A final long-ass post.

March
March was a very full month, although not all play. Gem had decided to do an acupuncture course which was held over three weekends with personal study in between and two of those weekends were in March. She really enjoyed the fusion of western and eastern medicine and reckons it is something that she would like to continue in the future. The weekends were held in Winchester, another town that has previously been the capital of England, so Gem would drive out with Sara who was also booked on the course. The town was quite picturesque and the girls found some time for fun while they were away each weekend.

A week after the first acupuncture weekend we headed out to non-London to visit the rellies. First up we staid the night with Nanny in Solihull, before heading across the country to visit Muriel in the ‘burbs of York.

On the third weekend in March we decided with Vic and Grant to brave the cold and go camping again. We headed out to Longleat Park, home of the show Animal Park and camped in a nearby field. It was cold when we got in late on Friday night, and sure enough when we woke in the morning, although the sky was brilliant blue the grass (and much of our tent) shimmered silver with frost. Thick frost. But it wasn’t in raining, and we have learnt in the UK every tourist day that is not raining is a good day ;)

The park was good, in terms of the safari aspect I think I enjoyed the one in the West Midlands better. We got all prepared for this one removing the aerial etc so the monkeys wouldn’t steal it, only to discover that the monkey section of the safari was closed. However Longleat does have the beautiful house to its name, and gardens, an a-maz-ing maze and a section of other animals that don’t really go in the safari. So that was an advantage. The next morning being safari-ed out we headed for nearby Bath, and wandered around there. We tried very hard to join in the free history walking tour, however the group was sooo big we could not hear anything. So instead Grant and Vic bought a new camera and we went home 

April

April kicked off (after working a weekend of course) with Easter in Wales (9th -12th). Apologies – for some reason my mind has largely blocked this weekend out of my memory so details are sketchy.Despite a gloomy forecast from the BEEB and a wet week, the weather cleared up wonderfully for the weekend. Although when we arrived at the campsite late on Thursday night we weren’t so certain. As it had rained all weekend including the drive down, as we investigated looking for the best place to set ups our feet squelched in the wet ground. But the sky was blue and the sun shining amongst the clouds the next morning. On Friday we headed in a south direction out to the coast. The idea was to do a circular walk through some of the more famous scenery of the coast. It was beautiful. We stopped for lunch at a café at the teeniest tiniest little harbour.
In the afternoon we checked out the ruins of a nearby castle before trying to stop for a pint (pub closed between lunch and dinner) so therefore heading back to the campsite lighting and fire and relaxing. We had planned to have chilli con carne, a camping favourite, but someone who wasn’t Gem, and we shall not name who she was ;) dropped the whole pan on the floor. So instead we had bbq and burgers.
On Saturday we drove in a more westerly direction and followed the coast north towards cardigan bay; and although we didn’t get that far we explored some of the small fishing towns. A quick restock of supplies ensured that we had chilli for dinner.
On Sunday we drove North hiked up to a look out point where we could stand on an iron age burial mound and look out over Cardigan bay. We skimmed slate on a now flooded old slate quarry and walked some of Pembrokeshire’s famous coastal walk. For dinner we went to a pub that we had been eyeing off since our arrival. It was worth the wait with lovely fresh local produce in a farmhouse/game style menu – delish!
On Easter Monday we packed ourselves up and took a long scenic route home. We drove up through the beautiful desolate Brecon Beacons as then down through the Wye Valley popping in and out of England and Wales as the road and river criss-crossed the border.

Gem managed to drop her wide angle lens out of the back of the car.. not so good. So priority during the week of course went to fixing it in time for the next holiday. The boys at the camera store informed us that it would take several weeks to get the parts in, but she would still be able to use it in the meantime. You might notice some black corners on some of the photos. They haven’t been edited out for theatrical effect 

The following weekend saw Duncan and I off again. This time out to Hereford/Wales border where we were joining an ELCO (Landcruisers group) play weekend. This is basically a family friendly weekend and excuse for the boys to get their toys together and drive and get stuck and rescue each other. It was based on a farm where one of the blokes has a 4X4 course. It was fantastic, we met Charlie and Nina who were other first timers like us and we learnt so much from Tony and Julian and Ian and Paul and John – so thanks heaps to all of them.

Gem finished April up with her last weekend of Acupuncture; she has been using it to treat her dodgy ankle pain, so finds it quite helpful!

May
We started May with a bang for Vic and Grants farewell. Vic and Gem got up early on Saturday morning and went and had our hair done. Then mid afternoon in the beautiful and rare London sunshine we walked with Magnus and Nicole and Matilda over Tower Bridge to St Katherine’s Docks for drinks.

