Return to England

Just after our return from Egypt, my friend Anne Jorun told me that our Isrealian townie on Brettspielwelt, Shoshie, was coming to Brighton for the half term week. I've been planning to do a trip to England to visit people for some time, and this was just the occation I needed to get the dates set. A couple of other townies had rented an appartement in Brighton for the week, and several others were coming to see Shoshie and, of course, play games.

I wanted to visit some other places as well, so I planned to go a couple of days early. BA gave me a good offer on a rental car with the plane ticket, so I was quite happy with that as well, giving me the opportunity to go around at my own convenience. Saturday night I landet at Heathrow with my large, empty suitcase, and headed for Swindon. There I spent the night at my cousins place, with pizza and chatting until too late in the evening. I stayed the night over, and headed for Oxford and Denton house after breakfast on Sunday.

The weather was rather sad, with showers, but I didn't mind. Compared to Norwegian weather, it was just like a slightly chilly summer. I spent the day on Denton walking the dog, helping out with the horses, and everything felt like I had never been in Norway these last months since August. After supper I was so tired from all the fresh air and the late night before, that I went to bed and slept almost at once. The morning after I got up at seven, and started the day with feeding the horses and putting them out in the field before cleaning out the stables, just like any other normal workday when I used to live there. It was very nice to be back again!

On Monday it was time to do some shopping, as I had planned to bring a lot of dog treats and chews back, since they are really expensive in Norway. I decided to drop by a shopping centre I remembered, and in two of the cheap stores there I found a lot of the things I wanted, even cheaper than in the pet stores. Afterwards I went to the large pet store and got the rest, and some toys and blankets. After shopping I was really tired, so I decided to head for Brighton instead of my planned trip to the city centre. I had a quick sandwich on the first motorway service, and drove straight down to the Brighton Marina.

I dropped off my things in the appartement, said hi to the people there, and ran off to park the car and get some food, as I was really hungry. After ordering food, I realised I didn't have my wallet with me. I ran back to the apartement some hundred metres down the road, but it wasn't there, and then to the carpark a hundred metres the other way from the pub, and finally found my wallet in my bag there... Exhausted, annoyed and hungry, I finally got to enjoy an English pub meal for the first time in months.

Back in the appartement, I started what was two days of gaming and fun with friends, it was so nice to see everyone. On Tuesday I went to pick up AJ and we did some clothes- and lego shopping before meeting the others for lunch. We both brought Norwegian food, that we served during the evening. It was salty liquorice (not very popular...), reindeer meat (very popular), brown cheese and cloudberry cream (quite popular) and different Norwegian sweets (Smash!, Sure skrikerunger, Fruktige seigdamer, Knott mm.). And the Norwegian spirit of Løitens Aquavite. It was really fun to see the foreigners try the different food, and we got to try some Israelian food ourselves.

After more time trying new and old games, I had to leave for Heathrow on Wednesday afternoon, quite unwilling. Due to fog there was some delay in traffic, so I left an hour earlier than planned to be sure I'd make my flight. It wasn't a big problem, so I had good time on Heathrow to have dinner and get my father a good whisky. I would have liked to stay longer, some days, weeks or months. It won't be long until next time I go back!