Kanga And Wombats Adventures

Good morning London! Blue skies and 18°!

St Pancras looked beautiful inside and out as we passed by today.

We were in search of a nice sunny spot for a morning coffee and knew the Regent Canal was close by. A new development called the Coal Drop Yards popped into view and we settled down to enjoy our brew.

Imagine our horror when John opened up his emails to find one from Europcar saying our rental booking for car pick-up tomorrow was cancelled because the office was closed!

Now this is not the start of this saga! We have spent many hours on the phone and through emails with this company over the past months trying to sort a way of hiring a car on the Sabbath when all offices are apparently closed. We thought we’d come to an agreement with them to open the office specially for us in exchange for an extra £80 in the collection plate!

After about an hour on the phone getting nowhere, we finally got through to Zach. God bless you Zach, for returning our call and reassuring us the office would be open tomorrow at Stoke and that the email sent to us must have been an error. Phew!

So, happily onto our mission today, which was to reunite, after 40 years, with a branch of the Hockley family and my 2nd cousins Pam, Michael and Janice.

We caught the train to Crawley, about an hour south of London where Pam lives.

As is quite usual for me, a backstory is now necessary!

Pam, Michael, Janice and myself are all great grandchildren of Emily Hockley.

Emily had one son, Earnest, who was killed in WW1, and three daughters, Ettie, Dolly and Edie.

Ettie was my grandmother, Edie was grandmother to Pam, Michael and Janice, and Dolly was grandmother to Terry, who surprised everyone by walking through the door with his wife Annie. They’d driven from Paris to be there!

I have a lot to thank Terry for. He’d put me back in contact with Pam after 40 years. Back in 1973 when I was living in England, I’d meet up quite often with Pam for lunch.

I was 15, Pam was 22 and worked in a bank at Croyden. I idolised and marvelled at how sophisticated she was, trying to copy everything she wore. I thought we were so cool, munching away on our Wimpy burgers (think 1970’s Maccas) then having a ciggie and cuppa!

Pam had generously agreed to host a family reunion with her siblings and extended family. What a spread!

We talked non-stop all afternoon, poring over photos, birth, death and marriage certificates and catching up on 40 lost years. It was wonderful, the years gradually melting away, once we’d acclimatised to the grey hair and wrinkles!

We reluctantly left at 5.30pm and said our farewells…assuming another reunioin was probably pretty unlikely, but at least knowing we now have that connection re-established and can work on that. It was hard saying goodbye when we’d only just said hello!

Back in London, we were in search of somewhere close by with some outdoor ambience, so headed up to Angel and Amwell St, where Katie and Chris lived when we visited them in 2019.

Happily settled at their local, the George and Monkey, enjoying a scrummy pizza, we reminisced about the fun times we shared with them back then and sitting there, we felt very close to them both.