A weekend in the country

On Thursday we had an email from our friend asking us and a few friends to visit his parent's house in the country. It was an offer we could very much not turn down, the weather was predicted to be magnificent. The weather man had finally bought some good news. After a quick breakfast with Mossy, James and Damien I jumped on a train and met Benny at the country manor. I'm slightly addicted to the new brunch place we discovered the week previously so I had to take Mossy.

Benny had gone down early Saturday morning with friends to make it down in time to watch the Reds game. It only took an hour on the train to arrive to Buxted which is in Sussex, just south of London. The afternoon was picture perfect. So perfect that we went out and tried clay pigeon. It was the first time that Ben or I had shot a gun. No surprise I missed all my targets. Alex was kind enough to say I just missed. Ben on the other hand had a great aim and hit 50% of his targets.

Photo taken by Britta Rudner

After a few hours of shooting we headed back to Alex's house and he and his parents prepared a beautiful BBQ burgers for dinner. We made the most of this amazing weather and sat outside. The boys even managed to squeeze in a swim in the pool. We had such a great weekend and Alex's family were so kind to us. I made friends with the two dogs and the very cute cat Bertie. I really wanted to take Bertie home.

On Sunday, we were up early and had another treat, more sunshine and breakfast outdoors. After breakfast we headed on a walk. We were all dressed summery except for our gum boots. We have had so much rain lately that there is a lot of mud around. We were traipsing through farmers fields to the local pub. It took just under an hour to get there. It was nice walking through the fields. A pleasant change from the pavement. The only complaint was the stinging nettles which luckily no one got stung by. I was even lucky enough to see a horse. We were met kindly by Alex parents who were just supposed to pick up the 16 year old dog that can only walk a single journey.  Instead we piled into the Land Rover Defender and headed home. Dogs comfortably squished in between us. 

The country weekend came to an end with a lovely cook roast lunch with salad, kindly made by Alex's mum. To top it off she had made home-made blueberry icecream with fresh fruit from the countryside. We had such a great weekend we both felt it was a lot longer than just one night. Alex and his parents were so happy to have seven of us London folk come for a country visit. Hopefully we can do it again soon.