UK Holiday - continuation Pt. 1

After a fantastic trip we are home! Relishing a Sunday morning in bed after a good nights sleep, but missing chocolate hobnobs! 8.45am. Alice is still asleep, Harriette is on the computer (where else, she seems determined to make up for a month of deprivation) and Eric is next to me reading Harry Potter. No church bells here alas.

We have had a brilliant holiday. Arrived home exhausted though. I will try and fill in from Shrewsbury. I would have liked to have blog more often while away but quite honestly I didn’t have the time!

On the Sunday in Shrewsbury we spent the day at Alex and Dave’s in their new conservatory with Tricia and Simon, Eric’s parents and Lily. Woody and Katie arrived later bringing Sarah home from a family gathering with their dad, Nigel’s, family. Alex served joints of beef and pork with salads. She managed to cut her finger significantly in her new food processor (it wasn’t on). The worst of it was she did the same thing recently when unpacking it!!
Nieces and Aunties:

Uncles:

The next day we hit the road again heading for Mark, Cheryl, Myles and Laura in Derbyshire. We know them from our days in Whitstable through Mandy and David. Cheryl and Mandy worked together long ago. Cheryl was always a ‘totally scatty at home but thoroughly organised at work’ person who is a PA to some big wig in investment banking. She is based in London (hours away) and works incredibly hard. Mark works more locally, for Rolls Royce, doing quite what I am not sure, but he seems to be good at it. They are doing major extension work on their house – again. The first time they did this was when we last visited! Now they have built an extension with a kitchen to die for on the ground floor, bedroom and bathroom above and a massive playroom/office in the attic. They had both taken the day off work and we settled on spending the afternoon at Chatsworth House. It is absolutely amazing and I would recommend a visit there if ever you find yourself on that part of England. The kitchen garden was inspirational, the grounds stunning and the detail and architecture of the house breathtaking.



We had a great time. The evening was spent at The Coopers, a very old pub in a nearby village for a carvery. Again, Mark and Cheryl were fantastic hosts and spoilt us terribly. Thank you.

Sadly we departed the next morning. Saying Goodbye to the Cooper-Clarks is not quite so hard as we know we will see them soon. They have visited NZ twice since we emigrated and are due out again in 2008. Next to Leicestershire, to see Mark and Donna. (Eric was at school with Mark), Angus and to meet their daughter Jonty who was born a few days after we arrived in NZ. They have moved since we last saw them. Donna’s dad Dave was also staying at the time. Once again we were well fed and spoilt. Donna and I headed off for IKEA only to find the motorway virtually blocked so headed to Fosse Park in the opposite direction! More clothes shopping on the girl’s part and a coffee before heading home. It was here that we discovered

July 8th – Day 8

Sitting in bed, at Alex and Dave’s in Shrewesbury. Another gorgeous house, a huge, old town house where we are in one of the attic rooms aka Todd’s old bedroom. The bell from the church out the back is calling worshipers in. (“Quiet neighbours” Dave said on seeing the graveyard when they first looked round the place!).

After collecting Harriette we went to the MacArthur factory outlet centre (I’m guessing maybe 80 shops) near Ashford. Harriette’s clothes all had security tags on so we needed to get those removed, and I was heading for the Clarkes shoe shop to buy size 9 (UK) shoes. I was very disappointed when told that they had none. I had so be pinning my hopes on this place. The girls found ‘Accessorize’ and ‘Claire’s’ and bought a tonne of cheap jewellery and we all found the Revlon factory outlet shop with mega cheap make-up.

Headed West. Found the village where Eric’s family came from (Echinswell) and had lunch and our first beer in the pub there before a wander round the churchyard. Didn’t find any Tanner graves though. Battery deqad in camera at this point! I must get a second spare one.

