Well, unemployed life has been very busy and very good to us.
I can't remember when our last update email was sent (must have been a while ago) so please forgive me if I am repeating myself.
John and I had 9 days wonderful days in Ireland, flying into Knock, west midland, Ireland to visit the hometown of my grandmother - it was a very moving experience and a real big tick on my bucket list. From there on, we drove right around Ireland, including Northern Ireland (2000 km in 9 days, with our rental car being parked up for 2 days in Dublin). We had 2 fun nights with Dave & Jane O'Ryan, one in Dublin and another one in Killarney - needless to say the following mornings were both a bit dusty! We loved Ireland, it really is everything people say, the scenery, the friendly people and the bars!!! John gave the beers a pretty good nudge and managed to sample a different beer in each bar visited - it has been suggested that he keep a list of all the beers he samples - I think it is a great idea.
We have been back in London for just under 2 weeks and have experienced British Bureaucracy at its best. We have had a few frustrating days and we have to had to take a few deep breaths at times but all is good now and we are organised for our next adventure. We have been staying with wonderfully generous friends Laura and Adam in central London who have been so amazing. John has done some odd electrical jobs for Laura, which has kept him out of trouble (hard to keep a good man down). In between doing our administration, which sometimes seemed to take all day, we have done lots of walking around London city, gone to a London show, sightseeing, spent a weekend in Devon to visit friends and enjoyed the lovely sunny days. We have also made a few trips out to visit the motorhome and done quite a bit of shopping to kit it out. The temperature is definitely improving and the puffer jacket and scarf have been ditched for now.
Today we picked up our bikes, we rode them back from the shop to Laura's house, literally just around the corner. Both of us were not keen to ride them on the busy London roads so chose to ride on the footpath. We had rode about 500m and were pulled up by a local constable for riding on the footpath, he informed us there was a 60 pound fine each for riding on the footpath - we pleaded our ignorance explaining we were kiwis and how we were not keen to ride on the road without helmets - he advised if we didn't get ourselves on the road we would be fined!
Tomorrow is the day!! We pick up our motorhome and begin our next chapter in life, we are feeling very excited. Laura is driving us out to Upminster which will be about an hour 1 way trip from London in off-peak hour traffic.
We plan to travel in the UK for the next week to familiarise ourselves with driving our home on wheels and to iron out any hic-cups. Tracey & Geoff are joining us on the 18th of June for about 3 weeks. Once they are on board, we will travel to Europe starting with the ferry from Dover to Calais, we will then have the new challenge of driving on the other side of the road.
Nick & Rosie arrived in Germany this week and we are hoping that we will catch up with them somewhere in Europe - they are having a fabulous time.
On our next update, we will send through some photos.
We trust everyone is well and until the next update.
Take care and much love
The gypsies xox
No comments:
Post a Comment