Radstock Reunion

Posted on 2008/07/16 22:34:55 (July 2008).

[Saturday 12th July]
It was ten years ago this month that most of the guys I shared a house with at university graduated. This had occurred to me and Tom when we'd met up for lunch a few weeks back, and so in the intervening time there had been a lot of back and forth arranging a reunion, and trying to get everyone to sign up for it. I'd originally imagined it would be nigh-on impossible to get any more than a small fraction of the original tenants to be in the same place at the same time, but in the end the turnout was fantastic. Today we had all six people who had been in the house in our first year there - me, Tim, Jon, Rob, Lorenzo and Chris - plus of course Tom, the honorary* tenant.

* Honorary being a polite way to say "non rent paying". :)

Thanks to Tom and Rob having stayed in the Reading area, I'd seen quite a lot of those two over the last decade. I had also seen quite a lot of Lorenzo, despite him living the furthest away, thanks to our mutual jetset lifestyles over the past few years. Tim and Jon, however, I'd only seen a few times since we graduated, and Chris I don't think I had seen at all.

In terms of actually having all of us in one place though, this hadn't happened since basically the day we moved out (actually, technically the day Lorenzo and Chris moved out, which was a year before the rest of us).

So I guess it goes without saying that it was truly great to be all back together again.

The day started out at Rob and Kate's house, where we all assembled. From there we went to campus, and had a nostalgic wander about, with all the obvious "oh that didn't used to be there" type comments. Nothing was really open, it being a Saturday outside of term time, but I guess in a way that worked to our advantage - had it been filled with students 10+ years our junior we'd have felt pretty out of place.

From campus we headed to our former abode on Radstock road. I loved the way that walking from campus back to the house was just a completely natural and automatic thing for all of us - nobody struggled to remember the route or anything, and we pretty much just drifted there on autopilot.

Of course we couldn't actually get into the house, but we at least posed for a few pictures outside. Which must have been a bit disconcerting if there was anyone living there at the moment. Interestingly, there was actually a sign in the window offering a room to let - for something like £260 a month. Not actually a huge increase on what it had been when we were living there - I was almost tempted!

After leaving the house, we took a wander down the canal into the town centre, another walk we were all very familiar with from our student days. The stretch along the canal seems to have been tarted up a bit now, it was a lot more pleasant than I remmeber it.

The rest of the day then lapsed into a predictably boozy haze - a bit of a crawl through a number of pubs we used to frequent in Reading.

The day finished off back at Rob and Kate's house with a whisky and yet more reminiscing going on into the wee hours - I think it was about 3AM by the time I went to sleep.

I think I've rushed this entry a bit, and it ended up a bit of a factual account of what, as Lorenzo also said, was really quite an emotional event. I guess I could spend ages trying to come up with something deep and philosophical to characterise it, but, and perhaps albeit somewhat predictably, these are truly great people, and it was simply fantastic to see them all again.

It was great, simply great!

Posted by Lox at 2008/07/17 19:30:41.

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