Next we went to meet with my elderly aunt. Bit of a mix up there. She told Eric she would meet us at some tea rooms so we ordered tea when we arrived but she met she would meet us there and show us the way to her place (she had given me direction the previous day!). The tearooms where also convenient for us as they were quite close to Marshfield, where Eric’s brother Graham and his family live. Anyway, tea with Auntie Cathe then off to Grahams where we met Edward, our nephew (the only one of 11 Tanner grandchildren to carry on the family name). Headed off to Debbie and Martin’s at Brean near Weston-Super-Mare. They live in an ex-bed and breakfast right on the beach. Debbie and Martin are wonderful hosts. I was not allowed to lift a finger. Actually I must say I am so enjoying being spoilt! For so many years we have been the ones to host visitors, and I really enjoy showing off the way we live, feeding people well and trying to make peoples stay with us as relaxing as possible for them but it is soooo nice to have the boot on the other foot and be on the receiving end for a change.
Debbie and Michelle:


The weather in Brean was shocking, incredibly windy. I left the bathroom window open and the bathroom was covered in sand (not even a sea facing window). The car was covered with a layer of sand mixed with saltwater spray. Very messy. It was raining on our first morning there, so combined with the wind I decided against a run. We drove to a village called Langsford on the Parrett river and had a long leisurely lunch there with Nicky,

a friend from college, and her partner Brian. We then went up to a monument just outside the village, which gave (or rather would have given, had the weather not been so foul), a panoramic view of the Somerset levels (a plain, previous flood lands).
The Tanner's on their 'summer' holiday:

Back to Martin and Debbie’s for a gorgeous meal very professionally prepared by Martin. Christopher, their 12 year old son, is an incredibly talented piano player and I was absolutely stunned at his playing. Quite wonderful. I am sure he could make a career of his music but he is aiming at engineering, in the aeronautical area.

The next morning took us the Cleeve Hill near Cheltenham to see Louise. Louise and I trained together. Lu then took a break in her training to have Suzannah. After completing her training she met Tim whom she married taking the family to 5 as Tim had 2 young children (his wife Janet died tragically young of cancer). They then had Sophie and Alice (my god-daughter), and a much later addition, Toby. Tim is retired and they live in wonderful old house, originally a stone masons cottage which was then extended and a large Edwardian façade added - I think that is right. The property is tucked up a tiny lane and has stunning panoramic views.
(View from the conservatory):


There were so many rooms and I loved the way Louise described them, this is the girls living room, this is my living room, this is the boys (ie Tim and Toby’s) living room. Another friend Helen came up to see us, Helen. Helen is one of life’s characters! She is married to Dave, a mathematician who has done very well in a career teaching in public (ie private) schools in Scotland and England. They have 2 sons whom they must be so proud of, both head boys in their years. Andrew, the younger, drove his mom up (much wine would obviously be consumed). Somewhat outnumbered by our 4 girls, he was a delight, charming and very good looking! Helen, Louise and I have a lot of history and I think H and A were quite bemused by the whole afternoon. They thought they were going to be bored and certainly were not! We had a great time. Lots of photos, including one of all our offspring, excluding Mark, Helens other son.

I was so pleased to see that Louise is finally showing a few signs of age! Louise, slightly older than me, looked like a child bride when she married and is always being mistaken for the girl’s sister. It was great to see she colours her hair to cover the grey (and could not believe that my brown hair with the merest hint of grey, and only if you look hard, was natural) and she has at long last put on some weight!! Thanks Lu!!

Louise cooked a lovely lasagne and I was disappointed, and tearful, when we finally had to leave.

We moved on to Shrewesbury where we are now staying with Alex (Eric’s eldest sister) and Dave. Tricia (another sister) and Simon were here and we all went for a Chinese. We walked to the restaurant (a bit of a struggle for Eric who was by now suffering with a bout of gout, luckily not as bad as on previous occasions, but going on a bit longer than usual). Lily and Sarah (more nieces) joined us and are great with the girls.


