Burton Latimer and Southampton - Moving Flats Take II

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I got up early on Monday and cleaned my room. I spent most of the day shopping along Oxford Street while I waited to Brendan to arrive at the train station from Bangor, Wales.
Turns out there were some signalling problems and his train was going to arrive a few hours late, so I carried on shopping 😊
Just as I got home I got a call from him to say that had already arrived! I jumped on the tubes and met Brendan at the Euston Train Station.

I brought him back to my new flat, had a bit of a catch up over some good ol’ Magners, and then threatened him with some of my new tomato, basil and bacon pasta creation for dinner.

We treated ourselves to waffles and fruit for breakfast on Tuesday before catching up on our e-mails.
I got an e-mail from one of my friends from NZ, Sara, who is going to be in London for the next few days. Except I’m going to be away for the rest of the week helping Brendan move! 😞

We spent most of the day shopping along Oxford Street and got some books for Hazel and Joseph’s birthdays (Brendan’s little cousins).

We checked out the little old pub next door, ‘The Victoria’, before Brendan made us chicken burgers for dinner - Yum 😊
I spent a little more time working on my over-due CV, booked a car for tomorrow and started planning our trip to Cornwall this weekend.


Brendan set his alarm at the (far too) early time of 7am. We gave our selves an energy packed breakfast of baked beans and bacon and made a little packed lunch. I packed my bag for the rest of the week including our weekend away, and we then headed off to Shepherd’s Bush with all of Brendan’s stuff.

We went to the car hire place and picked up our Vectra that we have booked for the rest of the week. A lot bigger and nicer than the little two door car we had last time, plus its only about 3 months old!

We drove over to Helen and Beth’s flat and waited for Benny (their new dosser) to come back to let us in. We picked up the rest of Brendan’s things that we had stored there and had a quick chat to Benny before heading up north.

We had lunch at a little park by the river in Wellingborough on the way and had a little walk along the river edge and looked at the swans. We got a birthday card for Joseph from the local shops and carried on to Liz and Phil’s place in Burton Latimer.

We had a hot chocolate and then played with all the bits and pieces that Brendan has had stored at his aunty’s place over the last few years. We packed it all up all and put in the car ready for when we leave tomorrow.

I found some jigsaw puzzles to do and then the kids, Hazel and Joseph, came home from school and we had a bit of a chat with them. The kids helped me with the jigsaw for a while, then had to go out to their after school activities.

We had Spaghetti bolognaise for dinner and while Joseph was at Cubs, Brendan, Hazel and I played a few games until it was the kids bedtime. I finally finished by jigsaw, and helped Brendan do some searching for hostels for us to stay in this weekend.


We had another early rise on Thursday, had breakfast and packed up the rest of our stuff. We said good bye to Hazel and Joseph before they went to school for the day.

I called Thames Water to sort out the water bill from my new flat and Brendan called up a few backpackers and booked us some accommodation for Friday night. We waited for Phil to get back to say thanks and goodbye. We drive through Northamptonshire trying to get to down to Southampton. Phil had given us directions to go through the back roads to void the M1 - but we got a bit lost and had to do some detouring.

We got some lunch at a ‘services’ area and arrived in Southampton at about 1pm. We went to the West Quay Shopping Centre to get Brendan a duvet, pillows, sheets and towels etc. and had afternoon tea in the John Lewis Café.

Rob, Brendan’s flat mate, rang to say he was on his way home from Heathrow Airport and would be back around 5-6pm. Brendan and I were going to watch a movie but nothing good was on, so we went for a little walk around Southampton to pass the time.

I saw a cute little old pub on the corner with hanging flower baskets. Brendan suggested we have a drink. We went inside, Brendan told me to get a table while he got some drinks. I noticed something odd about the people in the bar, I picked up the flyer on the table and on the back it said “kiss goodbye to homophobia” then I saw the rainbow sticker along the bottom of the mirror...

I sent Brendan a text saying “do you notice something weird about this place?” which he received as he sat down at the table. He said, “I don’t even need to read that, the answer is yes”.

We finished our cider and headed down to Pizza Express. We got a pizza for afternoon tea and ate it down by the wharf area in the threatening rain. We got another call from Rob to say he was bout 10 minutes away from the flat, so we jumped in the car and headed over there.
We had a bit of a mission trying to work out how to get to the flat, as the road they live on is pedestrianised, and the only way to get there was to join a dual carriage way and come off at the right exit near their place. But we got their eventually.

Rob helped us bring in all of Brendan’s stuff before it started raining. Then we had a rather welcomed sit down in the lounge and a bit of a chat. Rob helped us screw in the slats for Brendan’s bed.
We started putting away all his stuff and made his bed. Apparently it’s been quite a while since Brendan has had all his stuff in one place. He even has his own futon in his room, Cha!

We invited Rob to join us for dinner. We headed out at about 8pm and Rob took us to this cute pub called “The Cowherds”. The tables were dotted thought out a maze of little old wooden rooms and corners which were alight with candles that created a warm wintry atmosphere. We all had lovely large meals and a drink over a bit of a chat before heading home to bed.


We had a small sleep in on Friday, and headed over to Sainsbury’s (almost over the road from Brendan’s flat) and got some food for breakfast plus a few snacks for our trip.
We made some sandwiches for lunch and Brendan packed for the weekend.

We headed back up to London and did a detour to the shopping centre on the way so I could buy a probably well overdue, but extra warm sleeping bag from Blacks.
We hit a bit of traffic trying to get back into London due to an accident on the motorway, but managed to meet Grant at the car hire place with minutes to spare so we could add him to the drivers list for our trip to Cornwall tonight!

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Photos

Swan
Wellingborough Park

Brendan
Wellingborough Park

The Old Wall
Southampton's Medieval Wall - well part of it

The Mighty Vectra
Brendan making extra good use of our hire car