Visitor week

view downstream from the Arun View footbridge

 Linda took Lorrie to Arundel Castle on Tuesday morning then brought her over for a sandwich lunch. 

Lorrie and view downstream

Renovations are ongoing at The Steam Packet ?(above), a tiny pub that closed  a couple of years ago. Dating from 1864 and originally called ‘The Custom House Tavern’ because it is situated almost next to the 1864 Customs House.

upsteam from the Arun View bridge

Lorrie kindly treated us to an Arun View meal and they left for Pulborough. Lorrie is on vacation from Aramcoland, next stop Grates Cove, Newfoundland, home of her Meadus forbears. On Wednesday they planned to visit Canford Parish Church near Poole hoping to find gravestones of her ancestors. 

One of these, Thomas Meadus, built the Waterwitch, the last square rigged sailing vessel, in 1871/2 at Poole.

On Wednesday evening Roger arrived from Canterbury on his trip to visit family in Germany and England. We wandered along the sea front to see the recently completed Longest Bench. In the evening Wayne and Connie arrived with daughter Elissa and husband and we had fish and chips from Oscars courtesy of Roger. They had arrived from Maryland to research Wayne’s Welsh ancestry. They planned to visit Arundel Castle on Friday and had booked into the Littlehampton Travelodge, so a good Aramcon reunion. Roger left early Friday morning for a 3pm BA flight from Heathrow to New York. He always fits a visit in with us on his UK trips so we hope that will continue. It's great that good friends from our expat days are able to visit and maintain the friendships built up over many years of the good life we had in Saudi Arabia, especially as Sue's health won't allow her to travel abroad anymore. The continuity means a lot as you get older.

On Friday Jackie joined us to see the Battle of Britain memorial fly-past of Hurricanes and Spitfires over the old Ford Airfield site at 4:55pm. At 5:30 someone got the word that they hadn't even taken off from Biggin Hill so we left with hundreds of  other people who had turned up. Back home we finished off the fish pie from Roger's visit.