Yesterday we, as usual, woke very early. I was lucky enough to get back to sleep but Eric didn’t. Actually we woke early again this morning which was not much fun after a 2am bedtime. We are gradually becoming more sleep deprived each day!! Another day to shop! I took H,A and Lily in to town and we met Sarah there. They took the girls off and I met up with them for lunch. Actually I think I was the worst. I bought 4 pairs of shoes and stocked up on M+S bra’s. I was however restrained in Long Tall Sally and only bought one skirt! Harriette bought books!!! And this despite being told “baggage allowance” repeatedly. Her theory is she’ll ditch some clothes!! We went to Tricia and Simon’s yesterday evening for dinner and to meet up with Eric’s parents, both of whom look incredibly well and not a day older than when I last saw them 5 years ago.

4th July - Day 4

5.40am. Sitting in bed at Helen and Paul’s place, with tea – naturally! In fact the mug is so big Eric just said it is a bit like drinking out a flowerpot!!
Helen and Paul live in a gorgeous farmhouse dating back to the 1780’s.

All low ceilings (only one bruise on my head), flagstone floors, rooms everywhere and the loudest creaking stairs you ever heard. No chance of Adam and Kate creeping to bed late at night without the parents hearing in a few years time! Kate and Alice are the same age and Adam is a year older than Harriette. We met them in 1995, shortly after both families moved to Hawkinge, in the local GP’s waiting room. In fact H+P had looked at Port Fleur (our last UK home) and only turned it down as it had 2 bedrooms (they have a boy and girl). And we would definitely have bought their previous home had we seen it first. They moved here (to the farmhouse) shortly after we emigrated (a place we would have loved but never been able to afford!). Paul has his own business and works very hard. They have Chester (a red setter) who I am sure remembered us, and since we left have acquired and Irish wolfhound, Ollie. Now I know these dogs are big but you need to be up close to see just I how big. He is the most gentle, docile and intelligent (I’m taking Helen’s word on the latter) creature.

So what have we been up to? Monday we discovered Primark, a seriously low cost clothes shop perfect for H and A. Only had 20 minutes there so need to find another one on our travels. Eric got a SIM card for the phone and we went to pick up the hire car. Driving out of London was as stressful as you could imagine. We left quickly as Ava and the girls were standing on the doorstep waiting to wave us off and it was raining, and had not planed a route out. In honestly I thought Eric knew the way. He then started saying get me out onto the M4 (or A4) and I couldn’t understand why he wanted to go west when we were heading south east. So I tried to take us south even though I was looking at a less than detailed map, which I was struggling to see. Then realised our route took us down by Wimbledon Common (during the tennis), well I’m sure you get the picture. Luckily Eric and I both, unspokenly, realise that this is no-ones fault and we only yell because we are stressed/tired and all is soon forgotten (well once we’re on open, and the correct, road)! Actually the girls were very good and sat quietly rather than telling us not to yell! Finally got to Kent and was struck by the Englishness of everything. Tried to have a conversation about how we felt and the best Harriette could come up with was ‘It’s weird but not weird’. Which we all despaired at considering her true gift is meant to be language! She however thought it was better than my recurrent “It’s so English” every 2 minutes. Got to Staplehurst and met up with my Uncle Tony and Auntie June whom I am very fond of. They are great grandparents now and lots of the family, including my cousin Pauline were there to meet us. From there we popped up to see my cousin Tony and his family. It is their son who had the accident in the Caribbean last December and broke his back. Alex is finally home and they are still in the process to adjusting to their new lives. Alex is amazingly positive and in good humour. He has live in carers and is using some very high tech stuff to try and move things on but it is going to take many years before his final outcome will be known.

From there we, or rather Eric, drove to Selsted (this is still the day I woke at 2am). I was amazed at how quickly we seemed to be getting from A to B. I think our road map must be a different scale to those we use in NZ. We were greeted so warmly with Helen hugging me repeatedly for the first hour saying “I can’t believe you’re finally here”. Katie had been unbearable for weeks apparently but concerned, as the girls were, that they may have all changed and would not get on. Well, no chance. Alice and Katie have been inseparable and talking 10 to the dozen (excitedly) ever since. Helen (this is Helen who can’t cook) seemed determined to prove she had made progress in this department and amazed me with cookbooks (not many but they were obviously used!) and a cupboard of baking ingredients. She was busy mixing and cooking but produced a cobbler with a rock hard crust so did not disappoint us too much!!!! She had also made a pudding without any packet mixes and served this with redcurrants and raspberries from the garden.

