Greetings from Oxshott

hello you lot. What a busy week it has been. We left Peterborough on Monday and came to Oxshott to stay with friends, then spent Tuesday and Wednesday in London, where Robin had 2 presentations. We found a great hotel in Covent Garden - The Fielding Hotel - which by London standards was a bargain at 140 pounds a night. Easy walking to everywhere interesting. The presentations were popular, so let' shope some people sign up for the treks next year.
Didn't do much sightseeing, but I did buy a cardie at Marks and Spencer. And I discovered that almost all service jobs are done by people whose names are probably Igor and Olga - there seems to be an enormous number of Eastern Europeans working in hotels, cafes and restaurants. Except the Indian one I had dinner in last night. Which was rather good.
Anyway, the lovely weather of the past 2 days (it was 25 degrees in London yesterday) has gone and we had torrential downpours today. We are now back in Oxshott in front of a log fire, getting ready for dinner and gossiping.
Today we were fortunate enough to go for lunch with a friend of Robin's dad to the Honourable Artillery club for lunch. A fine 3 course lunch with drinks was had in the grand surrounds - it was set up in 1537 by Henry VIII and the reigning monarch is the Captain. So there. And the splendid rugby field/cricket pitch is rumoured to have been a burial ground in the plague, so any cuts etc that players get when on the field end up septic. Lovely.

Here is our host GT being the ghost that haunted the folly at Painshill where we went for a wander the other day. He never reads blogs so he'll never know he's up here!

TTFN as we say over here.