It was cool, thanks. And very hot actually. It became summer as soon as I left and although I did remember sunscreen (‘if I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it’), the Sun surprised us with its power. Anyway, before we arrived on that warm hill top in Greenwich, I visited Els in Belgium. She’d actually won a train trip for two and this sweet ‘secretary of the universe’ invited me to travel along with her. So after visiting a nice festival in Leuven Saturday evening, we took the trip through Brussels the next morning.
We checked into our lovely many star hotel (which is in the beautiful old part of the station at St. Pancras) where we had this huge bed that made sleeping feel like lying on a cloud. It was also the place where we met up with our dear friend and gentleman, Graham, who’s incidentally the owner of the shiny new camera with which the pictures accompanying this piece were taken as well. The three of us nipped in the local Marks & Spencer to get ready for the Royal Astronomical Society picnic ahead of us and I gave Tommy a call.
Tom has a habit of arriving late at our meet-ups, so we thought challenging him to beat us to the hill might motivate him to make sure he gets on the right tube. I got his voicemail: “Look babe, I hate voicemail, so do appreciate the exception I’m making here… I’ve been standing on this freakin’ hill for over an hour, where are you?!” – is what I said while Els, Graham and I were on our way still to catch the DLR. He called back: “You’re lying!” I admitted with a smile and texts like ‘I’m still so beating you to it’ followed. By the time the three of us were at the bottom of the hill, it turned out Tom was only a couple of meters behind and we both started running. For the record: we stepped over the Meridian Line together, so we all won, as the race was a lot of fun and our friend T. made it on time for a change.
We were even there before the RAS flag was up and went on to install our blankets and share fruit kebabs and drinks and nice conversations and to take these pictures…
Els and I on the Mickey Mouse train, on our way to beat Tommy to the hill in Greenwich Park.
Emily (aka @AstroEmz), who’s party crashing the Galaxy Zoo party crashers’ party (yes) and Graham.
Yours Truly kissing the bottle of wine. Not because I’m such a fan of wine (on the contrary, really), but because it had a frog on it!
A bunch of ‘zoople’ (zoo people), with: Em, David, Annie, Els, me, Tom, Julianne, Rona, Geoff and Mark.
I love picnics. Especially with Rona her hubby’s famous banana bread (on the left).
Our marvellous view.
4 Comments
Lieieve foto van jou met de kikkerfles! Kan zien dat je het meent… beetje jaloers op de kikker… Kwam er nog een Prins uit de fles?
Haha, dankje.
En ja en nee; een vriend van me zei ‘cheeckingly’: “Poof and here I am”. 
PS Thanks for the comment! I have a new spam protection thingy. Good to know it doesn’t also kill real comments.
poof… lol
Enne, graag gedaan, altijd bereid iets te testen…
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[...] photograph them all. 27. The Ecology Weekends in Zwolle. 28. ASTRON Mike’s Garden Party. 29. The picnic in Greenwich and drinking champagne in London. 30. Travelling with my dear friend Els. 31. Walking in the forest [...]