One more wedding and lots of cream teas in the South of England

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So, back to England in time for Matt’s bro’s wedding in Sussex. He and Gemma got married in Gemma’s old boarding school chapel. It was so lovely and traditional…apart from the helicopter at the end! Nobody knew about that except for the newly-weds. They had decided to get back as quickly as possible so that they got their photos out of the way before everyone arrived. The weather had really been playing up but managed to stay dry for when we left the church and for the Champagne reception back at the very stately country house where the reception was held (It’s called Newick Park Hotel and Country Estate in case anyone’s looking for an exclusive escape in the picturesque Sussex countryside) arrived back at the hotel for the reception. When we arrived, there was a Caribbean steel band playing so any bit of chill that we may have felt quickly disappeared :o) we had champers and nibbles and lots of photos before retiring for food, Matt’s speech which brought the house down and lots of crazy dancing til the early hours. We even managed to have some singing at the end and a lovely quiet guy managed to sing every verse of Jerusalem - word perfec. Pretty impressive after 10 million beers at 2 in the morning.

It was only the next morning that I realised quite how much champagne I had drunk. The 5 hour car journey to Devon really brought this home as my face gradually took on the same shade of green as my dress from the night before. The only thing that could cure me was a Devonshire Cream tea …mmmm….scones…..

We had 10 very relaxing and very fattening days in Devon. Matt’s Mum Anthea and Alastair hosted us at the wonderful Butterwell Barn, a lovingly restored country barn just outside of quaint Modbury village. They’ve just acquired a very playful and very adorable black Labrador puppy called Bella who we spent many hours playing with (when we weren’t eating one of Anthea’s masterpieces or lying around the place or walking the Devonshire laneways…tough life). We found a travel agent in Kingsbridge who after much to-ing and fro-ing managed to book our return flight to Nairobi. When we get back to the UK (Oct 20th), we will be taking a one-way flight to Australia via Mumbai so that we can do our Nepal and India travels. Or at least that’s the plan so far. The other highlight of our Devon trip was a visit from Nic, Jolie and little Beau Bear. Nic’s parents live in the village next door so they drove up from Salisbury and we spent a lovely couple of days catching up with them and taking a highly entertaining tour of Plymouth from Nic after a night out together.


We had one last dinner extravaganza on my last night there - Roast Pork with every kind of potato and vegetable dish you can imagine…I know I’ll be dreaming of this in Africa! The next morning Matt drove me to the airport in Exeter where I caught a plane to Ireland to see my granny. Me and Matt were very excited as the next time we see each other will be in Heathrow to fly to Africa!

Photos to come ...

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Photos

time with Bella
she's 4 months old and just gorgeous!