Last Days In England

 

 

 

We started Wednesday by getting all the bedding and towels washed, dried, and sealed into vacuum-pack bags.  Then with the ‘World’s best mature cheddar cheese’ safely stowed on board, we drove up to Bath (no time for a bath) and reached the M4 by midday.

Rodney is always annoyed by restaurants like Jamie Oliver’s and Rick Stein’s, where there is no chance that these famous chefs will actually be there, let alone be cooking your meal.  But as we drive around the United Kingdom, I’ve come to realise that it’s a bit like the pubs here.  I’ve never met the Prince of Wales, or the Duke of Wellington, the Marquis of Granby, or even George and his Dragon in any of their pubs.  Come to think of it, I’ve never met Mr McDonalds at any of his ‘restaurants’, but at least his are cheap….!

The big road took us a long way east towards our next destination, Hertford, to Andy & Carole’s and an M.O.T. (rego) for Eileen on Thursday.  There would be no more castles, canals and campsites until next year.  Our last six days in England would be spent emptying Eileen’s cupboards, emptying our suitcase in my brother’s loft, sorting the contents of both and then putting stuff back in my brother’s loft, putting stuff back in Eileen’s cleaned cupboards and dragging what we needed with us to Abu Dhabi and Sydney.  I know there’ll be a mix-up and we’ll end up leaving something in Neil’s loft that should be in our suitcase, or vice versa, but hopefully there won’t be too many muddles.

 

 

We farewelled our Hertford friends in the Old Cross Tavern on Thursday evening, Auntie Sylvia and cousins on Friday afternoon, Watton-At-Stone friends on Friday evening, Neil and Debs on Saturday, Caroline on Sunday, Rupert and Rose on Monday and finally in East Grinstead on Tuesday, we will clean Eileen and make sure everything is safely stowed until April next year.  It will be sad saying goodbye to her for so long, but I’m sure she’ll be fine in her little corner at Lynda and Marks’ again.  On Wednesday 9 October at 10am we will take to the air and fly to Dubai for an exciting two weeks with our friends Alison and Ramsay in the heat of Abu Dhabi. And we’ll finally be back in Sydney on Monday 28 October.

 

At lunchtime on Friday, Doug returned Eileen’s keys to us, along with her new M.O.T. Certificate.  He told us tales of how she had only just fitted in the M.O.T. Bay; her Tellytubby aerial had only just crept past a concrete ceiling beam.  I felt concerned and wished one of us had gone along with her, to look out for her safety, but she seemed to have come back unscathed and why worry about things that hadn’t already happened.

 

At Caroline’s, I woke up in the middle of the night and really couldn’t work out:  a) why I had woken up and:  b) where on earth I was!  The vague light through the window was coming from the right direction, but I couldn’t remember when we had installed a wooden bedhead in Eileen.  I actually had to wake Rodney and ask him where we were and as he stirred, I remembered that we weren’t in Eileen….  I guess it will be nice to be back home, sleeping in the same bed in the same town, for more than a week at a time.

I think one of the things I loved about living in our motorhome was that life seemed to move at a slower pace.  There are fewer big chores; cleaning our home takes only a matter of minutes, instead of hours.  A shower and a change of clothes feel like a luxury, rather than a daily routine.  There are fewer commitments and rush hours to contend with.  No TV stealing our hours that could be better spent watching a beautiful sun set in a corner of Europe.  And it seems fun to create our bed each night so that sleep can come and lead us to the next day.  So farewell for now, dear Eileen, our wardrobe on wheels, our keeper of the cherry cake, our loo with a view, our cosy nest of a bed.  I shall miss you for the long winter months.  But we’ll be back in the Spring for more adventures in Europe.