Fenny Compton or bust

 After a few days of "radio silence" we are back. I had a very busy few days of work there and we were camped by the side of a fishing lake although there was not much actual fishing going on and we never saw any fish getting caught so maybe we should just call it a lake. Oh and on that front I guess it was really pretty small so maybe a pond would be better so all in all I think Seighford Fishing Lakes might be better to be called Seighford Ponds. Mind you it did have quite a selection of birds including a fine flock of Canada Geese. A tad noisy but otherwise they were good neighbours.

It was, as previously indicated, a busy work spell and so we did not manage to do that much except work but it was notable that our journey from Banbury to Stafford took us (deliberately) through Fenny Compton. Now here is a test for you, where do you know that name from. Fenny Compton. It is a tiny village in the middle of England with not much happening. I can hear you know thinking, I know that name, Fenny Compton.

Have you got it?

The village hall in Fenny Compton (the real Fenny Compton) was the place where Mr Bates (of Mr Bates v Post Office) held his first meetings. I say the "real" Fenny Compton because sadly the village hall used for filming the series was not actually in Fenny Compton at all but was actually in Pratt's Bottom in north Kent. What will we call this town? I've got a good idea, what about Pratt's Bottom? Good one! Anyway I had planed to show you the village hall in Fenny Compton but we could not see it so we drove through and onwards with no perceived intention or need to visit Fenny Compton anytime soon.

One of the reasons for our stop at Stafford was to meet up with friends from our days in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We popped in to see Debs and Chrstian Audouin and had a lovely evening reminiscing about days long past and our adventures in KL. It is about 7 years since we last saw them but it felt like only yesterday as we chatted and got up to speed with who knew what about the others we had worked with. Some mysteries were resolved and some remained elusive.

After a lovely evening we headed off to find an overnight stop. We had identified a suitable spot only to discover that overnight roadworks had closed off the access so we had to find somewhere else. On checking the map I noticed that we were very close to Gnosall where there is an open mic session every Thursday. I know one of the organisers so we decided just to camp up in a layby closeby so that I can join the session before we head towards our next engagement in Chester.