I landed in Gatwick Friday night, and hopped on the train to Victoria, and after a bit of confusion (supposed to meet at the Starbucks, apparently there are two at Victoria station) I met up with Katie & Tom Keating-Fedders. We visited them in England in 2001, and I’d seen Katie and Anna years before when they’d come to Tacoma to visit. Tom took my backs back to his flat (and joined us later) and Katie and I headed over to The Dublin Castle for a pint. It was a lot of fun, even though the music was pretty loud and we were probably the youngest ones there. We crashed at Tom’s for the night, and then Katie and I took the train up to Ipswich in the morning. Tom made us tea and toast+Nutella before we left. Best dorm breakfast I’ve ever had.
Rick picked us up from the station, and we had a lovely afternoon at their house. Anna and Ella and I took a trip into nearby Bury, to see the market and try to find yarn for a project of Ella’s. The yarn shop had shut down, but we did go to a patisserie and had tea & cake. I cannot count the number of cups of tea I had this weekend, or the number of slices of Rick’s bread. It was so nice just to sit around and chat and hear about what they’ve been up to, and giving them “all the news from Tacoma.” Anna even got out the photo boxes and we looked through pictures of L’Arche folks “back in the day” (and as Papa would say, “back when assistants were REAL assistants”). They asked me if there was anything in particular I missed, and I said dessert (my host family is very healthy) and so we got some cream ice for dessert. Yes, I typed that correctly. The farm Ella works at makes their own ice cream, except the cream content is so high they legally have to call it cream ice. Needless to say, it was delicious.
Sunday I woke up early to go to Mass with them- I hadn’t been since my last weekend at home, so it was nice to go again (even though, a they warned me before hand, it wasn’t much like St.Leo). We had tea in the parish hall, and tea when we got home, and then Anna, Katie, and Ella and I headed to the beach. It was a perfectly British afternoon. We sat and had Suffolk cider and shared fish & chips, and took a stroll among the shops and on the beach. I’m so glad Katie messaged me in September saying I should come visit- it really was the perfect start to the week, and it was so nice to reconnect after so long.
The Strange Pull 