The Grand Depart

Finally on our way, well sort of we have been bit of a static caravan for a while (Birmingham traffic on a friday afternoon). We now have a plan for reaching europe, two nights in warwick followed by three nights in Brighton hoping for sun, then we board the ferry for dieppe we will have 5 nights in paris.
Since collecting our lovely airstream we have been living in her firstly in the lakes for a weekend where despite our nerves and caution we got stuck trying to site her and gathered a small crowd and needed a tractor. I think we are getting better. After our trial weekend we moved to beautiful Cheshire and were able to find a small farmers field type of site which has been glorious, but not so great for pauls hayfever though. Trying to find a place to live, school for Sebastian and plan our trip has been pretty tough, especially when having to refer to handbook quite often to work our new technologies.
Then into the mix came news that our recent move from africa to UK was not enough for Barclays and they wanted Paul based in London. After huge consideration Paul will be taking redundancy as we do not want to uproot again so soon after a major move.
So it looks like 6 weeks together is just a taster. We have spent the day in Stratford upon Avon, it was lovely Sebastian got a bit concerned when I crashed the row boat and went through the wrong tunnel, and Casper was so quiet on the boat ride because he was afraid of the crocodiles Seb told him were in the river. Note to self; threat of dangerous animals can keep Casper quiet for a few minutes.

Arriving Home

I have been home, yes the UK does still feel like home, for just a week. Most frequently asked question since I got back; do you miss the African weather? what is it about the british fascination with the weather, of course I miss the glorious sunshine and long hot summers but the long british summer nights are also truly amazing, especially when the sun shines. Most shocking price paid for anything since I got back... £247 for a day return train ticket to London, I did get the pleasure of spending an extra 2 hours on the return train though, all standing up, as most of the trains were cancelled due to a power failure. Thats a months salary for many south africans. Shocking!

Our Airstream adventure finally felt like it had started at the weekend when I joined 5 other amateur 'tin shed drivers' and under the expert tuition of Malc, learned how to tow a caravan. Forward, backward and round the bends, backwards! Turned out to be not as bad as I thought, but I had forgotten about the sideways rain you get in the UK, but if we can do it there, we can do it anywhere I suppose. Good luck to Jim, Steve, Carol, Julie and young Thomas on your future tin shed adventures.

Sorry about the poor quality pic but I only had an old camera phone, or should that be a phone camera? Our real camera is on the final leg of its journey from South Africa having made it through customs and should be arriving with all of our other airfreight tomorrow. Our airfreight includes most of the equipment we are taking in the Airstream so its starting to feel like we are nearly there. We are! We are off to Tebay to collect it this weekend, and will spend a few days up in the Lake District to test everything out. Two sleeps as they say in South Africa.