What a weekend :-)

What a day! Breakfast with Carol, Kathy and Brian, three of the most wonderful(ly) funny people I know, in a little cafe where the seats were a little rickety for the liking of someone of my somewhat larger stature. Sometimes, if my knees are a bit sore, I can sort of fall into a seat and I got the distinct impression that the chair would have collapsed under me had I had bad knees at the time!

We wandered down to Gunwharf Quays - thank god some people have a better sense of direction than me, since I had temporarily misplaced my map - and had a bit of a tootle round down there. Kathy and Brian had booked to go up the Spinnaker Tower and wanted to look at the boats (ships? I'm never sure of the difference...) so Carole and I went for some retail therapy. Fortunately we both love Paperchase, so I think we spent quite q while in there :-) We went up the tower afterwards, and bumped into Kathy and Brian, and Gail and David! Pretty spectacular view eh?

We went to lunch afterwards - our friend Bids had organised huge platters of nibbles which were amazing and the 20-ish of us chattered happily away. There was some partaking of wine too :-)

I tootled off to do a bit more shopping afterwards then went back to the hotel for a bit of a read - I had planned a lie down, but didn't have time before we were back out for dinner to the Jolly Sailor in Southsea. The food was beautiful, the company was (as always) fabulous and the 8 piece live band, Mr Big Stuff, were fantastic. I was up well past my bedtime, hence the late posting here - I was far too drunk and it was far too late on the day!

I love spending these times with my friends - we don't get together nearly often enough but, given we're from all over the country (Greenock to Portsmouth this time, and lots of places in between) I think we do quite well.

x