We went to the Wallingford Back to the Forties weekend last week with the intention of meeting with an old school friend who lives in the village of Wallingford.

The original idea was to meet my friend on one of the days and do the Wallingford event the other but being caught on the M25 for three hours in a traffic jam upset the plans slightly, however we arrived in the late afternoon and thought we might as well have a quick look round before checking into our hotel.

I have to say we were somewhat surprised as to how small the event was, as it seemed bigger when viewed on Facebook but undeterred we had a quick look round and jumped on a train for a quick ride up the line and back, unfortunately after that there wasn’t much else to see or do so we went to our hotel and met my friend for dinner which involved quite a lot of laughter and memories of our younger days.

As usual we took very few photographs but here is one of Angella during the train ride, her look being somewhat enigmatic I’m not sure if it was saying, “I love you dearly,” or ” if you take me on another of these dam train rides going nowhere I shall never speak to you again” but as she never voiced her thoughts, I’m going for the former!

The following day we remembered we had been told of a The True Vintage Fair where we might buy some more vintage outfits which seemed slightly more constructive than going for a short train ride again after all it was only a matter of one hundred miles away in Loughborough. Strangely, this also turned out to be a smaller event than expected but my wife is not one to be put off and soon managed to get stuck in and I bought a couple of ties.

Coming back to the hotel we paused for a quick photograph at the new Agatha Christie statue in Wallingford where she lived for over forty years.

Whilst visiting the charity shops the following morning we were advised to go and see Masons in Abingdon which we did on the way home, I would highly recommend this establishment to all those who do their own dressmaking as they seem to stock everything.

Before departing for home we made a brief trip to Cholsey Church to pay our respects to the great Agatha Christie and to thank her for all the wonderful Hercule Poirot stories and then finally home, this time without the three hour delay on the M25!