Sunday 22nd May was the first occasion on which we organised a trip combing a traditional Sunday roast lunch to be followed by a game of rounders in the park. Two traditional British pastimes to be experienced on the same day!
When we met, the weather was uncertain and very blustery so we decided to walk to the Prince Regent pub to build up our appetites. This gave us a chance to explore a different area of London as we walked up to Oxford Street and into Regents Park. The Prince Regent has a great reputation and reviews for its food and we were able to get a large table in the window to enjoy the views whilst we ordered our roast lunch. This was a new experience for a number of our group and we had a fascinating time learning about the traditional dishes in each others countries. We stayed talking for an hour after lunch finished and were rewarded for our patience when the sun came out to encourage us to walk across the park and find a space to play rounders. By this time the park was starting to fill up and it was intriguing to see so many people enjoying so many different activities.
We finally found a clear space and the rules of rounders were explained and we had a few trial plays before starting the game in earnest. It was very enjoyable and after an hour or so we felt quite exhausted and decided to sit in the sun and recover our energy with ice creams!
We started chatting about traditional games in other countries and before long we had the rules explained to us of a Japanese game called ‘touch Sumo’ which was very energetic to play.
We finally decided it was time to head home but all agreed that it had been great fun and a great way to make new friends and practice conversation. Watch the weekly programmes as this event will be probably be repeated quite soon by popular request.
