A wonderful weekend in Worcester (and Cheltenham!)
I’ve just had one of the most enjoyable weekends I’ve had in a long while 
It started (too!) early on Saturday morning, when Babel arrived to collect me with a car-full of Esperantists. It is a firmly held belief of mine that one should not get up before half ten at a weekend unless there is an exceptional circumstance, and I was unsure as to whether this qualified as one 
We were headed to Worcester, where we were holding the latest JEBmeet-up. I don’t know Worcester terribly well, and so had decided to be prepared by emailing Babel a selection of maps for printing. Sadly, I emailed them to his work address, under the mistaken impression that he was working on Friday evening, or else I made a stupid typo, because he never received them, and so finding our way to the agreed meeting point became more traumatic than I had hoped 
Actually, our first challenge was to find somewhere to park the car! Worcester seemed to be singularly devoid of carparks, and we drove round in a desperate circle for quite a while before finally spying one… which was full Luckily there was a more spacious car park just across the road, and the ticket would have been fairly reasonable, were it not for the fact that we ended up paying twice. Erm, yes. That would have been my fault See, we bought the first parking ticket and Babel sent me to put it on the car. As far as I could see, it didn’t have any sort of sticky stuff on it, and so I wanted to stand it up in a prominant place where there would be no room for confusion. Unfortunately, there’s a nasty gap between the dashboard and the windscreen, and it was down this that the first ticket managed to fall. It was a relief that I had enough small change to purchase a replacement…
We were supposed to be meeting in a pub outside the cathedral, and even without a map it didn’t seem like that should be too much of a tall order to find. The cathedral in Worcester is quite striking, visible from streets away, and so towards its spires we headed. Our plans were rather thwarted by the fact that unbeknownst to me, it was surrounded by a very high wall, but after a pleasant stroll along the river, we succeeded in finding a break in it We reached what we believed to be the entrance to the cathedral, but were unable to see the road we were searching, so Babel decided to call He-With-The-Inside-Knowledge-Of-Worcester, more snappily known as Damon The conversation which ensued seemed to be a little confused. Damon was of the impression that there was only one entrance to the cathedral and we should be able to see a statue of the famous local composer Elgar from it, but try as we might we could see no such thing. We wandered round aimlessly in a bit of a circle, before Babel’s phone rang again. This time the conversation seemed to be a little fraught, and when he came off the phone he was a little wound up that “Damon” seemed not to recognise the name of the pub we were searching. He had, however, suggested that we meet him *inside* the cathedral rather than playing hide and seek around the perimeter wall, and so we slipped inside. Imagine our surprise when walking towards us was not Damon, but Ben – a Belgian Esperantist who we were half-hoping would be able to make it. That is to say, we were fully hoping he would be able to make it since we knew he was in the UK, but only half sure that he would. It transpired that it was he whom Babel had been speaking to on the phone, and not poor Damon at all 
Somehow or other we all ultimately stumbled across the pub, and I was very glad that we did. Damon had clearly made a good choice; the food was more expensive than in some places, but for me it was justified by the quality, and the atmosphere was very pleasant indeed. There was no loud music blaring, and the waitresses moved two tables together so that we could all sit around and chat in comfort The service was admittedly a little slow when we ordered, but I had a very delicious lasagne followed by an even more delicious tiramisu, and the glass of wine wasn’t bad either
My Esperanto felt a little rusty since last time I used it, but it was nice to have an opportunity to practise, and we had some interesting conversations. I was going to say I learnt the word for “seal” during a complicated conversation with Ben, but actually I can’t remember it It began with an f, I’m fairly sure…. It was also fascinating to hear about Damon’s experiences in China and see his Esperanto-German dictionary, of which I am highly jealous 
All in all the meeting was much more enjoyable than I had anticipated, if that doesn’t sound strange. It always seems like such a good idea to propose a JEB meeting initially, but when you get as far as trying to organise people to agree on dates, it can become rather stressful. There’s always someone you’d like to be able to make it who is unable to do the date when everyone else is free, so then I get a guilt-trip if logic dictates I choose the date which is best for the greatest number at the expense of people who wanted to come (sorry, Mikeo and Gavan!). It also gets a bit disheartening when you send out email after email trying to encourage people to get involved, and meet with no response at all. So it was highly cheering that Guy was able to come along, and even more so that he brought along a mate who seems to be making very good progress with learning the language indeed And it was especially nice that Kuoso was able to make it as well, as we’d initially thought he might have other commitments, and I was keen to see him again to build some bridges after a regrettable post-IJK falling out we had
