The Globetrotters: Goodbye Prague - Hello Lovedean (UK)

Monday 23 July 2018

And here we are, in the UK. We arrived at Prague airport with plenty of time to spare, so we had a second breakfast at the airport restaurant.

The flight over was uneventful and not unpleasant. Wim and I both like isle seats and we managed to get one each on opposite sides, so we were still sitting next to each other! ;-)

With a heatwave in large parts of Europe we were not too happy with the freezing air conditioning on the plane. At Heathrow airport we were of course hit by a wall of hot air! It was 29 degrees.

As we hadn't had anything to eat on the plane we found a restaurant first, after we had established the train and bus times and found we had plenty of time to have a decent lunch.

We took the bus to Woking. Was it too cold on the plane, we couldn't complain about that on the bus. The air conditioning wasn't working and of course, in those modern airtight vehicles windows don't open either. Add to that that we were also stuck in peak hour traffic, that made for a very unpleasant ride and we were glad to be let off at the train station in Woking where my first deed was getting a bottle of cold water.

The train to Petersfield arrived and soon we were seated for the next part of the trip. We discovered that we could change trains to a faster one into Petersfield, but what with all the luggage it didn't seem worth the effort, so we stayed seated.

At Petersfield we asked the price for a taxi to Lovedean, which was just a little bit cheaper than the estimate on Google, so we took a ride to our destination and arrived at the end of the afternoon, just in time to drop off our luggage (after having obtained the keys to the house from a key safe), hop into the car (which meant finding the car keys, the car and the remote for the garage....) and drive to the shops for much needed groceries, because we wanted to have dinner and breakfast....

Pfff, time to sit down and relax after an easy frozen dinner. No cooking on the first day!

Tuesday 24 July 2018

A new destination always means a bit of exploring, adjusting and what not. Most of the time this goes well, but today we had a problem getting started. It took Wim a while to get his shower to work, mine wouldn't work at all. The daughter of the house happened to email me about a wasps nest, which is situated right next to one of the bedroom windows. I had already discovered the fact, because there were a few wasps inside as well. I am not scared of them, but very careful around them, because I am terribly allergic. It was arranged that someone will come on Friday to remove the nest. One less worry! Next we discuss the shower problem and via her father in Australia we get new information and I can finally have my much needed shower.

That out of the way we have breakfast and discover that the ideal spot is on the patio outside, right next to the orangery, where it is already pretty hot inside early in the morning.

We spend the morning doing the laundry, because nothing much was washed while in Prague. The weather is fine, so everything dries in no time.

After having caught up with most of what we needed to do Wim suggested we drive to Great Bedwyn to have a look at Ken and Gill's narrow boat.

Unfortunately I forgot to take my USB lead and had only 94% charge on my mobile phone, which is not much for a three hour drive (return). I could use it as my navigator for almost all of the drive. It died ten minutes before we were back in Lovedean, but Wim managed to guide me by just using Google maps on his mobile phone. No data means no directions, but the roads were clearly marked.

We found the moorings easy enough and walked up to the boat, where we tried to open it up. In no time we were joined by the 'neighbour' who asked if we were the Australian exchange partners! And yes we were, so no worries..... He told us about problems with the bilge pump and offered any assistance we might need. Nice guy!

The boat appeared to be much like the house, which meant: not exactly new. ;-) We also looked at a few people who were handling the locks, so if we do happen to take the boat we have some idea of what we are in for...

After our 'inspection' we walked back to the village centre in the hope of finding a restaurant for a much needed cup of coffee, but the only one there was closed. So, there was nothing for it than to get into the car for the return trip. This was just a tad bit easier without the few wrong turns on the way in.

We got some groceries on the way back and that was it for the day. All I wanted was to relax for the rest of the evening. I did get a phone call though from a very friendly lady who introduced herself and asked if we wanted to join the walking group on Wednesday morning. As this was already talked about with Ken and Gill, I said 'yes' very eagerly and she promised to pick us up the following day.

And here are some of the pictures taken around the boat: