{"id":2604,"date":"2013-10-07T11:48:10","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T10:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=2604"},"modified":"2026-05-24T06:16:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T05:16:34","slug":"last-days-in-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/10\/07\/last-days-in-england\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Days In England"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Were
We’re starting to feel as tired as this dog at Isola Madre on Lake Maggiore<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We started Wednesday by getting all the bedding and towels washed, dried, and sealed into vacuum-pack bags.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 But as we drive around the United Kingdom, I’ve come to realise that it’s a bit like the pubs here.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Come to think of it, I’ve never met Mr McDonalds at any of his ‘restaurants’, but at least his are cheap….!<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 There would be no more castles, canals and campsites until next year.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"Paul,
Paul, Liz, Laura & Paul<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Rodney
Rodney, Chris, Eric and Paul<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"Auntie
Auntie Sylvia and Rodney pouring over the treasure box of photos and cuttings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

At lunchtime on Friday, Doug returned Eileen’s keys to us, along with her new M.O.T. Certificate.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"Bob,
Bob, Jean, Rodney and Ang sorting out stuff for their trip to see us in Australia at Christmas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

At Caroline’s, I woke up in the middle of the night and really couldn’t work out:\u00a0 a) why I had woken up and:\u00a0 b) where on earth I was!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I actually had to wake Rodney and ask him where we were and as he stirred, I remembered that we weren’t in Eileen….\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

I think one of the things I loved about living in our motorhome was that life seemed to move at a slower pace.\u00a0 There are fewer big chores; cleaning our home takes only a matter of minutes, instead of hours.\u00a0 A shower and a change of clothes feel like a luxury, rather than a daily routine.\u00a0 There are fewer commitments and rush hours to contend with.\u00a0 No TV stealing our hours that could be better spent watching a beautiful sun set in a corner of Europe.\u00a0 And\u00a0it seems fun to create our\u00a0bed each night so that sleep can come and lead us to the next day.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I shall miss you for the long winter months.\u00a0 But we’ll be back in the Spring for more adventures in Europe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"A
A sculpture in the casino gardens in Monte Carlo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Riomaggiore,
Riomaggiore, Italy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0     We started Wednesday by getting all the bedding and towels washed, dried, and sealed into vacuum-pack bags.\u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2608,"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-2604","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\/2604","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=2604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8352,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2604\/revisions\/8352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}