WOSA

www.wosa.org.uk

WOSA Southern Reunion 21st May 2016

This event was held at 20 Church Way, Hurst Green, Oxted, Surrey. It is the home of Ann Fort, James, Kirsty, Elizabeth, three hens and some ferrets. The day was reasonably warm and our welcome was warmer. We were a very select group, numbering but five over and above our hosts. Many more had been invited but, for varying reasons, several could not attend.

We all seemed to arrive together as though we had synchronised watches beforehand. The truth was that Hazel & David Taylor and Jill & I had independently taken cunningly devious routes to get there. Not to put too fine a point on it we lost our ways and only Tony Ferguson found his unerring way there by sat. nav.. Once through the door we were offered drinks and nibbles to sustain the weary travellers. None were too weary to chat but 'twas ever thus when Old Brookfieldians meet. By the time the dust had settled and we were all in a pleasantly mellow mood it was lunch time and our hosts ushered us through to the Dining Room where we dined handsomely on a large joint of venison from a deer shot in James' wood and vegetables from the garden followed by red and black currant crumble. Hazel elected to stay with Ann and Kirsty, (Elizabeth was away tending to sick animals in Richmond, Yorkshire), but the rest of us, led by James, took a stroll round the village. At one point we crossed from the Eastern Hemisphere to the Western Hemisphere where, James informed us, the Greenwich Meridian runs down the middle of the road. We didn't see it but it's an even bet that Gwen Bagwell would have known it was there.

Back at No. 20 it was teatime and we tucked into scones, jam and cream with a splendid cake to follow and a cup of that which satisfies but does not inebriate. Ann had several notes from people who were unable to come, wishing us well and there were those mentioned  who had died during the year giving pause for thoughts of remembrance. Then it was time to say farewell to our hosts who had fed and entertained us well.

Tony Kemp.