Blogs from Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 10

Welcome to Lichfield, Birmingham, Manchester and now Scunthorpe. These are the places we have managed to chalk up on our trip so far in England, with everywhere FREEZING cold, but loving it!! Let’s go all the way back to Lichfield. So, we arrived at Lichfield after our adventurous train-missing-debacle at 5:30pm on Friday, 26th November, and got picked up by Jeff (Mischa’s Uncle) from the train station. After that, it was really just a night of catch-ups (Lucy and the twins were there!!), a bit of dinner, some TV watching and then off to bed. During the TV watching we were shown a few new programmes, most of which Jess seemed to enjoy. A few of these include Coronation St (a bit like Neighbours) and I’m a Celebrity….Get Me out of Here (which is actually filmed ... read more

Home again Wish we could ‘teleport’ ourselves from Dover. That drive home is always rather a drag. Boring for me as passenger and quite stressful for Bob, after the calmness of the French roads, the M2, M25 and M1 lorry queue is a most unwelcome change. We caught an early ferry at Calais with a nasty shock as we booked in via P&O. We always buy the cheapest ticket and we were booked for Sunday first thing. This was Friday and we thought there might be a little extra to pay but they surcharged us £60 which was £20 more than our original cheap ticket (£40.50). Hindsight says we would have done better to have booked a more flexible ticket this time. Moment of excitement on the dock before we boarded when a foreign truck was ... read more

Didn’t sleep very well parked up as we were on Calais harbour as the ferries seem to ‘keep their engines running’ all night. Even so, it is an excellent spot to spend the night when we are taking an early ferry and we have used it several times. Up at 6.30 and ferry left on time for Dover at 8.35. Another smooth crossing and we were back in England by 9am having won back the hour we lost 6+ weeks ago. The drive home always seems rather tedious and I wish we could just be miraculously transported straight home bypassing the M2, M25, M1 and A50 but unfortunately we can’t. Amazingly the car, which has been sitting on the drive for 6 weeks, started first time, which meant we could put the Tandy straight onto the ... read more

Day 0 Just finished all my preparations. My pack is a little over 16kgs and with some lovely Fins on the outside. All I have left to do now is just enjoy my last day in England with Laura and my Family. Hopefully will be taking lots of photos of me on the flight tomorrow, but as its snowing all over the UK, I doubt they will be of me with a happy face :-(. They say that Heathrow is still running, but to expect delays and possibly cancellations. As Sam said yesterday, if my plane gets delayed to the point where I didn't need to spend £40 on a Hotel in Playa Del Carman I will not be impressed lol. But what ever happens, Mexico, here I come!!... read more

So yesterday we had our yellow fever jab to add to the two jabs we had last week for TB and god knows whatever else. The only medical issue remaining is the melaria tabs. We need to take those two days before we go and then while there and a finally for a week after we come back. It's not a cheap process is it protection ? Never the less I've also managed to update my camera for the trip, now trying to get used to a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28. Not exactly my first chice but I got this for 140 quid and my first choice, the new Canon G11 would have set me back at least 500. I feel these compact camera are much better suited to holidays the full SLR camera don't you ? ... read more