Going home is always such sweet sorrow and the final day of grand Icelandic adventure was no exception.
It was a bright and early 7am meeting for our final breakfast except that the sun didn’t rise until almost 8am. Indeed, it was only just coming up over the horizon as eventually we drove back towards the airport.
Just before reaching the airport safely without any volcanic eruption stopping us, we remembered to fill the car up with diesel before returning it. Barry & I made the mistake of getting out of the car without coats on to refuel. In the bitter -8c temperature it meant we were freezing by the time we got back inside. We were going to walk from the car drop-off area but it was so cold as the shuttle bus was waiting, we took the easy option.
Check in would have been straight forward if the baggage belt hadn’t broken as our bags were being taken and caused an unwanted 10-minute wait.
Through Security Barry & Ellie got themselves some food for their lunch on the plane. We were again fortunate enough to have spare seats in between us all.
At Heathrow I correctly predicted the order that our bags would appear on the carousel. I decided that meant I was bound to win the lottery tonight (spoiler – I didn’t).
Sunny brought the car back and after loading everyone got in the car. I walked round to the driver’s door but Barry had already got in. I just thought that I was being stupid in trying to get in the wrong side and when round the other side where I realised that Barry was all belted up without noticing he was in the in the wrong side. It was after a week of being that side in a left-hand drive car. It caused much amusement for us all.
The drive home was going well until we hit the A14 and then took 1 ½ hours to cover 5 miles due to what we later found out to be flooding.
That meant our plan to take some Fish & Chips home was scuppered as they would all be shut by the time we got to Norwich. Instead, we all went into MacDonalds at Thickthorn which was quick and easy.
So that was it and we were home. The suitcases were put away and smaller ones were brought down in preparation for the next trip.
The nicest summary of the trip to Iceland is that Ellie described it as the best holiday she had ever had.
Now some 19 days later we are off again, this time to sunnier climes – we hope. It is our guilty secret week to Lanzarote. Whilst we have been looking forward to it, we do wonder if perhaps we should be trying one of the other canary isles that we can get to from Norwich airport instead. We shall see how we feel after this trip.
There were a couple of football matches in between trips where the results were far more important than the performance, although I would like to see one where we just control it and turn on the style. I knew the manager knew what he was doing.
Karen has worked whenever she could whilst we were at home and consequently caught a bug from school, not had enough time to do much else and at times been grumpy because of it. I might try a new tactic of encouraging her not to retire to see if that works.
We had a lovely Mother’s Day with the boys and Ellie. Despite as I kept reminding Karen “You’re not my mother’, I cooked everyone Steak & Chips which seemed to go down well.
At the theatre we went and saw Rob Brydon, and then another night I went to the puppet theatre to see ‘The Hollyhock Trilogy’ which was excellent.
I played a couple of rounds of golf and had an enjoyable session on the indoor simulator at Mattishall playing the first 9 holes at St Andrews. I also had a pleasant day visiting an old work colleague now running his very successful E type Jaguar restoration business in Letchworth.
Slotting in between cutting the lawns, putting down the weed & feed as well as seeding some bare patches, I managed to catch up with several old friends and family which was lovely. I also many to finally start the Lego build of Tower Bridge. Just about another 4000 pieces to go.
My new website woes continue for reasons too boring to detail but I am determined to solve the problems I am encountering one way or another.
I am equally as determined to try and crack on with the ‘book’. It is starting to feel like my own ‘perpetuus negotium’. I am starting to worry it is too much of a vanity project on my part. I am up to the part where my dad has landed in Singapore and is now involved in almost hand to hand fighting with the Japanese before the surrender. It is proving much more harrowing and difficult to both research what his ‘company’ was involved in as well as actually then put that into words. The books and information I have is conflicting and I have continued to be stunned learning what he went through on the battlefield and the complete ineptitude of the battle plan.
If I can get to the point of the capitulation, I think that should mark the half way point of the book. My word count is now 44000+. It is slow progress and with the weather now improving I can hear lots of jobs outside in the garden calling me. But at point I do still want to get it finished and published in some shape or form.
Back to this trip. We left about 6.45pm to go the airport after getting some petrol and dropping some cookies in for Ellie. Our flight in the morning isn’t until 8.45am from Stansted so we could have travelled down after an early start but I found an offer for parking with a free hotel night. I am still not a fan of an airport hotel the night before a flight unless absolutely necessary. To me it just elongates the whole miserable airport experience.
So Lanzagrotty here we come. We had booked it as a chilled week on our own. Since then and by totally coincidence we are being joined by 6 others in the same apartment block. It will good catching up with people over dinner each night and means the return of the Lanzarote Mini Golf championship. I believe it may be shown live on Sky Sports.
On what Barry calls our Left/Right holiday (that being the only decision we have each day on which way to walk) the blogs will probably just two days at a time as nothing much happens.