The most remarkable thing about Saturday, however, was probably the weather. I had come armed with my thickest and heaviest black jumper, having suffered with the cold earlier in the week, but no sooner had I arrived in Worcester than I was sweating and wanting to remove it. We ultimately decided that the day was too nice to spend inside, so went for a bit of stroll about the town and settled down for some more conversation on a grassy bank overlooking the Severn. All too soon, Tim and I had to head off because we were due to meet up with some friends of Tim’s in Cheltenham that evening…
Cheltenham and Worcester fortunately aren’t too far apart on the motorway, and we even found a convenient service station where we were able to stop for the nicest iced latte I’ve ever had outside a Caffe Nero It wasn’t our day for navigation, and we had a few problems locating the B&B I had booked us into, but luckily the landlady was on hand to help out. I’d been a bit nervous about the accommodation I’d booked because it was a private establishment rather than a well-known hotel chain and internet reviews don’t always say positive things. But if I had any doubts, they soon proved to be utterly unfounded. The house was delightful; we had a very good sized bedroom with a little bathroom all to ourselves, as well as shared use of the kitchen and lounge should we so wish. The landlady instantly made us feel at home, and at only £50 a night including breakfast the next day, it was ten times better than the experience we would have got in the nearest Travelodge
I’d bought Babel a present because I felt so guilty about the misadventure of the Moosemobile, and receiving that seemed to put him in a good mood for the rest of the weekend. We had a rather nice snuggle, having decided that perhaps it was wiser to avoid the (Thai) meal which his friends were meeting for at half seven. Obviously we intended to meet up with them for some drinks afterwards, and to this end we walked into the town, stopping off at a Burger King en route for some sustenance. We sat in Burger King for rather a long time – as evidenced that I nearly achieved the unheard-of feat of actually finishing my fizzy drink – but to our not inconsiderable astonishment, we didn’t get a text back to say where everyone else was. Bemused, we ultimately headed back to the B&B, and after another snuggle fell asleep.
The next morning we had no fixed plans, but the sun was still shining brightly so we decided to go for a walk in the Pittville Park. We found a rather nice bench with an excellent view of the ducks, but all was ruined when a nasty dog came woofing up to the edge of the pool Luckily there’s a nice pets’ corner at the top of the park, and so we went there instead and spent a few minutes looking at the rabbits and chipmunks Our landlady had tipped us off that there was a big car-boot sale happening on Cheltenham race course today, and with Babel being incapable of resisting the sniff of a second-hand book, that was our next port of call. I was utterly amazed at how many people had turned up, both to sell and to buy, and there was a wider range of stuff on offer than I would have imagined. Unfortunately there were also some idiot drivers, so it felt like we were taking our life in our hands as we attempted to walk up the racecourse drive.
In fact, we didn’t spend much time at our destination at all, because no sooner had we arrived than Babel received the long-awaited text from his friend. We decided to drop in and visit them for a quick half hour, but matters were complicated by the fact that we didn’t have a map of the route to where they lived. Thanks to a colleague of mine, however, I know have Google Maps on my phone, and after a couple of frustrating bungled efforts, I managed to type in the correct postcodes and get together a route of sorts. We managed to lose it somewhere in the middle, but somehow Babel succeeded in getting us back on track again, and we arrived at the correct house without so much as having fallen out over the difference between left and right
I’m always apprehensive about meeting new people, but Babel’s friends seemed very nice and I got a much-needed cup of coffee so it was all good Sadly we had to head off pretty quickly because Babel was due back at work for the afternoon, but maybe we’ll be able to visit them again some other time…
So yeah, I don’t know – maybe it doesn’t sound like the most exciting weekend in the world, but it was really nice to have chance to spend some time with Babel – especially time when none of us was particularly stressed about other things in life – and now I feel as relaxed as if I had just got back from holiday As for JEB, I’m thinking that the next meet-up might be around February time, so if anyone has any thoughts for a location to equal Worcester, let me know
Tags: cheltenham, JEB, worcester