I’ve been doing a fair amount of catching-up recently with friends, mostly ex-colleagues, over a meal, which has been very enjoyable. First, I met up with a group I used to work with a number of years ago, who have all left the company to join a spin-out which they set up on the science park. They are doing so well that they’ve recently outgrown the incubator units in the science park and have moved into a small factory unit on the industrial park on the outskirts of Malvern. And in the year they’ve been there, they have grown again and had to build a mezzanine floor inside their warehouse building to cope with the additional staff and extra assembly space for their products. It was really good to see them thriving – their Technical Director is an old friend of mine, and he gave me a guided tour of their factory before he and one of his team (also an ex-colleague of mine – we once went on a memorable business trip to Japan together) took me out to lunch at the Swan at Newland. I’ve not been there for years, but can report that the food is pretty good, and it’s got a “proper old-fashioned pub” atmosphere, with a blazing fire.
I’ve also been back to the Inn at Welland, which is the local gastro-pub. Our Head of Sales took me and two of our colleagues out for lunch there the other week to celebrate the second anniversary of his joining the company. The passion-fruit cheesecake dessert was particularly good! I think I need to find more excuses to go back there…
Finally, just last week I met up with three ex-colleagues, and the wife of one of them, for dinner at the Malvern Hills Hotel. We have a regular, though infrequent, arrangement to meet up for dinner, and it was really good to see them again. The waitress came round to ask if everything was ok, at which point I said that, actually, the braised lamb was far too peppery and nowhere near as pleasant as it should be. The guys all laughed, and started reminiscing about the time that I was their boss, and was sent on a management training course which included a module on assertiveness. Apparently, the whole team was horrified that someone would think that giving me assertiveness training would be a good thing!
It’s been very enjoyable to meet up with everyone, particularly accompanied by good food that I’ve not had to cook myself. Although I do occasionally take myself off for lunch on my own, I much prefer to meet up with friends if I’m eating out. And it’s been good to catch up on all their news and gossip.
