Wrexham County Borough 97 - Bangor on Dee - the countdown/the butterflies and the exhibition at the church /from home - to Leatherhead and what is the price of fish ?

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Monday - Bank Holiday and everywhere closed down for the day apart from the odd supermarket . Shopping done early this week as I don't want the fridge and freezer full of food which will /might go to waste. No swimming today and the football moved from Bank Holiday afternoon which is the usual day for a match to tomorrow Tuesday night . It is a funny old time . That bit where I would have been working and trying to sort out the van in between that work . Now with no work we have more time but that gives the butterflies more time to start fluttering round . The fact that the trip has changed times many has caused some issues . Maps of Turkey and Greece printed out and a route planned . Maps discarded and books dug off the shelves to plan another route . We are finally settled on a rough plan but for once in our travels we have not done a " deep dive " and worked out a full intinerie. We know we start the journey to the tunnel in a few days by which time the butterflies will have turned into raging bulls . We know that our passports are in order . We must have checked that they have enough time on them to go out to France and get back . We must have pulled our health cards out times many just to check they are up to date . We realised that our paperwork for our health insurance was out of date which meant hunting out the new e-mails with the document copies so that we could copy them and add them to Gabbys file . We printed out the paperwork for the tunnel . API needed , checked already done . Do we still need the NHS pass to say that we are fully vaccinated ? Not any more . The space to upload the file together with the declaration that we have been nowhere near anyone suffering from Covid had gone . So two less jobs to worry about .

Tuesday - swimming back to normal . Van checked over . List made . Fill with water at the last minute . Let's do it by watering can rather than hose pipe . It will look less obvious and we can check if the gauges are accurate . Check our BT sports and ring up to cancel as we no longer watch that much Moto GP and the Vanerama league with our team is only on now and again . Renewed the Broadband at a lesser cost than last year and ditched the outgoing calls . The mobile suffices these days . All jobs that would have come up to do during our period away . Cat sorted as we are no longer away for four or five weeks . Call made to the Star at Leatherhead . Four hours away it will be ideal for us to park up overnight . They try to book us in but the computer is down so it is all written down . Hope that one works or we could rock up and be told no booking . Looked at the menu - wow London prices . Fish and chips £15.50 . I can buy two fish and chips here for £12 . We talked about the full cost of staying at a pub . If I had the soup and a plate of chips plus two drinks we are probably talking around £30. So how does that compare with a campsite ? At the height of summer in the high season we could pay over that price for a spot . Yes we would get a shower . But we wouldn't need one . Had one before leaving home . We could use the laundry facilities . No need our clothes were not in need of a washing machine . No restaurant so no evening meal . And it would be regimented . Oh yes and electricity hook up. Don't want that . So all in all for £5 more or thereabouts we get two meals thrown in . The drivers licence expires shortly . A quick on line application and it is back to us pretty quickly . The camping card ordered last week not arrived yet and there is a postal strike tomorrow . Money sorted . Euros purchased last week when we thought we were staying in the EU where Euros are king . A quick trip to Tesco and they luckily had about £80 worth of Danish Krone that someone had ordered but had not picked up and they found around £100 worth of Swedish Krone. They won't go far we thought but might just be ok for an ice cream or one night in a campsite .

Confucius came up with a good one this morning " It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop " Ok he may have been talking about something else but it does ring true. Perhaps this holiday is going to be more of a slower affair than normal .

Wednesday hump day . What is it about time ? When I was a child time dragged as I waited for Christmas and my birthday. The day itself would go by in a flash . This week has felt like that . One day seems to go slowly. The next rather more quickly. Life is ticking along. A Keep Fit class attended and what did I find in the church. A rather nice exhibition of paintings produced by the local artists group . From a copy of the Girl with the Pearl Earing to views of the sea. From watercolours to pastels and oil paintings . All were for sale and the arts and crafts movement was alive and kicking . A corner of the church was filled with quilts produced by another quilting group. Abstract patterns . A window frame with a snowy scene produced in materials. Bright colours that sung out . They were all beautifully made and as we admired them we commented on what a good idea to put up an exhibition such as this in the church . They seemed so perfect . What a clever use of the church space .

Home and another day down . The holiday creeps ever closer . The Butterflies are getting busy.

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