Long time no see

It has been nearly 4 years since Dana and I met for the last time and I still cannot understand how we survived without seeing each other more regularly. Well, everything was planned to see her at her wedding, but then Isabel fell ill and I could not go, which I still deeply regret - by the way, I have never seen a wedding-picture!!!!

So Dana decided it was time to pay RMS - and me of course - a visit and since she can now conveniently travel to the UK without a visa, she just had to board a train and there she was!

Of course it was just great to have her back and somehow it seems as if we had seen each other only yesterday - it just felt so normal to have her around. As I had to work on Thursday (thanks Henry VIII. for splitting from the Catholic Church, otherwise the UK would now also have a bank holiday!) Dana went shopping in Oxford Street and I will wisely hold my tongue and refrain from telling you with how many bags she got back! As she was hungry like a lion I did some cooking for us and then we went to the pub to have a decent Guinness together. We still both like it very much (well, in former times we especially liked it because it was cheap) and I had the feeling as if we had never left the UK 5 years ago to live completely different lives - okay maybe this is due to the fact that the Pennsilvanian did not change either!

Friday was Dana's "Back to RMS" day, which I guessed she enjoyed immensely. Especially when even Mrs Rose - the headmistress - remembered her as "the business efficient one"! Dana was all thrilled I can tell you. She met up with some of her girls from Atholl-Sussex and of course she spoke to many of the nice people we spent so much time with back then - Dave for example who runs the kitchen store, as he is the one who did our packed lunches and if you had preferences (like tuna sandwich and ready salted crisps) you should be nice to him and not to forget Tom the caretaker with whom we fought many a Badminton match.

Dana has not changed or let's say I am still very fond of her, especially because she helped me back then through some very hard times. Especially her "games-attitude" has not changed :-) and when you look at the picture you will quite agree with me!

We spent the Saturday in London, visited Camden, Notting Hill and all the other places like Hyde Park which we both love so much. The weather was fine and we even did some sunbathing. There are so many good memories connected with these places, that we even took a picture at Parliament Bridge again (with the Houses of Parliament in the background), just to do the same as 6 years ago when we both went into London together for the first time. It was a strange feeling back then because it was the day after 9/11 and I have never seen that many police officers in one place before. But it was also our first day off and we were desperate to get into the city! This time the city was also croweded because in the afternoon there was the FA cup final between ManU and Chelsea to be held at Wembley Stadiun - they said something about 20,000 police officers at the stadium and around the city!

We spent the sunday at the Rickmansworth Festival together with Vanessa who finally managed to find her way to Ricky! But I will save that for another post, this one is way to long again anyway - people started complaining about that :-) Of course Dana has written her own version of her stay in London which can be found here!