Cheryl, Debbie (AKA The Pixel Chef) and Philippa
At the end of the summer holidays I had a fabulous reunion with two of my oldest and bestest friends – Cheryl and Philippa. Cheryl and I met at infant school where, for a while we hated each other, before finally becoming good mates. Philippa came on the scene at High school (the old and wonderful North Walsham High School for girls) where we generally did our very best to misbehave and get into all kinds of scrapes!
Over the years we have stayed in touch but meet very rarely – Philippa lives in the Lake District and Cheryl only lives 40 minutes away in Reepham so we really have little excuse not to get together.
Earlier this year our terrible trio had its first reunion for several years at Captain Americas in Norwich. It was our favourite place to go as teenagers where we dined on BLT’s cokes for just 50p, and as we got older we progressed through the menu to burgers, Schlitz beer and cocktails! On our return in May we found that little – apart from the prices and the lack of Schlitz beer -had changed! We laughed, ate burgers and yes had the beer and cocktails and vowed to see each other again very soon.
Fast forward to last week and Philippa was back in Norfolk visiting her Mum so we arranged another rendezvous this time in Reepham, which is where Cheryl lives. I was struck by what a lovely little town Reepham is. Lots of quaint little cottages (compete with Hollyhocks), bijou shops and a beautiful walks along the Marriotts Way – an old disused railway that stretches all the way to Norwich and up to Aylsham. After a rather damp walk we stopped off for lunch at Hamptons – a fabulous treasure trove of a gift shop with a café attached. We felt quite at home amongst the vintage knick-knacks and the other “ladies of a certain age who lunch”! Once again we laughed our way through lunch – very posh baps and Pinot Grigiot!
