The World is a Very Small Place.

It is a cliche to say that the world is a small place but last Monday’s Louisa’s Walk proved it to be true (yet again). We had just finished Louisa’s Walk and, as usual were enjoying getting to know one another, out of character, at the top of the beautiful Cascade Gardens. Most of our visitors were from Hong Kong with a couple of Australians and an Englishman. Being English ourselves, we like to discover whereabouts in England people come from. “Oxford” was the reply. “That’s my home town” I said. Right, down to the nitty gritty of exactly where – “Well not Oxford itself but a little village between Oxford and Banbury.”
“Keep going” came the reply.
“North Aston” I said.
“Me too” said our Englishman!
North Aston is a tiny little village which is part of a group of “Astons”: “Middle” , “Steeple” and “North”. it is delightfully feudal and much of its housing is still owned by the equivalent of the Lord of the Manor. My Father was the Vicar there for a number of years in the 1960’s. Despite moving away in the mid-seventies, my family is still very attached to the place, so much so that my Father has a memorial attached to the lytch gate (built by my brother John) and my mother’s ashes were interred there.
Our visitor’s name was Phil and his parents still live in North Aston (they had moved there some time after I had moved away). We bandied around names that we both knew and I caught up with quite a bit of local goss!!
It astounded me that someone who is now based in Hong Kong who had moved away from England over twenty years ago should come from this same tiny village which holds such a place in my heart. We meet such interesting people on Louisa’s Walk!