This entry tells the story of our summer in the UK, and continues on from last year’s blog ‘It can be done!”.

It’s a bit of a cliché but it’s true – absence does make the heart grow fonder, and after spending seven months on our trip around SE Asia, we now truly appreciate this beautiful land which we are lucky to call home.

We finally got back to England in the middle of May after delays due to the infamous Ash Cloud. Green fields, bluebells, oak trees not palm trees, policemen without guns and joining an orderly queue at Heathrow immigration – it was good to be back.

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It has been a great summer spent catching up with family and friends and exploring the UK in our caravan. Our tour this summer took us first to Yorkshire and The Peak District to visit Donna, Zoe and Matthew. Our regular readers will remember that the premature death of Steve, Donna’s husband, was part of the reason we took to travel. It was great to see them and so refreshing to hear them talk of him as though he was in the next room. Steve is gone but he clearly will never, ever, be forgotten. We spent around 3 weeks travelling over the Peak District enjoying long walks, National Trust and great weather.

After that it was down to Neil’s sister’s house in Gloucester for the formal opening of the “band stand” before heading off with June and Barbs to Glastonbury Music Festival. Wow, not a cloud in sight let alone a rain drop, and definitely no mud, just dust!. A fab weekend was had by all and we were glad of the bit of shade we managed to grab in the camper field. Major highlights? The Silent Disco, June’s face painting for her birthday, Pet Shop Boys, Scissor Sisters with a guest appearance by Kylie, and, of course, Rolf Harris.

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Travels continued to Devizes and Marlborough where we tracked down the 8 White Horses of Wiltshire. Then into Sussex and a stay near Uckfield to enjoy more gorgeous countryside, National Trust places, walking and generally enjoying being a tourist in our home country.

Next stop took us to Surrey to catch up with Cheryl’s sister Chris and husband Andrew and girls Jenny and Fiona. Our initial campsite here was short lived as it was under the Gatwick flightpath……something the brochure just happen to omit! It was no problem, plenty of liquid anaesthetic which kicked in around 11.00 p.m. and wore off around 05.45 a.m. as the first flight took off. Needless to say, we moved on next morning to the tranquillity of a site near Horsham which also had entertainment…..a herd of cattle, mostly bulls that just made us laugh so much with their crazy antics.

Catching up with Cheryl’s family was great including a day out with the girls and, the highlight, Capel Music Festival (a tad smaller than Glasto) opened by “Love ‘n Licks”, Chris on guitar and Andrew on base……not bad for their first gig!

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Back to Bristol for a catch up on post and family before heading to Brecon. Here we had a great week walking the Beacons, absolutely stunning, before catching up with Steve and Denise. Steve and Neil lived next door to each other when they were at school and got into a number of scrapes when they were kids.

We also had a great couple of days with Chris ‘n Viv who were over from Oz to celebrate Viv’s mum’s 80 birthday. This included taking the Heart of Wales Railway Line from Llandovery to Knighton, something that Chris had been promising himself for years and we finally got to share it with him. A great day out. After Brecon it was off to Pandy near Abergavenny. Once again, lovely scenery and great walking plus a visit to Hay on Wye where every other house is a second hand book store!

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We left the caravan in Bristol to fly to Belfast for an eventful day (full details are in the next diary entry). From Belfast we bussed to Dublin to meet up with Hugh for a visit to the west coast village of Roundstone in Connemara where he has a lovely cottage on the harbour. We met Hugh on our last trip to SE Asia. He had been insistent that we visit him and take a look at the pics. It is absolutely superb with incredible views and a Guinness & Chowder lunch to die for in the local pub.

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Finally Devon and Dartmoor for some more walking, wind, rain and lovely countryside.
It’s getting a bit cooler now and Autumn is here ……..so it’s time to head to Stanstead and a plane to the warmth!

Many thanks to all the friends and family for their hospitality during the summer – there are too many to mention all by name, but you know who you are. Also apologies to the ones we promised to visit again before we left – busy, busy, busy having great fun and sorry we ran out of time. Chapter 3 here we come.

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