…….an update on how things are going in not so sunny Britain!!

Having spent most of our 1st week in the “Frozen North” (which it quite literally was but that was fine with us….nice to get back to the cooler climate!) we headed south at the weekend to Dan’s parents’ house in Devon.

We arrived on the Saturday night (after a much shorter 6hr drive than the 8 1/2hr one at Xmas!) just in time for Mothering Sunday the following day – this was celebrated with a Winchurst family lunch (including Dan’s Uncle Clive and Aunty Avril) at the local pub.

On Monday we went to Liskeard (via Bodmin Moor) for a bit of nosey round and then on Tuesday we ventured to Port Isaac – for those of you who watched “Doc Martin” when it was on, Port Isaac is the real name for the fictional Portwenn and so we were able to see a lot of the places we were familiar with from the show.

Wednesday we packed up the car and headed towards Eastleigh in time for Dan’s interview on the Thursday – we stayed in the “New Forest Lodge Hotel” which was actually in Landford, 9 miles out of Salisbury on the A36 (in case you were wondering!).

Thursday was D-Day (or should that be I-Day?) and whilst Dan was busy, Isabel and I wandered round Eastleigh, looking in shop windows and investigating the house prices (just for future reference!). Dan thinks the interview went well, so it’s just a case of waiting to hear back from them.

We are now back in Devon for the next few days – we’ll have a better idea of where the wind will take us next week once we have a decision on the job front.

Isabel has continued to be snuffly and, therefore, pretty grumpy at times and she definitely seems to be going off being in the car-seat for any length of time – I’m doing my best to entertain her (and let’s face it, I am pretty funny!?) but sometimes it just isn’t enough and the only thing that will placate her is the chance to get out and run round like a loon until she gets grumpy again and falls asleep!

Following approximately 42 hours of travelling, we finally arrive in the Lake District, where we will be staying for the next few days.

Unfortunately, as mentioned in the previous post, Isabel’s sniffles developed into a full blown cold, meaning she is very bunged up and feeling somewhat sorry for herself. This meant the 13 1/2 hour flight from Singapore to London was very, very long and tiring. It was also not helped by the fact that the woman sitting in the seat in front of Isabel had her seat back as far as it would go for virtually the entire leg. This meant that even with her short legs, Isabel couldn’t straighten them so settled instead for kicking the back of the seat causing the woman to look round and frown on a regular basis.

Not having flown with Singapore airlines before we were expecting great things but I, for one, was rather disappointed. I had heard great things about the quality of the customer service but apart from the hot towels (which I have to admit were rather refreshing) and the amenity kit including a toothbrush and toothpaste, I wasn’t particularly impressed. And I have to say although the seats weren’t too bad as far as comfort was concerned, the lack of space between your seat and the one in front was a real pain. When the guy sitting in front of me reclined his seat back (which he did approximately six nanoseconds after the fasten seat belt signs had been switched off) there were only about eight inches between my chest and the back of his seat. This meant it was very difficult to see the screen on the entertainment system, and it’s a good job I didn’t want to use my laptop as there is no way I could have angled the screen to see it.

Still, we landed, at last, at just after 5 o’clock in the morning, and happily made our way off the plane. The Munchkin rucksack, which we’d checked in at the gate, was taken by mistake to the main baggage carousel rather than being left as you get off the plane. A very helpful Heathrow baggage person, though, went and collected it for us and brought it to where we were standing. He then took the car seat up to the baggage area for us, to save us having to carry it ourselves. All this meant that, although we had to wait 10 minutes or so to get the rucksack, it did mean we were then able to head straight to the baggage reclaim, pick up our stuff and head straight through customs and immigration in no time.

The temperature when we left Wellington had been around 18-20 degrees, and as previously noted, was 30 degrees in Singapore. When we landed at Heathrow it was …. 2 degrees!! However, we were both glad to get back to the cold, especially as the plane felt it was about 50 degrees at times (which didn’t help Munchkin’s mood, as she gets quite irritable when she’s too hot).

We left Heathrow and picked up our hire car (good job we hired an estate with all the baggage we had!) and made the journey up to the Lake District, which is where we are at the moment. The journey was extremely straight forward, with the roadworks on the way fairly limited, and proving fairly feeble at slowing us down!

It wasn’t long, and it started raining. Oh well – two degrees, grey and raining. Welcome back to the UK, Winchursts!!!