We struggled with jet lag for about a week, feeling extremely tired about 3pm in the afternoon and keeping ourselves awake, and occupied until a reasonable bed time. Waking up at about 5.30am to start with, but gradually getting back to normal as the week went on.
We were treated to a meal by Pete, Tracy's Dad on the Friday, being joined by Lee, Molly and Faye, it was great to catch up with everyone after a year away. We were amazed at how much Faye, who is now 13 had changed, into a young lady. We had a Chinese meal which brought back memories of our two weeks in Singapore! Luckily not a pig organ soup in sight, this meal was much more tame.
We soon got into a routine at Della's Mum and Dad's catching up on a year's worth of correspondence, mostly junk. Sorting through our clothes, getting rid of another black bag of clothes that didn't fit or were out dated, Della finally let go of her flares!! We were ruthless and very brave, to the benefit of the CLIC shop, where Della's Mum volunteers.
We met Christine and Phil at The Crown, Giddeahall, a quaint little pub in the heart of the Cotswolds, and had a lovely Sunday lunch with them. It was great to hear all their news, although Christine has always kept us posted with very entertaining letters throughout our travels.
The following week the Smith household was struck with the lurgy, First Della's Dad, then Della and Della's Mum, luckily Tracy avoided the horror of loss of control from every orifice! Della's Dad, being the first to recover, became the Consultant for the other two remaining patients and Tracy was given the unenviable task of Matron! The pair passed each other on the landing, like zombies, carrying bowls and fresh bedding to and from the bedrooms. The house was calm and peaceful for a week, the nursing staff seemed to be enjoying it far too much!
We met Pat for lunch at the Folly, yet another pub, on the Thursday, and caught up with her news, daughter's wedding plans etc. Pat being an avid blog reader, obviously was well up on our news, probably could tell us what we have been doing! It is due to this lovely lady that the blog is updated regularly, as she tells us off if we don't 'post' regularly!
We went to Lee and Molly's, Tracy's Brother and Sister in law's for dinner on the Saturday evening, we had lots of chats and laughs, and a delicious vegetable curry.
Tracy's mum came back from her holidays on Sunday, so we spent the day with her. We were able to show her some of our photos, as she hasn't a computer. We came home with some new tops which Sandra had bought for us, which will come in really handy for the impending summer.
Now that Della was back on form, we went to the dentist, had our hair cut, met Sandra and Aunty Linda at the new Cabot Circus, in Bristol, very posh! Did all our little jobs that had to be sorted out. Obviously we found time to have dinner at Sue and John's meeting their daughter and son in law. We had a lovely evening, with lots of good food, company and laughter.
Tracy got chance to play golf with Faye, at Bristol Golf Club. Faye is having lessons and Tracy hadn't played for 3 years, so they were very evenly matched. Pete and Della were the caddies, and the sun stayed out for a glorious afternoon overlooking the River Severn and the Severn Bridge. The Welsh coastline was clear, making the backdrop to the tense competition very pleasant! Age won out in the end, but not by much!
The bank holiday weekend came around, Mum and Dad went off to Llandudno, Wales, for the weekend, to a barbershop convention, Dad is in the Great Western Chorus. (www.greatwesternchorus.com) We had the house to ourselves and took the opportunity to invite Jane and Steve and Lydia and Tom for the evening. We had a great time, Tracy prepared a lovely meal, Della did some creative cooking in the way of Tom's dessert! suffice to say he had to do without! Della has been banned from the kitchen for the foreseeable future! phew!
Faye played in a football tournament on the weekend and her team won the cup. They all called in on their way back and had supper with us. We got to meet Callum, Faye's boyfriend, for the first time. He was a lovely boy, very polite. He knew just what to say to butter up two mad aunties! He'll go far.
We did a fair amount of walking whilst we were home, as we didn't have the use of our car, long story. We used Mum and Dad's when they weren't using it, and in between we walked where possible and took the bus a few times as well. That was an experience! Not only was it expensive, but it took a degree to work out the timetable,bus stop and bus number, we couldn't have done it without the help of the mums.
We went to yet another pub, The Bird in Hand, at Saltford, with Della's Mum and Dad, on our last Wednesday. We had yet another lovely meal, enjoyed more for the fact that mum had a voucher for money off! We were quite a rowdy table, as we all had a fit of the giggles at one point, recounting the events of our visit, but nobody took any notice due to the fact that Manchester United were being hammered by Barcelona on the big screen!
Jacob, Della's Nephew, turned 10 on the Friday, 29th, and we had breakfast with him. This gave us the opportunity to see Julia's, Della's Sister's new house. We had the guided tour and then we all had breakfast. Jacob had a new bike and his first mobile, so after breakfast he cycled off to find a quiet spot to do what all young people do with their mobile phones! His parting words as he went out of the door were "Call me" It is now a permanent fixture on his thumb.
We went to our final pub on Friday, to have lunch in the gardens of the Folly, with Sandra and Pete, Tracy's Mum and Dad. It was a lovely, sunny day, and we made the most of the warm weather, we were the last to leave, all the other diners having eaten and gone. We talked about old times and had lots of laughs.
The time passed all too quickly, although we did manage to fit a lot in whilst we were home. Tracy doubled as a travel agent for Margaret and Brian, and compiled an itinerary for them to visit New Zealand next year, as well as showing Brian the many virtues of Google! He will be glad to have his computer room back again, after we took it over on our arrival.
Aunty Mary and Uncle Mervyn came round on Saturday evening, and we all watched the final of Britain's Got Talent, we were all rooting for Stavros Flatley, or the little Welsh boy!(Aunty Mary's favorite), Tracy and Della walked to a nearby Chinese takeaway to get our last fix of Asian cuisine before getting back to France.
Margaret and Brian took us to Bristol airport on the Sunday morning, and we waved them off in the warm sunshine, hopefully this is the start of a nice summer for the UK this year.
We had a great visit home, catching up with almost everyone. It really didn't seem like we had been away a year, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore seem a lifetime away. We are looking forward to going over our many photos and readinfg our blog, so that we can remember every last detail.
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