Winding down...

... in preparation for the next bit of my travels!

Friday was Depart Wales day, and we made it to Swindon in good time to meet eldest sister (actually we were quite early and sat in the car for an hour!) only to discover that she had suffered a senior moment and missed her train! We had persuaded the station people to let us on the platform (they don't do platform tickets any more) so we could meet her, and we had some hilarious conversations about missing sisters, and when she did finally arrive an hour late we gave them the double thumbs-up.

Then we totally confused her by heading off to find the very last white horse - in Oxfordshire - which is actually THE oldest of all the white horses, at Uffington. It's a very abstract horse but well worth the visit.

Then the anti-navigation demon took over again and we took a very scenic route to Newbury and to the motel we were booked into for the night. I blame it on the other two nattering away and not focussing on where we were going, me seeing a sign that said Newbury and turning right about a mile or so earlier than I was supposed to. Ah well, it was scenic!

The motel left a lot to be desired - we'd asked for a family room for 3 adults - only enough towels for two, no towel rail in the bathroom even though there was a very polite sign cautioning us that the towel rail may become quite hot (!), no power outlets in the bathroom other than for a man's shaver, the service in the restaurant next door was abysmally slow (a table next to us remained uncleared the entire time we were in there and they weren't exactly wildly busy) - needless to say we didn't leave a tip. We went to the next door Maccas for brekkie the next day.

Then it was off to see my cousins on Dad's side of the family - and I finally got to meet most of their kids and partners that I hadn't met the last time around (which was most of them!). We got there around 12 ish, and left at 6.30! A nice easy drive back to Letchworth and even with stopping off at a supermarket to pick up milk and a paper, we were back by 8pm.

Then it was all on yesterday for the other side of the family - all my nieces and nephews and their assorted kids and partners who I had never met, plus my sister's fiance's family - hordes of kids and a magician and food - and the cleaning up afterwards. However, the one shining light amongst all of that was when Sue and I went to the supermarket to get the last minute things and I spotted bottles from my favourite winery on the shelf. Yep, I bought a bottle and drank half of it last night. Brown Bros - you rock! I did have a good look through the shelves for Cienna but it wasn't there. However I'm sure it can be found in a dedicated wine store rather than a supermarket.

This morning I packed up all the stuff I'm mailing back - three boxes in all! Not huge, not madly heavy, but it will make the trip to America much lighter.

And spent half the morning dodging raindrops with my washing - we'd have a nice fine spell and then down it would come - luckily I still have tomorrow to deal with it if it doesn't dry overnight on the rack in the middle of the loungeroom *g*

The UK part of my trip has been wonderful. I have carefully avoided places I already know - the closest we have been to my old home is the top of the hill on the way back to Sue's after dropping eldest sis off on Saturday evening. I did glance down the hill but had no desire to ask Sue to turn right instead of left - I'd much rather remember the place as I last saw it.

Everyone has asked me if I've noticed much change - but I haven't, simply because of not revisiting familiar places.

However, next trip... Sue has said we must book ourselves into a place in Wiltshire and dedicate a week to crop circle hunting! She's pretty certain that on one of the crop circle websites is mention of the one we saw - she picked that up when I was looking through the Wiltshire Street Map she'd bought and noticed the name of the farm near where we saw the circle, so I shall go investigate and report back, fingers xx'd with photo.

Time for dinner (and Neighbours!)

I'll post the photo of the Uffington white horse tomorrow, and the results of my crop circle search.