Month: June 2023

Exeter Uni Réunion. Nimble and Poised. 40 (Forty!) Years ago in September Fresher’s week we all met for the first time… in our 2nd year sharing an iconic student house, 82 Howell Road next to the prison. Tim, Mary, Sarah, Ben, Kathy, Claire and String! Beautiful people x
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Last weekend, a lush few days back in Exeter… Sunshine, Tapas and Falafel, wine, laughter, even some dancing, lots of catching up and a healthy dollop of reminiscence
slip back into the groove of group dynamics, the ebb and flow of rapport… the trajectory of lives, successful, well lived… families, jobs, dreams… but all of us miraculously somehow the same! And not! broader, deeper, trust this spiral upwards

I love Exeter … the cathedral is magnificent! The city small, quaint, ancient and quirky… perfect for my 18year old self.
Shy and introverted, I’d hated the grim, aggressive, bog standard comphrensive secondary school…
but at uni… reading books was COOL! staying up all night pontificating nonsense was where it was at! Along with all the usual teenagery things (we were so young!)… drinking, dancing, flirting and an awful lot of laughing. Beauty and astonishment
Privileged? Gawd yeah… but if life leaves you curious, loving and open hearted, only a good thing… in benign conditions we all have the possibility to flourish… and.. schmaltzy, clunky stylee, it is Indeed late at night, ha… what makes us the perpetually blossoming beings we are? Why, nowt but the company of beautiful funny friends! x

mary: You’re a great poet for a Chemist String! Lovely thoughts and beautifully expressed. Three years is a flash in the grand scheme of our lives, but such a formative time, and we were lucky to find such lovely people x

Ha, never the most plausible of chemists, the dubious foibles of a jazz hip hop soul!… tho as a sometime programmer deffo happy to own my logical scientific side…. yes! Such a brief but influential time… First steps out into the world… uni and travel deffo set the tone for my life… and, as you say, a blessing to meet such beautiful folk xx

sarah: Lovely words – and we were so young ! Very happy memories of that time, very formative years, but best of all fun – very lucky to have known such people ! The daft things we sometimes did lol, and a lovely place to spend time in x

Lawks we were but babies! Smashing days!… Glad you could join reunion even if just by vid link xx

bexy: Ha Stringo – I’d forgotten you had a previous bunch of Exeter friends!!  So which year was it when you lived with Marky Boy & Hugh etc. in Pennsylvania? That’s the start of my String era! . And there was Ocean City ….

Bexy! Early 86 when I moved in with those reprobates, I’d had my 21st in Sydney… So everyone thought I was some wise, ancient almost geriatric soul… Reunions are brill… Let’s have one for the Pennsylvania gang next year, year after?… Oh and we’ll always have ocean city… King and Queen o the boardwalk! Xxx

nige: Well said String! We were so lucky x

… and thanks to you, and the eternal summer oldridge vibe, my “back from travelling semi detached’ uni adventures pleasantly spooled on for several more years! Blessed idleness indeed Xx