Oldies On Tour

We decided to have a full breakfast, which I have to say was very good, would stay here again, everything was excellent.

Back to the car, and we travel to Derbyshire, we arrive early, so go into Buxton to do some shopping, and post the xmas cards for Spain, early I know, but we leave on Wednesday for Abu Dhabi.

Getting colder by the minute, we arrive late afternoon, another catch up, although we only saw them a couple of weeks go in Spain. Had a lovely supper and Martin then gets the malt whiskey out!

In the morning we get up to find it has been snowing, so we decide to leave after lunch, and stay in Manchester near the airport, so we have a huge portion of fish and chips and are on our way again, having re-sorted our baggage.

Glad we decided to stay in Hotel as the drive to Manchester was very interesting, with icy patches on the roads.

After another good nights sleep, we left Hotel at 6.30am, headed for the airport on shuttle bus, very efficient, flight was on time, and very comfortable, and food was good also.

Arrived Dubai at 8pm, with Dave and Jane waiting it was lovely to see them again.

Up early, as we are excited, as we are meeting up with Mark Paula and the girls, we leave Kathleen and tom, and travel to Weedon in Northampton, we had booked the Premier Inn, £29, the room was amazing, the bed was enormous, at least seven foot.

We changed and met everyone at 1.30, we caught up with all the gossip, main discussion was the moving, not long to go, with no removal van, all good fun, stress levels will be running high, with less than two weeks to go, we wish them well.

After a lovely lunch, and a good catch up, they left us, for more packing, looking forward to see the new home.

We went back to the Hotel, undressed and climbed into bed, exhausted, it has been a very hectic week.

Catch up time with the ironing, fortunately all the washing had been done, then we took showers, and made ourselves look lovely, an early lunch, then onto the Hotel to keep Jill company, we found her in a lovely room, so organised salmon sandwiches for Jill, plus three glasses for the champagne we had bought with us.

Jill enjoyed her lunch, then we sent Geoff away! whilst Jill got dressed, it was a bit of a rush in the end, but a good laugh.

the “Evening News” arrived and took some photos, then Jill had to meet the registrar, whilst we waited in the room where they were getting married.

The wedding was lovely, so was the reception, and afterwards we had a good sing song, with one side of the table singing, then the other, it was such a laugh, and a fitting end to a wonderful day.  We thought the oldies would want to finish early, but it was 1.30am when we left. Brilliant day, with a lovely couple.

A quick breakfast, then time to leave, we have to travel to Le Havre today to catch the ferry, we decided to avoid motorways, but when we were getting too late we hopped on and paid the tolls, we had a reasonable trip across, and arrived at Tom and Kathleen’s very late.

13/11. We were up early as Geoff was going to Welwyn Garden City to Gilbertson and Page, he has been invited to see Richard Ware, the Managing director of the company that   his grandfather owned. They had a visit to the factory, and then lunch, later in the day, he met Trevor and Denise in Sloane Square.

Whilst Geoff was away, I went to Chichester shopping, for a dress for the wedding, after going into all the shops, I ended up at the House of Fraser, and found just the dress, back home ready to collect Geoff.

14/11/2013. Another busy day, we collected our stuff from Andrew’s which included our winter woollies, which we definitely need, went back to Kathleen’s and started sorting our cases out, what we needed for Abu Dhabi, the cruise! and living in England, especially as we were off to Derbyshire, everything organised we went out for a lovely meal at Buritan near Petersfield, food was excellent.

15/11/2013. Today we are meeting Jane, it seems ages since we have seen her, picked her up from Clanfield, then onto Marks and Spencer’s at Hedge End, both Geoff and I managed to buy stuff, but sadly Jane couldn’t find what she wanted. We had the usual coffee, and my first mince pie, then onto Jolly Sailor at Bursledon, where Howard’s Way was filmed all those years ago.  Another lovely lunch, followed by cheese and biscuits with Port, and then Brandy’s, guess who is driving.

We then decided to call in and see Doug and Jill, as Jane wanted to congratulate them, Geoff took Doug out for a drink! and we heard all the gossip! some of it not good! Then back home, we are both shattered.