Month: May 2011

Marion cooked us breakfast and then we made our way back to our caravan. I felt a bit relieved to be there at last after all the driving around. We unpacked and then went to the shops. Things I notice about the UK…the price of alcohol has gone up. Meat is far cheaper in the Uk than in North Cyprus. I can’t believe how cheap the meat is in the local butchers. I don’t know whether it is just this area of Kent. We bought fresh fish for tea and asparagus. I am an addict while it is in season.

The caravan was really warm and we settled down.

Mal spent hours and hours trying to get our websites and emails back.  Along with this OCR (the exam board he works for) are having problems with their computers and so Mal (nor anyone else) can’t enter any of the work he has already done.

We heard from Rhys and he has now got a cold, oh dear, I think we left our bugs behind. AND he has masses of  work on, poor thing.

It was nice to sleep in a familiar bed. In fact our king size bed in the caravan is more comfortable than our bed in Cyprus.

The reason we stayed in Frome is because we sponsored monkeys at Monkey World and that entitles us to free entry, so that was where we spent the day. We were about half way there and Mal lost his phone and decided he had left it in the hotel. Half way back to the hotel and Mal had the brilliant idea (Ha ha) to ring his phone. Just as well he did. It had fallen out of his pocket and was under the car seat!!  The pleasures of getting older!

Back on the road to Monkey World again. We had a nice day there, a bit dissapointing that the Orang-utans enclosure was having a face lift and so they were all indoors. If anyone wants to go see link I have to say the price of food and drink there is reasonable.

From there we went on to High Wycombe to spend the night with Marion and Bryan (my sister and bro in law). Marion cooked us a nice meal.

Mal and I were still blowing our noses and coughing. Bryan commented the last time we visited we had colds. I am convinced we pick up all these bugs on the plane.

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It was a cold and windy day. Ollie is learning about castles at school so we all went to Caerphilly Castle.

They had some re-enactment going on and when they were firing the muskets and the canon, they asked for a volunteer. Of course it was Tariq that was chosen and blindfolded! All the kids enjoyed it there and eventually we went back to their house for dinner. It was a really nice day in spite of the cold weather

We then drove to Frome and stayed in a hotel there for the night.

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Thought for the day -“Both young children and old people have a lot of time on their hands. That’s probably why they get along so well. ” ~ Jonathan Carroll

APOLOGIES THAT THE DIARY HAS NOT BEEN AVAILABLE…..WE WERE ATTACKED. I WONDER WHO IT WAS? IT SEEMS A CERTAIN LAW FIRMS NETWORK WAS BEING UPGRADED AT THE TIME.  I THINK THERE MAY BE A CLUE THERE.

Oh dear, I am still on Cyprus time and was awake at 4.00am! Mal was not too impressed and put the pillow over his head!

We had a long walk around Stratford. We know it well as we stay here so often.

In the afternoon we set off for Cardiff to see Lou, Rhys and the kids.

Rhys cooked a massive BBQ and when I say massive I mean massive. There was lots of meat left over and those boys eat, Josie too was eating lots of ribs!

Mal and I both have colds, it seems every time we come back to the UK we get ill.

Quite late in the evening I gave the three littlies a bath.

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Play time with the twins and then we had to leave them to head off for Stratford Upon Avon. We were staying in the Stratford Hotel. It was a nice hotel with very comfortable rooms and close to all the attractions.

We spent the afternoon wandering around Stratford and ended up in a beer garden where we polished off a bottle of wine and several beers. We also chatted to a really nice young couple there. He came from Stratford but they both now live in Argentina. Interesting people.

It looked a bit like rain and so in the evening we ate in the hotel. The tapas sharing platter was excellent which is more than could be said for the main course. In fact I had breast of duck and gave most of it to Mal and his lamb was tasteless.

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Thought for the Day –“A mother becomes a true grandmother the day she stops noticing the terrible things her children do because she is so enchanted with the wonderful things her grandchildren do.” ~ Lois Wyse

 

 

Chris gave me a lift to Ercan where I caught the 8.10 plane. It was with Pegasus and I have to say for probably the first time ever we took off early. The flight was OK but I really get bored with flying nowadays.

Mal was waiting at Stansted airport and we collected our Hertz hire car. I think we have tried all of the car hire companies and Hertz are consistently good. We then drove to Torin’s. Scarlet and Jack are so funny and for twins they are so very different.

When it was bedtime Grandad told them one of his stories and then we had an excellent Chinese take away.

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Thought for the Day –“You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.” ~ Evan Esar

 

I spent most of the day cleaning up the house and watering the garden. This was fine until Mustafa, behind us, had a digger clearing more of his land, as fast as I was cleaning, more dust was accumulating from where the digger was disturbing everything. I even cleaned the pool and by the time he had finished it was covered again. All rather a waste of time. Late afternoon I took Rosie over to Lena’s for her ‘holiday’. To be honest, I think it may do her leg good being more restricted than she is at home.

 

I packed ready for my few days in the UK and then the house sitters arrived. I gave them their instructions and had an early night.

Thought for the Day – “Grandchildren don’t make a man feel old; it’s the knowledge he is married to a grandmother!” ~ G. Norman Collie