Chapter Nine

Day Nine, Richmond Beers

It was raining again when Ray looked out of the window, after their trip home yesterday, he was wondering if they could go home at weekends but then, he thought probably not. He thought it might be worth asking Oscar though but he would leave it for now and ask when he thought it through proper. It was quiet this morning, they had eaten breakfast in their room and now Dona was lazing in the bath. This was all a little bit like being at home when there was nothing happening.

He wandered down to the main room and sat with the others, Oscar was not there and everyone else was just relaxing, even Martin. Ray asked Martin how he was getting on here and Martin said that up until now, he was quite pleased with the job and the accommodation was excellent. Ray had never thought of where the others stayed but it was pretty obvious that their accommodation would be similar to theirs.

It was quite a bit latter when Dona appeared, all washed up and wearing clothes that he had never seen before. It was the stuff she had bought when out shopping with Anna and it looked pretty good as well, casual but very nice. Obviously Ray didn't mention it at all, he just said hi and asked how her bath was.

Anna and James were messing with the equipment in the control room, Terry was chatting with Martin, it was still before dinner time and Ray was slightly bored. He then decided that he and Dona would go for a walk before lunch. They had been here for five days and they knew next to nothing about the area they were in, so a walk was just what Ray thought they needed. Dona agreed to go and went upstairs for a coat and some sensible shoes, Ray already had his coat ready.

James as their communications expert, asked Ray if he had his phone and if it was charged, Ray said that it was. James said that he and Anna had been working on a small device that should treble the life of the phone battery and handed it to Ray. It didn't look big enough to treble the battery life but he took it anyway. It looked like the old phone case that Ray had been using but had a battery built into one of the credit card slots. Ray changed the case over which plugged the new battery into his phone, the battery now read full but he thought it did before. He then moved his credit cards over to the new holder and by that time Dona was ready to go for the walk.

The rain had stopped by now and the sun was even shining as they set off. At the end of the drive was a large hedge and beyond the hedge was a wall, the gate opened automatically for them and they were out in the London suburbs. They had not walked far when they came to a row of shops and Dona seemed to brighten up quite a bit. There was even a decent looking pub and as they walked on they found more and more shops, the way both of them had been previously driven in and out, had completely missed this part of their surroundings out.

As they walked on, they eventually came to a bridge over the river Thames and it was quite nice. There were boats in the river, pubs, cafés and restaurants, Ray thought this must be really nice in the summer. As they came to the Pitcher & Piano pub, Ray phoned back to the house and informed them that they would not be back for lunch, this also checked out the new phone battery, which seemed to work fine.

For a drink Ray got a pint of Hobgoblin and for Dona he got a Lowenbrau with lime, then they sat down and browsed the food menu. They sat facing the river and looked at the food on offer but they both just fancied the Fish & Chips, so that is what they ordered. The view out of the window was really nice and Ray regretted not having his camera with him. This had all happened really fast and Ray realised that there were things that they needed to do, he would see Oscar when they had time. Anyway, the Fish & Chips arrived and they ate really enjoying them, watching the people go by on the river.

As they seemed to have a day off, Ray decided to get another pint of Hobgoblin, Dona decided that she wasn't going to be left out and ordered another Lowenbrau. They sat practically in silence, just looking out of the window while they drank most of their beers. Eventually Ray asked Dona what she wanted to do for the rest of the day. They decided to continue with their walk, they had the phone if they were needed.

They came out of the pub and turned right to walk along by the river for a while. As they walked along the river, from one old bridge towards another two old bridges, Ray regretted not having his camera with him. There was more to all of this than just the excitement of jumping, Just walking by the river Thames was new to them. Ray looked at Dona and realized just how much she was enjoying all of this. It was still going to take some time to get used to it all.

As they reached the rail bridge over the Themes they turned right and headed away from the river, eventually ending up at Richmond Green. It as bigger than either of them thought it would be and at the south corner, they started to head back towards base. They had passed several pubs on their walk but when they passed The Prince's Head, Ray turned and pulled Dona in. He was working on all of this and this was something the others would have to get used to, "we are having another beer or two before we go back" he said "remember, they have the phone if they really want us".

Ray got a pint of ESB and Dona a glass of Martini and Lemon and sat by the window, even though it was a Thursday afternoon it was fairly busy in there. They sat watching what was going on around them and Ray was thinking just how much their lives had changed. If their lives had not changed just a few weeks ago, they would have just been sat at home, probably just watching the TV. Ray finished his beer and asked Dona if she wanted to get back, or have another beer, Dona chose another drink, so Ray wandered over to the bar for another.

When they came out of the pub and walked back towards the river they ended up on a nice shopping street, not what Ray wanted to see at all but Done was over the moon. So it took quite a lot longer than Ray had wanted it to be to get back to the river and Dona had found a couple of things she really needed.

It was late in the afternoon when Ray and Dona wandered back into the house, Oscar was back and their evening meal was almost ready. Ann asked Dona what she had bought, this got Dona going, so the two girls sat on one of the settees and eagerly went through Dona's bags.

Oscar called them all over to the dining table, supper was ready for them all, he then said that he had very interesting news for them all.