Life in the uk – one week in

We’ve been back just over a over a week, our timing couldn’t have been better, arriving just before the Christmas weekend.

As we exited the port in Plymouth, the sky was grey and the rain was falling, a few roundabouts to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, does leaving you wondering why on earth anyone would put a ferry terminal in the middle of a traffic congested city ?

Michele ticked off another travel first, unbeknown to me she had never been over the Tamar Bridge, thankfully we were heading to Cornwall as we had no funny money with us….

Our journey back was an easy one, but after eight months of considerate drivers to be cut up was a shock, which left me shouting obscenities……

We had planned it as a surprise for my mother, so arranged with my sister that we would arrive on the Thursday and that Mother and father would be there for tea, six o’clock came and went, and then a text saying that they would come over tomorrow, well we couldn’t have that !

Sending her a picture and then somehow they covered the 15 miles of narrow country roads in about 20 minutes

Guess she was pleased to see us !

We’ve been generously welcomed into our family homes, fed, watered and chatted with, it’s been quite wonderful having a full blown conversation without the need to think about translating words from a language into English and then re translating the response.

It is a little weird, pretty much everything around us has remained the same. Everyone s children have grown, shops have closed and opened, the roads still have pot holes and prices for food have gone up.

We have opened eight months worth of post, keeping 6 things- 3 Tesco clubcard vouchers, a new credit card, a refund from the car tax people and a doctors appointment for September ( must rearrange that one) .

But nothing major though, life’s just plodded along as we’ve plodded around Europe.

So the slightly odd things to hit us so far :-

• coming out of a shop and being taken aback by all the UK number plates in the car park, we didn’t see English people for months on end !
• Shopping in Lidl and forgetting you’re in the UK, still trying to work out what it says, giving up and guessing from the picture, until you realise everyone around you speaks English.
• Driving a car (thanks peeps for the loan) and thinking oooh this goes past 50mph!
• Beer doesn’t have to be cold and fizzy, it can be warm and flat, oh the joy of a real pint!
• Home made cake , we never did find much sweet stuff on our travels

Obviously we’ve not come back quite the same as we left. Rubbing shoulders umpteen cultures, languages, currencies, landscapes and fellow travellers, our mind set has altered, in which ways, I’m not sure quite yet but we’re certainly up for the bigger challenges in life.

So what next, we are staying put for a few weeks, isn’t it great that my sister owns a campsite, with the first job of the new year to unmothball the smart car which was had pride of place on mother’s drive and then time to give Paloma a bit of TLC

Until next year , Paul.

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