With some of us a little more worse for wear the next morning we headed to the Columbia Road Flower Markets. A London institution it was something that Vic and Gem had wanted to do for a while so were squeezing it in at the last minute. It was absolutely packed!!! For good flowers and a little more peace it would be well worth getting there at 6 or 7. From Columbia Road we walked down Brick Lane to Spitalfields Markets and caught the bus back to Bermondsey. A quick change and we headed out on our Farewell to Bermondsey pub crawl. This involved going to all the pubs we have liked or always talked about going to around us (Check out the gallery for all the pubs, I think there was nine in total). Belinda thought that as she lived in the flat for 3 weeks she would come as well, the more the merrier. A good time was had by all 

Fortunately after such an epic weekend Monday was a public Holiday. This meant that we could get a lot of the packing we needed doing during the week done. The baggage guys were coming to pick the stuff up on the Friday.

On Friday evening Duncan and I drove up to Hereford to stay with Gilly and Julian as the next morning we were going to Badminton – which I believe the second most attended sporting event next to one of the motor racing competitions!! And there were certainly a lot of people there. And a lot of shopping – I think Gilly and I spent more time looking at the shops that we did looking at the course. The bits of the course that we saw were pretty speccy however due to the sheer amount of people it was difficult to see them in detail.

We drove back to London on Saturday night as we wanted to drop Vic and Grant off at the train station on Sunday morning. They were starting their trip home which involved some time in Europe and the Middle east and Africa. After dropping them off it was clean clean clean, sneeze, sneeze, sneeze the flat in preparation for handing the keys back to the landlord and ultimately back to Mark and Gordon and Chris who were moving in.

On the Monday Gem moved everything to Leytonstone to Sara and Sam’s who were putting us up til we left…. Hmmm perhaps we kept to much stuff?? We cultured it up at Sister Act during the week – although it was entertaining Gem was disappointed – there was no music from the original score which she had been looking forward to. So Dunc had to download the movie when we go home….

Once more by the time the next weekend ticked around we were off again. This time for Dunc’s birthday present a 4WD trip through wales which funnily enough Julian was also doing with his eldest daughter Izzy. This was a wicked weekend to learn what we and the car could do when put to the test. And not to mention some actually spectacular scenery.

I would like to say that what followed was some down time, but that would be lying. We caught up with Andy, Rhian, Damage and Leanne for some Japanese in by Picadilly Circus. And then two days later were off. This time no business all pleasure. We had 3 ½ days in the little Greek paradise Santorini.

We flew in on Thursday and arrived around lunch time-ish. On a whim we decided to hire a car, and met the most delightful man who rented us his ‘last car’ he then insisted we followed him to our first destination as he didn’t want us to get lost. He gave us his mobile number and insisted that we come and see him if we wanted any ideas of where to go. We were quite lucky we hired our little yellow Voula, as she had great air con and it was hot!!

Sara and Sam arrived in Port (from Athens) later the afternoon and we met them at the boat. First stop winery to sample some local whites. The wine was very metallic but Sam and I felt we could manage it for our time there. It was interesting to see how they farmed their grapes which was in little ‘baskets’ or what seemed like a little messy pile on the floor rather than stretched out along wire. This apparently protects them from the harsh sea winds.

We made it up to our apartment in Oia without to much drama, and headed out to explore and catch our first Santorini sunset. The island is famous for sunsets over the Caldera, why they are supposed to be so good we never really found out, but the crowds of people that gathered to watch the sunset was extraordinary.

We got ourselves ‘purposefully lost’ on the way home in the search for a restaurant that was not on the busy tourist path. With success we had a lovely meal.

Our plan for the first morning was to walk down to the fishing village below Oia (at ocean level. It was quite warm and a lot of steps down, but we were rewarded with a lovely flat coastal walk at the bottom and of course an amazing lunch.. the food on Santorini…. To die for…
The walk back up the cliff warmed us up enough to search for one or both of two things. Cold wine or a beach to swim. So we jumped in little yellow Voula and headed south. Our first destination was the red beach. Deceived on initial arrival to a dodgy little car park, we walked around the point to the beach to be astounded by the view. An azure blue ocean sheltered by red cliffs with more people than their were cars for relaxing on the red and black beach. We clambered down to the beach and set up our towels on the pebbles. Dunc and Sara and Sam heroically braved the water for all of about 5 minutes; while Gemma, demonstrating wisdom beyond her years after investigating the water conditions with her toes decided a much better course of action was to read on her towel on the beach.

