{"id":1272,"date":"2012-11-10T22:52:57","date_gmt":"2012-11-10T22:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=1272"},"modified":"2025-11-23T07:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T07:08:07","slug":"leaving-england-and-heading-to-warmer-climes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2012\/11\/10\/leaving-england-and-heading-to-warmer-climes\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaving England And Heading To Warmer Climes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our European sojourn for 2012 is almost at an end.\u00a0 We\u2019ve said our goodbyes to all our friends in Hertford and Watton-At-Stone.\u00a0 Andy & Carole are probably pleased to see the back of us and all our \u2018stuff\u2019; thank you so much\u00a0again, guys.\u00a0 We\u2019ve spent a couple of days wandering around the east end of London and the parks around Dulwich, finding areas we had never been to before. It was all great fun.<\/p>\n

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Limehouse Basin, London ….on a sunny day !!!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Greenwich Park, still being cleaned up after the Olympics<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We caught up with our friends, Dave, Jane and Robin at a Turkish restaurant at Canary Wharf; a\u00a0brilliant evening and very good Turkish delight.\u00a0 And, after\u00a0two\u00a0cancellations, we finally had a lovely evening with Andy & Emma at their home in Dulwich.<\/p>\n

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Dave, Robin, Jane & Laura<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve spent a couple of nights with my brother and Debs and we\u2019ve spent a couple of nights with Rodney\u2019s brother and Rose; we strolled Eastbourne Marina (didn\u2019t know it existed) and wandered the paths around Sheffield Park in East Sussex, enjoying the beautiful autumn colours.<\/p>\n

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Sheffield Park reflections<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ll admit I am now\u00a0feeling very sad about shutting down Eileen.\u00a0\u00a0She has had her exterior washed today and I\u2019ve cleaned out the fridge. We\u2019re half way through the packing and tomorrow I will scrub and \u2018Spray & Wipe\u2019 the surfaces and floors.\u00a0 We\u2019ve pulled out the bag containing the cab cover and discovered that the campervan salesman gave us duff information; it\u2019s a cover for our bicycles!!!\u00a0 We bought a cheap bike cover when we first set off, but it ballooned up and blocked the rear vision mirror and despite various methods of strapping it down, we gave up and the poor bicycles have been left out in the elements all year, as it turns out, completely unnecessarily!\u00a0 Ah well, we\u2019ve had a good laugh about that.\u00a0 So we won\u2019t actually be wrapping Eileen up for the cold weather, but the lovely Jonathan, our friends\u2019 son, is going to keep an eye on her and move her around etc., to hopefully keep her healthy through the chilly months in East Grinstead. \u00a0Fingers crossed, when we get back she\u2019ll start first time and then off we\u2019ll go again. I shall miss her; I\u2019ve enjoyed living in our little home on wheels.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Sheffield Park autumn colours<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

One of the joys of travelling has been when you come across the perfect shower; no, I\u2019m not talking about the rain again.\u00a0 When I head to the bathroom in the morning, I love to find plenty of warm water, somewhere to hang your towel, a shower head that unhooks, not one stuck up near the ceiling a million miles from me\u00a0and I really like water that flows in my direction, not all over the walls.\u00a0 I love water that actually rinses and isn\u2019t so soft that it takes ages to remove the soap and shampoo.\u00a0 Oh, and I\u2019m not missing having to press a button, or pull a chain to keep the water flowing in the campsite showers\u2026.!<\/p>\n

Another\u00a0of the joys of travelling in a campervan has been having everything travelling right behind us, even the kitchen sink!!!\u00a0 I feel rather like I’m now out of the habit of travelling light with only a suitcase on wheels, but it has to be done because we really can\u2019t take Eileen through Asia and back to Australia with us.\u00a0 What a shame.<\/p>\n

So our last stop has been with Lynda and Mark in East Grinstead in West Sussex and on Monday we\u2019ll head to Heathrow to fly off to Singapore. We have\u00a0two nights there, then\u00a0six nights in Brunei, followed by\u00a0two nights in Singapore and then\u00a0three weeks travelling through Vietnam, from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi. After that we\u2019re going to \u2018apartment-sit\u2019 for friends, Kenn & Pla in Singapore for nearly\u00a0three weeks, so we\u2019ll be there for Christmas and will fly out on New Year’s Eve, landing in Sydney on New Year’s Day. After that we\u2019ll be apartment-sitting for our friends, Mark & Fiona in Pyrmont near the Harbour in Sydney.\u00a0 We can\u2019t move back in to our house, because after the tenants renting our home walked out, we had to make a tricky decision.\u00a0 The rent tribunal found in our favour that we kept\u00a0the bond, but the tenants still owe us a couple of months rent.\u00a0 Plus we have a very large cleaning bill that we want them to pay.\u00a0 Hopefully at the second tribunal, which was last Friday, we may have resolved these problems, but we haven\u2019t heard anything from the agent just yet.\u00a0 The whole experience has made us a bit anxious, but when the agent informed us that he had another couple keen to move in and after a bit of deep thought, we agreed.\u00a0 So, hopefully, our house is now in happier hands until October 24th<\/sup> next year.<\/p>\n

It will be lovely to be back in Sydney, but I know I\u2019ll enjoy looking back through our pictures and planning where we will take Eileen to, next year.<\/p>\n

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Under the trees in Sheffield Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our European sojourn for 2012 is almost at an end.\u00a0 We\u2019ve said our goodbyes to all our friends in Hertford and Watton-At-Stone.\u00a0 Andy & Carole are probably pleased to see the back of us and all our \u2018stuff\u2019; thank you so much\u00a0again, guys.\u00a0 We\u2019ve spent a couple of days wandering around the east end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-the-road-in-great-britain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8199,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions\/8199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}