Name: Catherine Adams
When and where: Saturday, April 16th, 2016 at her home in Cosford.
Beverage: sparkling pomegranate and elderflower
Last time we met in person: April 2015
Friends on Facebook: since January 2013
Friends in real life: since around 1988

Catherine’s husband Peter and my mom have been good friends since they began working together in the early 1980s. His house is very close to RAF Cosford, and every year he’d host a party on the day of their air show, so we’d get to watch all the action overhead from his lovely garden. He and Catherine were married in 1988, so I would have first met her around that time. Over the years, they’ve been very good friends to my mom. Last year, knowing of my desire to find a proper old-fashioned British caff during my stay, they introduced me to their local, the wonderful Spider’s Web, where I enjoyed a delicious lunch of liver and onions (one of the dishes on my wish list.) After my Auntie Barbara passed away in November, my mom stayed with them and Peter helped with all the arrangements. I don’t know how we’d have coped without them.

Now Barbara is gone, I’ve lost my usual place to stay in Wolverhampton, and so Peter and Catherine very kindly offered to be my Midlands base for this trip. I spent a really lovely week with them: we’d have breakfast together every morning before I went off on my adventures, and talked about pretty much everything under the sun. After a few days of adjustment, I got onto their early schedule and was treated to a cup of tea in bed at 6:00 am every morning. Catherine loves feeding the birds, and their garden is visited by a whole array: ducks, pheasants, pigeons, doves, robins, blue tits, etc. There’s always something going on outside the windows!

On Saturday I was leaving them to go to my hotel at Birmingham Airport, in preparation for the ELO show that night and my flight home the following morning. My friend Mal was picking me up to take me to the hotel, so he joined us too. Topics of conversation included the new TV stand they’d just bought (and which was delivered during lunch*), my beloved elderflower drinks which I cannot seem to buy in the USA, and my potentially overweight luggage which I’d just zipped up. After lunch, we hauled my suitcase downstairs and into the car, Catherine made a start on washing up the dishes (hence her wet shirt in the photo) and we grabbed a quick photo opportunity before Mal whisked me away.

*After I got home, I received word that they’d managed to assemble the new TV stand without swearing or fighting.