On Saturday we cruised out to two small islands in the caldera. The first, was the home of the volcano crater that had erupted creating the island as it is today. We walked up the increasingly hot path to the steaming crater. The next stop for the boat was just off another small island where we visited some hot springs. To get to the hot springs you had to dive off the bridge and swim through the 18 degree water to a brown patch of water (from the silty bottom) by the shore. Now Gem was not keen after her red sea experience and almost didn’t go, but wanting to tick the box finally joined us. She was, and admittedly everyone was a little disappointed. The water was a mere luke warm tepid temperature, not sufficiently warm to heat the cockles after swimming through the cold water to get there and to top it off we had to swim through it to get back to the boat. In all seriousness though it wasn’t that bad ;)

Exhausted from our day of volcano trekking and deep sea swimming, we relaxed savouring local wines and produce at a nearby winery. Stocked with supplies for the evening we headed back to the apartment. The famous Oia sunset was no disappointment this night and as Dunc and Sam sipped wine and chatted Sara and Gem sipped wine and took photos of the sun as it dipped behind the clouds and then the horizon.

And before we knew it our time was over. The weather had been phenomenal – blue skies, and not too hot. We had been extremely lucky. Even luckier, I had made a mistake when booking the trip so that we arrived back on a Sunday and the next day was a bank holiday – hooray!!



June
The fact that the year was flying by and our departure date from London on our travels was fast approaching couldn’t have become more apparent when the calendars flipped over to June

Duncan caught up with his old JPMH crew for a couple of cheeky pints and poured himself into bed sometime very late for a school night ;)

Our major achievement for June was the construction of our storage system for the back of Hugo. After much research and discussion with those in the know, and after drawing some very precise plans, we just made it up as we went along. It’s not pretty, and you wouldn’t want to show anyone with the smallest amount of carpentry skills but it works (by works I mean, the draw slides in and out and the top holds boxes ;) It truly is amazing what a computer geek and a physio can do with a jigsaw and a drill and some bolt thingies – and without the supervision of anyone more skilled (you know who you are ;)

Work more work, boring

We caught up with Craig and Janine for a lovely dinner in London Bridge, following our stories of how wonderful sailing in croatia had been and how calm the water was they had gone for a week. Only to sepnd the first 2 days horrendously sea sick in rough weather… oops. Although they assured us that after the weather cleared up they had enjoyed themselves.

On the 20th of June we decided to try and see a little bit of London, we particularly wanted to see some of the churches that we had been meaning to see. Of course the public transport was all suspended for maintenance works which made it incredibly difficulty to get anywhere, but we managed to visit St Bartholomew’s church near Barbican which is supposed to be the first church in London?? On the Sunday we went to the Surgical and Apothecary Museum in London Bridge which was suitably macabre ; and in the afternoon headed out to where it all began in Acton and joined Andy and Rhian for their farewell bbq.

During that following week, Gem had managed to secure last minute tickets to the play Calendar Girls (an on stage adaptation of the movie). I am not sure it was as good as the movie; it was hard not to compare the characters to the actors who played them originally but it was certainly a great play.

On Thursday we went and had dinner with Kara (Gem’s boss at work) and her partner Darren. A fun evening that will always be remembered. You know that expression ‘where were you when…. Michael Jackson died?? Well we (Duncan) were sampling Kara’s fine whisky collection. We got so engrossed in the media reports that we nearly missed the last tube… not helpful when trying to get from Clapham to Leytonstone.

Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery were the destination for Saturday 27th of June with Sara. Westminster was…. good… however I was a little miffed at the entrance fee. Sure I know that an entrance fee is necessary for maintenance etc especially for these old buildings, but £15!!! That is a little bit rich. So for Dunc and I to see Westminster it cost £30 – to walk around a church! I mean it was cool seeing all the famous people that were buried there and the coronation chair etc, but still. It was even more in perspective when you go the National Gallery and see masterpieces like ‘Sunflowers’ and others by Da Vinici, Picasso, Tintoretto, Caraveggio, Botocelli etc for Free! Hmph. Anyhoo, it was a nice day to be out and about London, well it started off that way anyway. By the time we emerged from the underground in Leytonstone a massive thunderstorm had rolled in and it was bucketing down.

On Sunday we drove up to York and took Muriel to lunch in a nearby country pub that she quite likes. Muriel has recently moved into a new assisted living complex, and has not been there that long so I don’t believe that she feels that settled. Nonetheless she looked much better than the last time that we had seen her.

