Fifteen years on - Salisbury

Guildford, M3, Farnborough, A303, Salisbury, familiar signs leading us to Salisbury and ultimately, Poole for our few days with family. I'd collected the hire car from Enterprise car hire in Lea High street and we were in a hurry to get to Salisbury to show the children where Gus was born and where we'd started out our married life. We had to make a short detour of Stonehenge and by pulling into a layby and having a quick peek one can easily do this over a fence. To Amesbury and then down the beautiful Woodford valley that we'd got to know so well fifteen years ago. It was our first trip down a typical country lane and Gus and Caitlin were wowed by the way the beautiful trees created a tunnel of emerald green down which we were driving. We passed Sting's house, Lake House at Wishford Cum Lake, passed the Bridge Inn Pub and we got out to see if the large trout could still be seen from the grassy bank we so often took visitors to when they visited us innSalisbury. They were still there and so too the Coots and ducks. Up past Old Sarum, then down into the city we drove, a short detour taking us past Red House in Moberly Road where Carol lived before we were married. We parked behind the market square, and being a Tuesday it was market day, it still felt just the same. We only had an hour parking so we had to dash into the Cathedral school, gaze up at the tower, my first room, then go around to the Queensgate Cottage, our first flat of married life, and then behind the lake to Marsh Close and the rugby and cricket field. We bumped into Phillip Dixon, an ex colleague and he joined us on our scurry through the Close to the Crane Bridge flat where Gus first lived and finally past the poultry cross back to the car. Just before leaving the city, we drove past the Odstock Hospital where Gus had been born, the car park and buildings of maternity wing just the same.
Somehow, without gps or maps I managed to remember my way to Pete and Nicky's home on the outskirts of Corfe Mullen. As we drove up to the house Pete was closing the garage door. Spinning round and in the same motion he let rip with a party popper, streamers flying. We were in for a special time!


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