We touched down in Brize Norton, near Oxford, and, following some confusion at the public entrance gate, we met up with Bev’s Mum and Dad who were there to welcome us and take us to Bradley Stoke, Bevs family home just outside of Bristol. Whilst it was lovely to see family, the suburbia of Bristol filled me with horror. Traffic is almost without exception terrible. The M5 is a car park and it seems that those roadworks that were present 12 months ago are still not finished, and yet new ones have sprung up everywhere, clearly UK highways have money to burn as they seem to have erected cones and 50 mph speed limits on every section of every motor way we travelled on. We spent two days shopping and spending money like it was going out of fashion. Now I quite enjoy spending money, but I don’t enjoy shopping, and find myself scowling at hundreds of people, strangers, whom I have a preconditioned dislike for in the jungle of Cribs Causeway retail park.
My mind turns to our final return to the UK and I don’t like it, I don’t like the row upon row of red brick housing, the people in the street whom ignore you as you pass them, or the weather, the world renowned British weather. As I hear tales of the continued Indian summer back on the Island, I check the weather forecast and hear the bemoaning’s on social media of people questioning where the British summer has gone.
After a few days with Bev’s parent we travel to North Wales to see my folks. This is something I was dreading, not of course seeing my parents, whom I of course miss greatly. But I dread the drive ahead, having not driven more than 20 minutes on the Island I now have to tackle 4 hours of British motorways. Quite how more people don’t die on our roads is beyond me, the tail gating and under cutting is terrible. Maybe I have become soft, maybe it has got worse, but I genuinely felt nervous for much of the journey, as BMW after Audi took a fancy to my rear end and felt the need to drive within a few feet of me. Roadworks, roadworks, and roadworks, full of speed restrictions and cones and yet noticeably devoid of anyone actually working. Perhaps we should just re-name them roads, as there never seems to be any works taking place.
Ok, so as you can probably tell my first week or so in the UK did not fill me full of joy for our eventual return in twelve months, but it did get better. We spent a lovely week in the Llyn Peninsular, a week in Yorkshire and the East Yorkshire coast, ate in nice restaurants, and had lovely days out. The weather improved, considerably, and the British summer reared its head, basking us in 32 degrees of lovely sunshine. We caught up with some wonderful friends, friends whom reminded us that there are people, aside from family, whom we miss greatly and who will always, no matter where in the world we live, or how long the intervals we see each other, be our best of friends. And of course we felt the love of our families, it is so clear just how much we are missed and how much the boys being away leaves a gap in our parents’ lives. It was wonderful to see how well they played with their cousins, and how quickly and easily the chaos ensued.
A lovely week spent on the Llyn Peninsular in North wales, lots of time on the beach, crazy golf, swimming, football and even sunshine.
Chester Zoo, always a must for us when we are in the UK, and one of the best zoo’s in the country if not Europe.
For my birthday we spent the day in the seaside town of Llandudno, exploring the oldest copper mines in Europe, fascinating and fun.
Off to Yorkshire to visit my brother and his family, more sunshine and more fun.
North East Yorkshire with Bev’s sister and family. A wonderful part of the country that I had not visited before. Stunning views, lovely people, country parks and seaside villages. A real gem in the British Isles.
Air Trail, a high rise playground of ropes and Ariel challenges. Great fun, although a little tame for me!
Having travelled many miles, through dales and coast, hills and fields I found myself thinking “ I could live here, this is nice, and maybe coming home wouldn’t be so bad.” Within three weeks of being back in the UK St Helena starts to seem a million miles away, we discuss what jobs we might like to do, and Bev insists that we will move to the Isle of White. We settle in, Bev moans about the amount of dog poo on the streets, I become grumpy again, and get annoyed if the cash machine takes more than 30 seconds to dish out my money. Normal service is resumed.
I could list the days out and places we went, but filling the pages of my blog with eight weeks worth of, “we went here, we saw that, we did this” would not make good reading, (and the photos tell the story anyway) but suffice to say we all had a lovely trip home, it went quicker that I expected, and was more enjoyable than expected. There are some beautiful places in the UK, and if we can manage to move to one of them, maybe living back in the UK wont be so bad after all.
The highlight of our trip was a visit to Warner Brother’s Harry Potter studio tour. A chance to walk around the actual sets used in the films, see the costumes and models. We spent a fascinating five hours here and I could of stayed a lot longer. I’m not a particular fan of Harry Potter but to see how these films are made and walk in the footsteps of Dumbledore was an amazing experience. Wonderful fun for kids and grown ups.
Two Years in the Atlantic. 