic youngsters played soccer out in the garden.
We had our food in the dining room while most of the others ate outside in the
garden. The food was great. Fui Ling had made a dessert with slices of
oranges in it. As well, there were chocolate
cakes from Costco (yes, there is a Costco about 40 minutes from West Byfleet).
Where we stayed: Mutiara
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