Up and Away

Well today we took Erin and her best friend, Heather, to Heathrow where they begin their 5 month adventure. They are going to Japan, Australia, New Zealand and various parts of South East Asia. Here they are with their back packs at Heathrow.

At Kate's wedding Erin asked Christine advice about what to take on her travels. Christine pretty much said you'll be fine with two pairs of knickers and a toothbrush. Erin and Heather took this advice to heart and decided that they should only take one hair dryer and one hair straightener between them!

Anyway, it was an emotional time for me and Trev. That's our baby leaving the nest. We decided to cheer ourselves up by going to Kew Gardens since we are seldom in that part of London before 10 am and it was a lovely day. Great decision especially as we bumped into Linda in the cafe at lunch time! Purely by coincidence! So we ended up having a lovely day and as Linda has been through all this with the aforementioned niece we had a kindred spirit.

Anyway, I'm sure Erin and Heather will have fantastic adventures and I believe that they have formed a Facebook Group where you can follow them (heavily edited so that I don't have to worry too much.

Here are some pictures of our day. That robin is actually in one of the greenhouses!

Well I don't know about this Island. We tried toget off it two days in a row last week to go to Barcelona and failed. First time was legit it was a snowstorm, but the second day was bright and sunny, but apparently the runway was icy? Ever heard of salt? So anyway we stayed and had a lovely walk along the Thames in about 4 ins of dry snow, lovely. Watched a lot of birda and the rowers were out. as long as you were rowing fine, but the poor coxes must have been freezing.
Having had so much trouble getting to Paris before Christmas train to Dover.3 hour wait, ferry to Calais, no connections, two more trains to Paris, the incentives to travel are small. However, I am going to try foe Canada tomorrow, but snow is in the forecast and teh Queen Mary doesn't start running until April.

Linda and Mike

Stormy weather

Just before Christmas we had a snowy, icy spell which made travelling rather more interesting than we would like. I think the trouble is that we are just not used to driving in this weather and forget how to drive properly. Even though we have all been taught it doesn't happen that often (Climate change permitting!)
Anyway my neighbour told me amusing story. In one of the villages near us the roads were in a very poor condition. A woman was trying to drive her car up a small hill, the wheels were spinning and she was panicking. A small queue formed behind her and at the back of the queue was a white van. The white van man got out and told the woman how she should be driving but with colourful and unpleasant language. However , the woman managed to gain control of her car and drove off but the while the man was being vile his van had slid down the hill and landed in a ditch.
There is a God!