20th May 2016. It is almost a year since I
stepped down from my office of Consort to the District Governor, but I have
remained exceptionally busy with Rotary work. Besides being Consort to the
Immediate Past District Governor, I am occasionally Consort to the current president
of Shepperton Aurora Rotary Club, and have also been preparing to be the
President of Shepperton Aurora myself from July this year. As Chair of the
Admin Committee, I am responsible for most of our social events. So far this
year I have arranged London walks, visits to Stately Homes, Skittles evenings,
lunches in prison, even a climb over the O2 building in London.
At the summit of the O2 in London
It was nice therefore to get away from all that for a
weekend to join the first reunion of all the DGs of 2014 – 15 (and their
Consorts) in Liverpool. It was organised
by our good friend Les Wilson, whose District includes Liverpool as well as
North Wales. There will be a reunion every year, and the DGs from that year
will take turns to arrange it in their own Districts. Only 3 or 4 of the 29 DGs were unable to
attend, so it was a good turnout, and Les had organised a busy weekend for us.
Liverpool Waterfront (picture from web)
The IPDG and I left about 9 a.m. for the drive up to
Liverpool, after dropping Daisy off at Linda’s, who was looking after her for
the weekend. I bribed her with rhubarb from the garden, which she loves (Linda,
that is). We like to set off early,
particularly on Fridays, to avoid the worst of the traffic, and our first stop
was at the Little Chef at Bicester, where I had my usual, the Olympic
breakfast.
Home-grown rhubarb
Traffic on the M6 was horrendous, but the Sat Nav lady found
an alternative route via the Birkenhead tunnel which she claimed would save us
an hour. Our hotel , the Jury’s Inn was
in the Albert Dock area of the city, where we had spent some time last year,
and was familiar to us. However with no parking at the Hotel, I had to drop off
the IPDG and drive a quarter of a mile back to the nearest car Park, where the
car remained for the rest of the weekend. It was good to meet up in the Hotel foyer with friends from around
the country, including the IPRIBIP (I’ll let you work that one out, answers on
a postcard please) Peter King and his lovely wife Di.
Jury's Inn Liverpool
Meeting up with old friends
Les had organised a full programme of events for us all, and
this afternoon we walked to the Cavern Club. It is not the original Cavern,
which was demolished many years ago, but is a faithful reconstruction on the
same site of the original. It was terrific, full of old posters and memorabilia
from the Beatles days, and there were even bands playing live in two areas. I think there was some kind of music festival
going on in the Cavern, and when we
arrived, a Brazilian band was playing on the main stage. In the next room a young
man giving a very passable impersonation of John Lennon, was singing Beatles
songs from the sixties.
Band from Brazil on stage at The Cavern Club
What amazed me was that entry was free. I have become used
to paying rip off prices as a tourist, and it was a pleasure to learn that
museums (which is how the Cavern Club is
classified) in Liverpool are all free. We had a couple of drinks at the bar (normal
pub prices), savouring the atmosphere, before moving on.
Beatles memorabilia on display
On the way back to the Hotel we stopped in the Liverpool One
Shopping centre. I had thought that it must be named after its Post Code, but
its name apparently comes from the fact that it cost one million pounds to
build. I noticed that Everton FC still have their shop there, called EvertonTwo (postal address: Everton Two, Liverpool One, get it?).
Everton Two, Liverpool One
That evening, we had a very convivial dinner in the Hotel,
which was full of reminiscing about our year
in the firing line as District Governors and Consorts. I think it fair to say
that most people enjoyed their years, although just about everybody had
difficult issues to deal with at some point during their year. The IPDG
normally likes to be last to leave the bar on these occasions, but it had been a long
day for us and we retired to bed before midnight.
Sheila, Rosemary, Doug and the IPDG
