Sunday in Abergavenny

Posted on 2012/03/25 11:32:03 (March 2012).

[Sunday 18th March 2012]
Chie had very kindly made, by request, a Black Forest Gateau for my birthday. It's sort of a long running tradition - Mum always used to make these for my birthday when I was a boy. It has been something of an undertaking for Chie - she baked the base Friday night, and had put the finishing touches to last night and this morning. Louise and Ian came over to Vera and Robin's in the morning, and so that made for a nice opportunity for us all to have a cup of tea and a slice of birthday cake together. The cake was really delicious, and I ended up having two rather large slices (as did Ian, bless him, with everyone else being somewhat more abstemious).

It didn't seem to be much of a break between our birthday cake elevenses and Sunday lunch. Robin made a very nice roast meal - he does very good potatoes - and by the end of it I felt very stuffed indeed.

We got the train back to London around 4pm, and the return journey was much slower than it had been on the way here (4 hours, instead of just over 2 and a quarter). The Severn Tunnel is often closed on a Sunday, which means the train has to divert by way of Gloucester - as well as the fact that the connection at Newport with the train from Abergavenny doesn't seem to work as well on the way back. So for the Newport to London leg, given that it was again fairly crowded, we decided to upgrade to First Class. This actually made for quite a pleasant trip - we'd bought a Sunday paper in Newport station, and had seats with a table, so could sit back and relax, thumbing through the Observer, whilst drinking the complimentary tea. We drank a lot of tea this weekend.

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