After much debating we had decided to get the air conditioning fixed in Hugo. As our itinerary is a little sketchy for where and when we will be on our grand touring holiday, we thought it would be a good idea incase we end up stuck in traffic in Turkey or in the desert somewhere in one of the Stans. The Quickfit guys had assured us they had re-gassed the aircon and that it was the compressor that was broken and the reason why the air conditioning wasn’t working. Well the air conditioning man didn’t think so. He re-gassed the beast, gave it a slap and tickle here and there and voila we had aircon; what’s more, I believe it rivals Fred (the old Honda Accord) for the best aircon ever.

We finished June with cultural flair by attending a Royal Ballet academy and Ballet Orchestra production for the summer festival at St Pauls Cathedral in town. It was a mixture of contempary and classical ballet, with piece of music from the orchestra for intermission.

July

Our last month in London and we are continuing to live with Sara and Sam, we have been so busy however that I think in the 10 weeks that we have lived with them we have managed to have dinner together about 4 times.

Of course we are in countdown for our trip and everything has revolved around that.

On the first weekend we took a final trip out to the Midlands. Duncan’s cousin Donna and their family were very kindly hosting a farewell barbeque. The weather was almost perfect (what English bbq is complete without rain), the food and company was lovely and Ian had even arranged entertainment, in the form of ride on lawnmower time trials  Unfortunately nanny had been unwell so was didn’t come for the day out, but on Sunday we called by her house for lunch and farewell.

It was on the way back from this trip that we first noticed the noise?!?!? da da daaaaa
(dramatic music). Well in fairness, Gem noticed it on the way up, but Dunc refused to believe her ;). And after stopping in to say goodbye to Magnus, Nicole and Matilda it continued, we pulled over a couple of times to have a look ‘knowingly’ underneath with so triumph. So continued on home. Later in the week Dunc emailed Julian about it and was given some suggestions, but it wasn’t until the next weekend that we got some answers.

Gem had her work farewell on the Friday night – Italian dinner and dancing – followed by an MRI early Saturday morning (as her ankle has been continuing to play up) so she was staying in London til Saturday afternoon, whereas Duncan was going to drive the car up to Hereford for it’s final check.

So while Gemma was eating, dancing, catching cabs, losing bank cards and oyster cards, Dunc was driving up to Hereford… and driving would be a loose description as he spent quite a bit of time under the car removing prop shafts, as the sound had worsened significantly. First the rear which made no difference and then the front hooray sorted the problem temporarily.

On Saturday while Gem was cancelling her lost bank card, going to her MRI, getting subway for lunch and catching the train to Hereford, Dunc and Julian were removing the Front Diff which was broken and trying to find a replacement in the UK – found one – in Derbyshire, awesome!!!!! So while Gem was driven from the train station to the farm by Julian, and relaxing with Gilly and the children, Dunc was driving Gilly’s car all the way to Derbyshire to get the part required.

But in any event it was done, and after another weekend of fixing car things in an extremely manly fashion (even if the overalls were a tad small ;) it was back to London.

Of course the more things you have to do and the busier you are the quicker time passes, and the less it seems possible to fit in. On the following Monday we went to dinner at Mark and Gordo’s new place (also known as our old apartment in Bermondsey); on Tuesday Gemma worked late trying to finish a presentation before she left; on Wednesday Sara and Sam took us out for an amazing dinner at Boundary in east London – highly recommend; on Thursday we made time for the new Harry Potter Movie which was great and on Friday we had leaving drinks.
Held at a gorgeous little pub on the river in Wapping we had a few farewell bevvies with our nearest and dearest (minus a few of course ;). Having chosen the pub on a sunny Sunday afternoon we chose it specifically for its gorgeous large beer garden over looking the river, because July is summer right? It is bound to be fine! Ha! Despite being a little fresh and breezy I was determined to sit outside and we did for about an hour, until the heavens opened and rained on my parade.

The morning after was the beginning of our last weekend in London – aaahhhh – where did all the time go.

The next few days flew by. Dunc had officially finished work on the Friday so spent Monday doing some last minute (prop shaft balancing) stuff for the car. Otherwise our time was generally spent turning sara and sam’s place into a disaster site as we packed, unpacked, washed, dried, repacked etc. On Sunday we went to Jamie Oliver’s restaurant Fifteen for which Vic and Grant had given us a voucher for. Monday night more last minute shopping and Tuesday was a somewhat emotional dinner and goodbye with Belinda, Gav and Sara at Providores.

You may note that we have put up some (quite a few) more galleries. So please check them out.

And with that we’re done! That is it….. this blog is officially retired. For all future stories see www.hugosbigadventure.com