Poole, United Kingdom

And so, now we are back in England – I was about to say “Sunny England”, but there is nothing sunny about the weather at the moment!

Our plan was to arrive and overnight just outside Reading before heading across to pick up Oscar (our Motorhome) and heading up to Oxford to catch up with a school friend of MJ’s. However, fate has stepped in and Oscar is not ready for collection.

Before we left home, we applied for permission to bring Oscar back to Oz – and were stunned when permission was granted! So now, we are looking at what Oscar needs to make him more comfortable for travel in Australia and first thing on the list is Air Conditioning! Not in the whole Motorhome, but it is certainly needed in the driving cab. So we talked to our wonderful friends at STJ Motorhomes and asked them if they could organise it for us. However, the wonderful Italian efficiency stepped in and delivery of the parts was slower than promised, so sadly, pick-up of Oscar would be delayed.

And a big thank you to Geraldine and Ray for providing us with accommodation for a few nights in Oxford whilst we were waiting for Oscar! MJ went to School with Geraldine at Marist Sister’s Woolwich in 19XX (apparently, we aren’t allowed to publish the date!). Ray is currently on a two-year contract in Oxford and they have a wonderfully comfortable second bedroom for travelling friends who call in!

Given how cold it has been, it was wonderful to be staying within four walls, enjoying some wonderful food and great company. We did lots of walking around Oxford, visited a few different exhibitions and generally relaxed! One of the things that we enjoyed, that we don’t see much of at home, were the swathes of daffodils and bluebells in bloom, and the trees starting to waken from their winter dormancy.

The second bedroom at Geraldine & Ray’s place overlooks an old cemetery in Oxford and the view included some amazing trees, old headstones, grey squirrels and lots of flowering daffodils and bluebells – it was so beautiful!

We had been told originally that Oscar would be ready for collection on the Wednesday, so we said our goodbyes to Geraldine & Ray, and caught the train to Pangbourne where we were met by Chris with the news that Oscar wasn’t ready yet and Steve was on his way down to collect the motorhome, so he suggested that we spend a few hours exploring Reading. Which we did!

After a few hours, we called Chris and asked him if we could get picked up – which he did. We waited at the train station, trying to stay out of the wind and then the rain, so we were sooo happy to see Chris when he arrived, until he opened his mouth to say… “There is a problem with Oscar!”. I think I would have liked a photo of my face because I was thinking, “You are kidding, aren’t you?”, but he wasn’t! It seems that whilst the installer had worked his ring off to get the air con installed and working, he ran it overnight to check that everything was A-OK but in the morning discovered that it was leaking! Now to get behind the dash to inspect everything required a 3-hour dismantle job!!

When we got to the yard, and Steve returned with the full news, we were trying to work out what we would do. Our plans had been to drive over to Exeter to catch up with our friends, Sam & Birgid, before heading down to Newton Abbott to see our old Troopy and it’s new owner (Graham). And this is where the service offered by Steve and Chris goes that little bit further – they had a loan car which they offered to us to drive down to Exeter and back, so that we could keep our appointment with Sam & Birgid. This, in turn, would give the installer another day and a half, to locate the cause of the leak and fix it.

So 5 minutes later – we were heading out the gates, driving a Citroen Xsara! We made a quick detour via Hemel Hempstead to pick up our mail and a forgotten iPod (don’t worry Kate, it is safely packed away), found a hotel for the night and a late dinner. We overnighted in a Premier Inn, which offers a “no questions” refund if you aren’t happy with your sleep. So in the morning, when the receptionist asked how we slept, Nick answered “Fine, except for the herd of elephants having a disco upstairs last night.”. Next thing we knew – we had been given a refund for our accommodation! Thank you very much!!!

And on that note, we headed down to Exeter to spend the night with Sam & Birgid, enjoying some wonderful food, wine & cheese, as well as catching up on everyone’s adventures in the intervening 18 months (or so) since we had seen each other.

On the Friday morning – have we really only been in UK for 7 days??, saw us back on the road to Upper Basildon, so that Steve could drive down to get Oscar in the loan car. All had been fixed and we were in Oscar by 3pm, unpacking and starting to get organised. We overnighted in the yard (I love hot showers and internet access!) and on Saturday morning, we were heading out to find fuel, groceries and head back towards Devon.

We decided to stop in Salisbury to visit the Cathedral and we camped in the shadow of the Glastonbury Tor, which we climbed on one of the coldest and windiest Spring days I had ever encountered. Depending on where we were located on the Tor – the wind was either helping to push me up the hill or it was trying to blow me off the side of the Tor, but we persevered and made it to the top.

At the top of the Tor is a old tower, which used to include a chapel, so Nick thought that it would be nice to climb to the top of the tower but… this was when he discovered that, during one of the many renovations of the tower, they removed the guts and the roof and it is now a four-walled tower that is open to the elements! So no climbing to the top!

From Glastonbury Tor it was time to track back past Exeter, down to Newton Abbot and have dinner with Graham & Marjool, and to see what Troopy has been up to. Poor old Troopy has been working hard for the past 18 months, but Nick was happy to see and hear about what has been happening.

We had a booking for a ferry crossing to Cherbourg from Poole, and now we are driving across the south coast of England. Along the way we detoured to look at a place called Branscombe, which had another wonderful rendition of English stony beaches! And then onto Tolpuddle which was a hotbed of Unionism in the 19^th Century and where 6 men transported to Australia for swearing an oath (early Union oath, I suppose). However, we couldn’t visit the Museum as it was closed (bloody Mondays), so we decided to move on to Poole for a few days to explore that part of the world. And the main attraction was in Poole Harbour – Brownsea Island, where Scouting started in 1907. After many years as a Cub Scout Leader, as well as Tyson having been a Cub/Scout/Venturer/Rover, and Nick was a Scout in his youth – so it was an interesting place to visit. And it was – interesting, I mean. Not just for it’s initial connection with Scouting, but it is also a wildlife reserve and we saw lots of red Squirrels, plus lots of birds. There were fields of Daffodils in flower, which was totally awesome to see.

We spend a day walking around Poole which is really picturesque, walked along the waterfront, visited the RNLI and saw a boat that had been one of the boats involved in the evacuation from Dunkirk in WW2. Every Tuesday (Spring &Summer) is Bike Night in Poole and we saw an AJS outfit (bike with sidecar). It was built in the 1930s and stored in a coal store for 40 years and had been discovered, given a service and still went! There was minimal work done on it – just some cables replaced, the rider’s seat recovered and the rest was original! Even the rider’s gear looked like it has been stored with the bike!!

We enjoyed our couple of days in Poole and thoroughly recommend it as a place to visit if you are in the UK.

And now we are preparing for our own invasion of Europe… Look out France, here we come!