Unexpected visit by Carol

When I posted a picture of my evening walk on Facebook, and old friend from Amsterdam responded. It was Carol, who had been a student while I had been PhD student, and she said she was in town. In town? She lives in London! What is the chance of her actually being in Bethesda! But she was. So we decided to meet up. And I thought my back garden would be a good venue. She agreed, and soon I gave her a hug and put the kettle on.

We had a nice cup of coffee and caught up about our current lives, and revisited the memories from our time in Amsterdam and her time in Bangor. She did a degree in Bangor before I arrived, and still has connections here, even though the friend she was now visiting was an old friend from London. The world is small! And I vaguely knew her friend. The world is smaller still.

When we had drunk our coffee she asked me what I intended to do with my day, and I said I wanted to paint the stairs into the garden. Carol asked if I wanted to hand with that. I did! So we painted the stairs together. And set the world to rights. And in the meantime I got hungry. I knew I only had enough bread for lunch for one person, so I said I might have to pop to the shop. Carol said she could make some naan bread. It sounded like an exciting option! So we put the paintbrushes away and went to the kitchen. I had never seen naan bread being made live. It doesn't look difficult; next time I could do it myself! And we gathered some things to have with the bread and went back to the garden.

I did not take pics when Carol was actually there, but this is what the stairs look like now!

After lunch she went back to her hosts. It had been great to catch up with her! I have an immaculately painted set of stairs. And new skills. I think she will be back! She certainly has more friends here in the small town than most Londoners do…