Goodbyes: Round I

With a mere twenty days to go until I depart for the land of kangaroos, the time had come to begin saying goodbye to the people I'm going to miss the most. As a self-confessed sentimental mess at the prospect of leaving everyone behind, I had been shoving the thought to the back of my mind until absolutely necessary. Now is that time.

First up was a trip to Harry's country mansion near Basingstoke, a rare occasion where a nightmarish four-hour train journey surrounded by rowdy football fans was completely worth it. As the only person who couldn't make it on the Friday night, I arrived on Saturday afternoon to find my Bath family visibly hungover, but otherwise in good spirits. As the beverages began flowing again, we enjoyed games of ultimate frisbee (avoiding the wasp nest) and badminton in the Saunders' beautiful garden, interspersed with catching up on everyone's antics.

A quick change for dinner was proceeded by a very intense and slightly tipsy game of croquet, accompanied by ample glasses of Pimm's. This was not a graceful display, nor a sport I had great success with at first and I pitied poor Sam, who had to venture into the bushes to recover my rogue shots. We felt slightly cheated that Freddie, Harry's elder brother, was allowed to play; croquet is clearly a popular activity in the household and Jack was full of the fact that he was one (albeit inactive) half of the winning partnership.

Dinner was comprised of slow-cooked lamb, ratatouille, green beans and new potatoes, followed by fruit pavlova, which was all gorgeous. The wine flowed this time, and after a clumsy tidy up we retired into the garden for further merriment, ending up in the cottage, where the inevitable boozing, drinking games and wrongness ensued. I think I tumbled into bed around 2:30am.

Sunday was gloriously lazy and melancholy in equal measures. Breakfast was a fantastic group effort at a fry up, supplemented by a slice of chocolate cake while we waited (as you do). Between then and my departure for Reading at 6pm, we basically lay down in the shade of the tree with minimal movement, with the exception of dragging ourselves into the kitchen to make sandwiches. During this time, Jack and Dom left us; Jack's going to Nepal around the same time as I leave and, despite him either calling me sloot or crushing me in a sandwich every time we meet, I'm going to miss that african idiot dearly. I will hopefully have the privilege of seeing Dom and Sam in London the night before I fly. Saying goodbye to the others at the end of the day was tough; an obscenely long hug between Rochelle, Lucy and I marked our last contact for a while, but I managed to talk Luce and Patx into considering a trip to Perth during the Easter holidays ;)

With my friends behind me, I hopped on the train home with nothing but a hangover and memories of the weekend for company. Knowing you're leaving the people you've seen every day for two years to explore a different continent is a weird concept, but I'm hoping that being on the other side of the world will be enough of a distraction to avoid being too depressed about it! Next up on my goodbyes list is a day in Bath with my lovely housemates, so god knows how I'll cope with that!

Missing my babies already!