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Back in 1979 I visited with Martin on a month long biking trip to England. I stayed in Woking with him and his parents — that's when we first met Mom. Martin had taken his MA (Phil), returned to the UK/EU, and had invited me to visit (that's before Kate, see this blog entry). We have maintained a relationship ever since.
We will be seeing Martin and Tina in Oppenheim and Martin's son Chris and his family in Dresden later on this trip. We fly out to Germany tomorrow, Saturday.
Any time we fly through Heathrow we try to visit Mom — she's 98 and still going strong but no one lasts forever. We have offered to take her out for lunch; however, the main objective is to have a visit, catch up and have a good chat. Actually she had offered to have us stay with her instead of at the Heathrow airport!
An interesting aside:
We decided to rent a car for the day rather than Uber. There's an Alamo rental a short walk away and, to get there, I cross the road from the hotel and wander through the parking lot of the Compass Center where I take a picture of an interesting statue of Hercules holding the world on his shoulders (you can find the picture here on the Wikipedia page). A few minutes later, as I continue across the lot, I'm approached by an attendant. "What are you doing here?" I explain what I'm doing, where I'm staying and where I'm going. Not good enough, he calls in someone from security. Apparently I'm not supposed to be in this parking lot (I hadn't crossed any barriers or signs to forbid my entry). And according to these two I'm not supposed to be taking any pictures from within although they admit they can't stop me from taking pictures from outside. They insist that I delete the picture I had taken before I can proceed and even then they walk me off the lot. You've got to be kidding me! WTF was that for?
The drive to Woking is nerve wracking. I wish we had taken an Uber — damn the cost! It's quite crowded around this part of the city and the route involves many twist, turns and lane changes through many crowded urban settings. Kate and Google Maps are helpful but this isn't fun. However, we do make it safely to Woking and stop at a large downtown mall near Mom's place where we buy her some flowers and chocolates. She's quite appreciative and glad to see us. We settle right in.
Mom has laid out a lunch with some wine for us. No, we're not going out. We had jokingly offered to take her out for pizza — we hear Andrew likes Pizza Express and it's not too far away. We enjoy our lunch together and have a long chat. There's a lovely attached sun room that looks over the garden. Hanging in the window is a crystal prism we gave her years ago.
Mom is still driving her car and does much better at navigating these narrow twisted routes than we! She's still in this her home of so many years (probably 65 or more). She's navigating the stairs to her bedroom on the second floor and tells us that's one of the reasons she's doing so well. It's the exercise of getting up and down those stairs. Whatever it is, she's in remarkably good health and seems as quick witted and smart as ever. Although she does tell us the story of a complicated telephone scam she recently fell for.
There are some pictures in the album of the house from the large garden out back. She has help to take care of cutting the lawn, trimming the hedges, tending the garden and so on. It costs but Chuck has left her in good shape. Her one son Duncan lives reasonably nearby in London and is quite supportive. Martin is not so close at hand in Germany but they keep in touch and do what they can.
In sum, she's pretty amazing. We tell her we'll be back for her 100th birthday.
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