The many Mings

So I understand there is sufficient interest in the whole Ming affair for me to bother letting you all know how the next installment went. 

We turned up as late as possible, due to arrive at 4pm and we got to the meeting point (a pub in Kingston, London) at 5:30pm. The pub itself has been voted best gastro pub of 2011. Quite who voted it for this accolade I don't know, but it definitely didn’t get my vote. Although we didn't eat there so I can't comment on the food quality I suppose.
It could be worse though, there was a car park (a good thing in Londinium) and I couldn’t see any lose bricks for the locals to put under my car in place of wheels. 

It also turns out the meeting was not just the Mings, but also a few other relatives who like us had been approached by the Ming’s patriarch, Peggy-Sue Ming (seriously). These additional family members are mostly as we would expect, of Chinese decent - bar one random white guy, no idea why. He introduced himself as a member of the family, and the official historian for his family’s branch. I can only assume he at one point owned one or two of our ancestors.

Also there were not the 40+ present as promised, there were just over 20 people. Our little troop of 6, a family of four from another family branch, the co-author of my Aunts book and his wife, the one white guy representing another family branch and around 10 Mings or friends of Mings (Or maybe also distantly related, it’s hard to be sure).

Worryingly not present is the largest of our guests from last time, presumably because we were all there he was shopping at our home.

I have been looking at their shoes; surprisingly they are mostly all wearing shoes that have matching pairs - not what I expected. And nobody offered me a new TV.

The meeting was essentially like a convention, Peggy-Sue had hired out a very large room at the pub and we all had to sit around a big table and listen to speeches about the family and how we are all connected. I won’t bore you with the details, mostly because I didn’t listen to a word of it and hence don’t have a clue.

Daisy did however notice one entertaining tidbit – Peggy-Sue was buying plain orange juice from the bar and spicing it up with a hip flask under the table.

We took early leave, almost as soon as the speeches were done. The car was still in the car park, and better yet there was nothing I could remember missing. Even the wheels were still on it and nobody had ‘tagged’ it or anything.

Perhaps a bit disappointing for some of you, I know it had the potential to go so much worse…