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Ok so this is my first post and I’m really not sure what I’m doing but here goes. The good news is we landed safely in Heathrow in the late afternoon of the 6th, the bad news was, well there isn’t any but there was certainly a bad decision. We probably didn’t realise at the time that catching the tube to our secured accommodation, with 2 oversized back backs, 2 packed bike boxes and 2 carry on bags might not have been such a good idea. We left Heathrow around 3pm and arrived in London around 6 o’clock. Hindsight suggests it would have been easier to catch a taxi to get us there in an hour but I’ll keep reminding myself of the 20 pounds (40 AUD) we saved to justify the trek. I think it’s needless to say we didn’t do much that night……
The next few days were spent on finding a camper. The longer we waited the more we would need to spend on accommodation. In London, the worst room in an Airbnb share house was still around $80 AUD a night – and when I say worst, I don’t think we were far off. The host
herself, let’s call her “D”, was lovely – friendly and chatty (about political and environment topics) but clearly had no sense of house pride. It was a rude shock when we first walked in and realised the photos on Airbnb were not accurate to what we were seeing. There were dishes piled on every inch of space of kitchen space, leftover food lying around which at one point satisfied one of the 3 house/next door neighbor cats quite nicely which she ate straight from the dirty plate it had been on the night before. The lounge room had been converted into D’s bedroom, I’m gathering she may have rented out her own room?!?? So as it stood the kitchen was inhabitable, the “lounge” room couldn’t be utilized, and that left us to being confined to our small bedroom – whatever that was going to look like. Luckily the bedroom itself was as appeared in the Airbnb photos, so nothing could be complained about – shame – because had we had known that the end of the bed had been sliced off to fit the small width of the room we may have re-considered, instead, Eamon slept in a fetal position
to solve the issue – for 5 nights.
Aside from searching for our camper, we really didn’t have much on the agenda. We figure we will be back to London shortly, so no need to rush through yet. We managed to get to London Bridge and take a few snaps but that was all in terms of being a tourist. A few 5km runs here and there through the park behind our accommodation kept me feeling fit and we have been cooking as much as we possibly can. The grocery shopping in London is really cheap, cheaper than Aus but perhaps not as great quality. The eating out in restaurants is a jib – we went for Indian and ordered just an entrée and 2 mains, no beer, at a very average looking restaurant which still cost us 35 pound (70 AUD) and it was gross – I shied away from the safe option and ended up ordering what tasted like a can of beetroot and Eamon’s spicy indicator was pushed to its limits - we walked away quite disappointed - next time we'll cook.
We were pretty happy when we finally found a camper on our 4th
day – technically it was the 3
rd but we spent another day having a look around to make sure we compared the market appropriately – for $8,250 pounds (around $16,500 AUD) we needed to. We I call her “The Wiz” which is the alternative to the more appropriate name of “Dorothy” as the interior décor is very much like Dorothy’s attire from The Wiz(ard of Oz) – specifically the blue and white checker dress. She is beautiful and we I love her! I have to admit it was a real relief at this stage to have found The Wiz, we were dreading the thought of having to stay any longer in the feral house we were in which now had an additional flaw of small pipes in the bathroom. I spent an hour locked in there trying to unblock the "bogged" toilet that had now turned to poo soup. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I secret knocked through the wall for Eamon to come in and help me. We took our relationship to another level that morning. So after hundreds of pounds in hire cars and fuel, driving around seriously beautiful country side (past Reading way)
and some cold sad places (down Gosport) the deal was finally done, an MOT (roadworthy certificate) was being done then we could go pick her up.
Could we now relax? Nope! The Wiz was around a 3 days from being ready and was a 2 hour drive West of London. We booked 2 nights accommodation in a town called Wokingham, around an hour and a half drive West of London - not quite in the same location as The Wiz but close enough to ride our bikes up to go pick her up. The next challenge would be getting there - the thought of our Heathrow experience haunted me – another tube ride? Hell no! We used the likes of Uber to get us to the national rail train station (the one that’s kind of like V-Line opposed to the Tube that’s like Metro but of course much better) and besides a few heavy set of station airs we made it to Wokingham station where our new hosts, J and S, had arranged for us to be picked up. Moods were good, and from the moment we hopped into the car with J there was a lot of relief
to be out of the big city. Now to hope our accommodation in Wokingham would be better than the last.
J & S are exactly what you could imagine as a classic retiree couple – off busy doing this, doing that and just full of wonderful stories. We were shown to our room - beautifully crisp and smelling like a spring day. We proceeded to a very pleasant chat on the patio accompanied with antipasto. It was lovely to sit in their small garden that was just full of beautiful pots and lush green grass, the sun had come out so everything was feeling right. I don’t know how many kind words I have in my vocabulary – but I would give them all to J & S – they are amazing are just so welcoming.
We finally got the push bikes out to head into town to run some errands. The riding was...different. Cars give around half a metre space which is quite normal here apparently yet a little daunting, hopefully the scenic rides will be more relaxing. We headed first to the scrap yard and travelled through hundreds of mangled cars trying to find an appropriate
stereo for The Wiz. It was actually quite enjoyable going through these wrecks, it was like searching for gold and we did find one eventually for a bargain price of 10 pound (20 AUD) but that wasn’t the bargain of the day. Riding into the centre of town we came across many, many op shops, here they are called charity shops and they are everywhere! Eamon and I plan on arranging our Monte Carlo Casino attire from charity shops - should be rather interesting I think.
So it looks as though were picking up The Wiz tomorrow. By this time next week I should be writing about our first camp site - I no idea what to expect but it should be an adventure! Until then...xxx
TL:DR
Spent the first week in a London feral shithole of a share house
Found a Camper (The Wiz)
Blocked the London feral shithole toilet with a ‘Kylie’ dump that could’ve sunk the titanic
Now in Wokingham waiting to pick up The Wiz
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