Meetings with an old and a new friend

I was pleased the weather was fine this morning, with blue sky and high flying strongly shaped clouds to brighten my drive to Surrey. I was going to Bramley to visit a family friend who is now in a nursing home after being taken ill a couple of months ago. Margie was my mother's oldest friend, having known each other since their first school days and remained life-long friends.

When I arrived Margie had just received some very discouraging news about her situation and was rather upset, so I was very pleased that I could comfort her to some degree and be with her for a short time. When I left her she was much more comfortable and more positive, and I promised to come back in a few weeks with Helena, who Margie wants to see again. I can remember visiting Margie and her children as one of my earliest happy memories, especially a time when we went to visit a working oast house in Kent, belonging to one of their friend's, whilst the hops were being dried. I bet it was the narcotic effect of the hops!

On my way home I drove the few miles to the village of Compton, outside Guildford, where I'd arranged a rendezvous with another blipper, Richard Donkin, formerly known as Earthwatcher. We hadn't met before, but I'd suggested this meeting as I have enjoyed his blips not only for his pictures, but also for his daily journal, which often refers to the area where he lives, and which is the town around which I grew up in the 1950's and 60s.

It was good to compare lives, even if very briefly, whilst sipping tea outside the Tea House of the renowned Watts Gallery. After about an hour I asked if we could walk the short way to the Watts Chapel and cemetery, as I had been before and was very keen to visit it again. The first time I came here was for the burial of one of my best friends, the wonderful Dave Turner, who died in 1983, at the age of 32. I returned once to visit his grave and couldn't find a headstone for him. Sadly, I didn't manage to find it today either.

Richard and I went inside the Chapel, which is decorated in amazing colourful and symbolic detail. I took some pictures which I am quite pleased with considering the lack of illumination. I do recommend finding out more or even visiting it if you are at all interested in the Arts and Craft movement. But look at the website for that sort of information.

We then walked out into the graveyard and up to a colonnade made, like all of the buildings there, out of the local red brick and fired decorative clay work. This was all apparently produced to order by the artists and their fellow workers in the Compton area. Richard got me to sit between the arches and took a few pictures, one of which he has dared to blip today.

I did snatch a few odd shots of him but I've decided to mark the memories of Margie, Dave and Richard by this small section of the top of the arched doorway into the Chapel,. Helena (aka Woodpeckers) assures me that these tilework faces are sited above a voussoir, which she explains about in her blip of some in Stroud.

After leaving Richard and Pippa, his dog, I set off back to Gloucestershire and had a busy but pretty cross-country drive with several hot-air balloons gracing the vivid sunset as I drove westwards. I like meeting fellow blippers and would encourage others to make more than virtual contact if they can. I hope we will continue to stay in contact and maybe we can even blip together again one day.