bopeepsheep, land_girl, bisonfish, bisonbaby, her brother, elleblue and (slightly belatedly) mzdt. (Spot the odd one out.)Just before that, I had remembered to ask around for someone who could help with room booking at church for lunch after the Christening and discovered that (a) the procedure is apparently to write a note to Dorothy, the keeper of the diary, and insert it into the diary where she will find it, and (b) there's another baby being baptised in the same service as ours, and they had bagged the JWR (which is the one room in church ideal for such occasions) for their post-baptism lunch. Chiz chiz. The hall is potentially available but is used for coffee after the service and we'd have to wait until everyone had gone home before being able to set up. Anyway, it looks like we will now be going to
bopeepsheep had arrived and gone through to coffee and was waiting for me, so she came in and found me instead, and we went for a quick walk to Borders because we were slightly early to meet the others.We were still first in at ASK. We were shown to a reserved table, so we assumed one of the others had phoned ahead (though J had said to me she thought they didn't take advanced reservations). Apparently they hadn't, because some time later another unrelated group of people arrived containing the same number of people and one baby and were suprised that they didn't have a reserved table. There was plenty of space for them, though, so it didn't take long for them to be seated and we didn't feel too guilty.
Now if I had filled in one of those questionnaire thingies which asked `Livejournal user you would most like to meet' I may well have answered `
bisonbaby' as she is clearly one of smallclanger's most charming and pretty friends-he-has-never-met. :-) So it was nice to finally get to meet the family (minus one member, who apparently was at a sleep-over). I think we've been made to promise a return visit. elleblue (whom I have not met before despite knowing vaguely who she is via her babsoc news postings and seeing her on the odd occasion walking up Keble Road) clearly has a bit of a thing about babies and was very charmed to meet the two of them.Lunch was very reasonable, as was the hot chocolate when the two mothers repaired to the Debenhams baby-feeding room leaving the rest of us to stretch out our lunch until they got back. Who paid for it (and when) is still a mystery, but there is a rumour that it was
bisonfish, in which case thanks - we owe you one. The discussion continued at Starbucks (one of the three branches within a 100-metre radius), where bopeepsheep used up more of her WW Points on one hot chocolate than on the lunch she had just had (but it was worth it). (And thanks to mzdt for treating us.)Sadly, the bisonfamily had to depart at about 3:30 (having said they would leave at 3); not long after that,
smallclanger had to leave too in order to be changed, so the party disbanded. I arrived back home just at sunset, which was good timing as I hadn't got my bicycle lights with me.