These are the good times

A great week of nostalgia with the arrival from NZ of the Salmons, here on holiday for a couple of weeks. Fortunately for us they were based with Ant's mum in Kent, only half an hour away. They came down for lunch on Thursday and we spent a great afternoon catching up. The last time we saw Ann-Marie was in Sydney when I was pregnant Wth Flo, and we hadn't seen Ant and the kids since Scarlett was 6 months old and we visited them in Auckland. Sebastian and Georgie are now tall, fun teenagers who made a real fuss of Flo.

On Saturday afternoon I got the train to London for a 'Four* Girls from London' reunion in the evening. I went up a few hours early, so I could spend some time wandering around some of my old west London haunts from the early 90s. Maria and I lived variously around Notting Hill, Maida Vale, Westbourne Grove and White City and spent many happy times in and around Portobello Road, at the market, in the bars and at the carnival with lots of good mates. I don't know if I have a misty-eyed memory of it, and to be fair 20 years have passed, but it had changed a lot. While the antique end of the market and the flea market were still there, there were huge number of stalls selling nothing more than tourist tat. I don't remember there being so many tourists either and the entire West Indian community seems to have vanished - no more pumping reggae coming out of doorways and open windows. All the old boozers are now gastro pubs and  there was a surprising number of mainstream high street shops along the road in place of the one-off shops that made Portobello unique. That said, several old stalwarts were still there -  the Electric cinema and the Ground Floor bar and First Floor restaurant where Rob and I first met. I walked from Notting Hill all the way along Westbourne Park Road to Little Venice and onto to Warwick Ave to meet Ann-Marie, Deborah and Lorraine at Rachael's gorgeous flat, where Champagne bottles were relieved of their corks, and the canapes couldn't be plated up fast enough. Then it was around the corner to Deborah's for a lovely dinner, before I jumped on the late-night train home to Hastings. Good times.
*Rachael has joined as an honorary 5th member.