This blog should be done by now as we were due back in Melbourne at 9.50pm on Sunday night. Unfortunately, following our unexpected diversion to Singapore, we didn’t touch down in Melbourne until just before 4.00am this morning. Poor Kerry had to drag herself out of bed to come to pick us up because we didn’t have any house keys on us. When Kerry picked us up to take us to the airport three weeks ago we all agreed that we didn’t need to carry house keys half way around the world and back because Kerry would pick us up on our return and let us in. Ha, ha, if we had known how things would pan out we would have taken a set of house keys with us and then we could have taken a ... read more

With our flight departing Manchester at a very civilised 2.00pm there was no need for us to rise at a ridiculous hour. We had done most of our packing yesterday before dinner and finished it off before bed so we were able to shower and dress and have our breakfast in a leisurely fashion. Once we’d cleaned our teeth all we needed to do was pack our toilet bags and we were ready to go, which made us happy ... and sad ... at the same time. It will be great to get home to see Finbar and family and sleep in our own bed, but it is always sad saying farewell to good friends. Kath and Albert do not currently have any travel to Australia booked so we are not sure when we will see ... read more

Kath and Albert have a full house. In addition to the pet budgie they have us staying with them and this morning the gerbils from next door were dropped off because the neighbours are going away for the Bank Holiday long weekend. Creating even more chaos was a builder in the entry hall busy replacing the front window. The window guy replaced the front door yesterday while we were out and about ... at the same time as the plumber was back with the spare parts to fix the boiler! We missed all the activity yesterday, but have offered to hang around the house today while the front window is out because Albert has to run Kath to the hospital where she has an appointment this afternoon to have a suspicious spot cut out of her ... read more

Another day, another National Trust property! This time we headed off for Chirk Castle. The castle is just over the border in Wales so we re-traced our route from Thursday, but only travelled as far as Chirk today. We probably could have visited Chirk Castle on our way home yesterday, but we knew the weather forecast was much better for today so that seemed a better proposition. Hmmn, as we left Stalybridge it was very overcast and by the time we reached the motorway it was raining! Still the forecasters promised there would be better weather by late morning or early afternoon so we optimistically continued on our way. They got it right! By the time we were pulling into the car park at Chirk Castle there was blue sky and the sun was shining. It ... read more

This morning Bernie and I drove down to Stokesay Castle in the small town of Craven Arms. This was yet another opportunity to use our English Heritage OVP. Today we saved ourselves another £8.30 each. The castle is right beside the St John the Baptist Church. Always keen to photograph atmospheric old churches we wandered into the churchyard first to take a few photos of the church and shots of Stokesay Castle with old gravestones in the foreground. After a circuit of the church we went back out into the lane to walk along to the castle entrance ... or so we thought. In fact, all we found down the lane was the private driveway into the local farm. We strolled back into the churchyard and found that the entry to the castle was via a ... read more