Day 3 – Tuesday. Started the day off with my first effort to run/walk for 3 weeks. I have been having physio for my hip but it is two steps forward and one back. I was only able to run for 300m but did a total of about 3.5km walking. I arrived back to find Eric, Paul and Katie in the kitchen eating breakfast. “You look like you’ve been running,” said Paul. ”I have”. His jaw dropped and he exchanged shocked looks with Katie. No one does things like that around here apparently. That may account for the shocked look on the old couples faces that I passed pleasantries with on my way round!

I think I have discovered the art, and joy, of shopping. It was Harriette’s birthday. Not much pressie unwrapping as everyone had given her money. She wanted to go to go to Howletts but the weather looked threatening so we decided on shopping in Canterbury and lunch out. We took 2 cars as Katie had persuaded Helen to let them have the day off school. Adam amazingly wanted to come with us and has been very chatty, not the sulky teenage boy I was expecting. In fact I think Helen has been pleasantly surprised. Seems he has also been looking forward to seeing the girls but then he and Harriette were quite close before we moved. Canterbury was great and I would have loved more time. Eric, H and I were going to do the cathedral while Kate and Alice wanted to hit the shops and marched off arm in arm to do so. Helen declined the cathedral but Adam wanted to come with us. Kings School choir was practicing while we were there and the acoustics were amazing. Standing staring at brilliant 30 ft high stained glass windows (and at this point the sun was even shining which adds to their brilliance) with Handels Messiah and the Halleluiah Chorus booming around you I have to say choked me up and bought tears to my eyes. I think Harriette was similarly struck.


They so should have filmed Parry Potter here:

(When we lived in Whitstable Harriette always asked to go "and see the Black Prince" whenever we were heading off for Canterbury. Here they are together):




The shop on the right is where Eric and I bought our wedding rings:

An hour there and then we hit the shops. Robyn you are to be blamed for the millions of photos we are taking because we are doing our best to show you what we can of this country. Robyn so wants to come to the UK but the trip is a few years off yet.

Next we ambled down to the West Gate to go to Café des Amis for lunch then shopping again, the July sales are everywhere with up to 70% off!! Finally we split up and I took Alice (with Kate of course) to pick Lucy up from school (in Canterbury). I had arranged with Claire that Alice could stay overnight but Alice seemed a bit reluctant. She and Lucy were rather shy with each other and I think need a bit of time to settle in together. Claire was just the same. She said she felt she was in a time warp and that things were the same as when I left, the only difference being of course that she has a son now to add to the 4 girls. Theirs is such a busy household! It was good to see Claire but it was just a flying visit and I am looking forward to catching up under slightly less chaotic circumstances, like the tea-time we arrived at. Helen had taken Adam, Harriette and Eric home and dropped Harriette in Folkestone where she was meeting Bryre, Cheyenne and new friends she has MSN’d with. I picked them up later took them to Bryre’s place where Linda met them and they dressed up to go out for a movie and Chinese meal. Eric then returned them to Bryre’s where they have slept over. We will collect her this morning before we head off to Bath.

2nd July - Day 2

5am. I’ve been awake since 2.15am!! I was so pleased with our progress on the jet-lag front. Arrived exhausted and managed to get through the rest of the day until 10pm, took a mild sleeping tablet and slept until about 5am. Went to sleep at about 10.30pm last night then it went wrong. Oh well. Back to a sleeping tablet tonight I think then hopefully I’ll be on track. Thank heavens for good books. Eric bought me Jodi Picoult’s 19 Minutes for Mothers Day in May and I have been saving it for the plane trip. As it was I didn’t read much of it then but am enjoying it now.

