Nostalgia is a funny thing. It can hit you whenever you least expect it.

I went to the Beech Tree with a friend for lunch today, I haven’t been inside there for a few years; sat in the garden a number of times with different people, but not really been inside. I walked in, and memories hit me.

I went there with a boyfriend when I was 18, in the summer. We started off sitting inside, but the sun lured us outside, where we shared a plate of chips (being poor impoverished students), and having a couple of drinks. I can remember it being really hot, a lovely August day, with me being a complete girl about the wasps, and my boyfriend being very manly and getting rid of them. All of a sudden, it started to rain. It absolutely hacked it down. We took our chips, and sought shelter inside the pub. We must have sat there for 20 minutes, until the thunder started, and then we decided we should make a run for it, as I didn’t live too far away. That five minute run sticks out in my mind as a time when I felt completely carefree, I had taken my shoes off to run, and my feet were touching wet warm tarmac, with the smell of wet pavement hitting my nostrils, a smell I associate very strongly with summer.

My friend and I ordered our food, and, due to today’s charming weather, went and sat in the conservatory area, with my chair facing the play area. Cue another trip down memory lane.

When I was younger, my parents didn’t go to the pub specifically to go to the pub. I can remember the only times that they went to the pub was as a treat for my little sister and I, so we could play on the slides. The place we mostly went was the Beech Tree. The slide there hasn’t changed since I used to play on it, which is just fantastic. It has been repainted, and is still very very safe, but it is wonderful that it hasn’t changed. As I sat there, white wine spritzer in my hand, munching on a burger (gorgeous, by the way, food is recommended at the Beech Tree!), I could so clearly remember my sister and I playing all sorts of games, being princesses in the castle of the slide, and being kidnapped, pushed down the slide, with my parents watching to make sure that no one was injured during the course of the kidnapping.

Once I had finished recounting these recollections to my friend (who, to her credit, didn’t walk out in boredom), I started thinking about how lucky I am. Not only to have these wonderful memories, but to still live in the town where I grew up, where even memories I didn’t realise I possessed could be conjured up just by walking into a pub.

There are places like that all around Wycombe for me, and it is times like today when I am so glad I returned to High Wycombe, because, for me, there really is no place like it.