We landed at Terminal 3 and found our taxi driver. Ava had booked a people mover for us. Getting to the car park was an experience I would have expected if we were in an airport at Karachi. We had to wait for 5 lift loads of people before we could fight our way in to the lift. Do these people not realise that if you stand in front of the doors the people in the lift, whose place you want, can’t get out?!! The car park was full of big shiny new Merc’s and BMW’s. Within half an hour we were having that longed for cup of tea (with custard creams), and acquainting ourselves with Eric’s nieces (3 and 5 years old) whom he had previously met but we hadn’t. They are gorgeous, blonde, blue-eyed darlings that could charm the monkey’s out of the trees. We had noticed lots of police activity as we drove away from the airport and found outt when we got to Ava and Henry’s that a car bomb had blown up at Glasgow airport, literally as we were coming in to land. The security levels here are at their highest and this became evident as we moved around London the next day; announcements on the tube about unattended luggage, bag checks on entering the art gallery etc. The rest of the day was spent catching up and having a nice meal, after we had walked to Tesco’s. I needed a toothbrush. After nagging everyone not to forget their’s I forgot mine!! Whilst there we bought Muller yoghurt and Hobnobs! When we lived in England Eric and I always had Hobnobs with our tea in bed on Sunday morning - a habit I was keen to re-instate for the next 4 weeks!

On getting Mia ready for bed Ava-Lee found she had chickenpox, apparently London has an epidemic of it at the moment. She doesn’t seem to be poorly with it. Maddie has been vaccinated against it, and all the rest of us have had so we can’t get it, or spread it on to others on our travels.

Yesterday we were tourists in London!

Alice was so excited to see a red phone box. She wanted her photo taken then fell about when she realised there was someone actually using it!

It was weird, London being, in one way so familiar, and yet so novel. We took the tube from Hammersmith (about 10 minutes walk from Ava and Henry’s) to Covent Garden where Katie, Eric’s niece and a delightful young lady, met us and took us around for the day. We watched street entertainers and strolled around the stalls at Covent Garden and then had a lunch at a tapas bar. I dived into a catholic church (just because I could) for 2 minutes of peace and to look at the ‘oldness’ of it. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary but churches and old is something we want to try and do very often this month. It is one of the things we do miss living in NZ. We bought postcards of London buses and took photo’s. I loved it. Covent Garden is very familiar to me but I had forgotten how lovely, and plentiful, the pubs are. And how ‘English’! I know that’s a ‘Duh’ statement but true. There are vandal proof huge pictures dotted on walls around London in an effort to get people interested enough to go in to the art galleries. After lunch we went looking for Neal’s Yard, found it and discovered that the huge food warehouse I remember no longer exists as ‘they don’t do food’ now. From Neal’s yard we went down to 7 dials, a junction where 7 streets meet and there is an obelisk with 7 sundials on. Your homework is to find out why anyone would want to put 7 sundials in one place!? Katie was endlessly patient as Alice and I kept saying, ‘Oh I just want to pop in here’ at every shoe and bag shop. I had forgotten how phenomenonally huge the choice is! Amazingly we bought nothing. At one stall in Covent Garden I whittled 4 handbags down to one and sought Alice’s opinion before pulling out my purse. “What do you think of this Alice?” I asked expecting to be commended on my good taste. “Mom. I think I’d vomit if I had to wear that”!!!!! I just could not bring myself to buy it after that! A similar response when I showed her a pair of Air Wair Doc Martens boots, pink and covered in daisies. “Yuk” says Alice - and I so wanted a pair of them!
On then to Trafalgar Square.

Not at it’s best as it, and St Martins-in-the-Fields are being renovated. The church covered in cloth, and the square has construction fencing up all over the place. We passed the National Portrait Gallery which Harriette announced she wanted to go in because there was a picture of Jane Austen there, a sketch by her sister. It was tiny! We spent an hour in there feeling like tourists as we whizzed round. I hate that. I like to spend hours and hours in art galleries. I know nothing about art and pictures don’t ‘speak’ to me but I stand in awe of the talent of artists.

From here we took the tube home to find Maddie had a temperature of 40 degrees and Mia had recovered from the disappointment of missing a birthday party as she has chickpox. We laid in bed that night relishing the idea that we didn’t not have to go to work for a month, that we were really in the UK and life was very good.