Well back from our wonderfully, albeit extended stay in Iceland, this week is fairly quiet. We have some meals out at the local pubs and generally do some research on campervans/motorhomes, where to go and what to do once we finish up living in London on 27 May.
16 April 2011
Off to London Heathrow to pick up our hire care. We have changed from Avis and trying Budget who were marginally cheaper. We get there and eventually after a huge amount of paperwork (not sure why you need to fill it in on the webiste) and get the keys to a Peugeot 308 Verve Hdi. Inside the car is filthy, don’t think it has ever been cleaned and the outside looks like it was cleaned with a muddy cloth. Might have saved £5, but Avis certainly understands customer service. We head to Cambridge in Kent to look at a motorhome and we put down a deposit. We both really liked the look and feel of the home and it is available through a buy-sell back scheme which would save any problems with selling the campervan at the end of the holiday. http://www.motorhomes-buy-sell-rent.com/prices/20k-30k/euramobil-635-2002-due-april-20th-2011.html
Of course one of the best things was an actual bathroom – no having to find somewhere along the way and I think this will be fantastic and because the toilet/shower and separate, we can hang up our wet diving gear without soaking everything else. The other benefit is having a sepatate bed/lounge, so we don’t need to set up the bed each night.
Fingers crossed it all comes together.
So we then head back to Hampshire where we are staying at the Premier Inn as it is a friend’s surprise 50th birthday party. We drive up to the hall to help do some set up and get reading for the big arrival. Although I would be surprised if Sally didn’t have some hint something was going on. But the look on her face when she walked in was priceless. It was a great night and we got some great travel/dive tips. Also topped off by the walk home where we came across a man being escorted by his girlfriend – we think he had had a few drinks as he was trying to walk with his pants down around his ankles and kept saying, his pants had fallen down. Very interesting.
17 April 2011
The next day we dropped by Sally and Pete’s and catch up with the London Marathon news and headed to Windsor Castle.
Last time we were here, it was too cold to do much, but today the weather was lovely, so we did the usual British thing and queues up to get in and see the sights.
We did agree that it shouldn’t be called Windsor Castle, more like Windsor shopping castle as everywhere there are shops. We did find out that if we got our ticket stamped, we could come back anytime in the next year, so we did that before heading out as there were a couple of places we wanted to visit within the castle that weren’t open at this time. We then meandered around the town and had a nice lunch down near the waterfront at The George Inn, which had a nice beer garden, to enjoy the sunshine for once here, before dropping the hire car back at Heathrow and then tubing it back to Gunnersbury.
19 April 2011
The start of my manic period to see as much theatre as possible starts tonight. We are off to the Theatre Royal in Haymarket to see the Terrence Rattigan Flare Path (starring Sienna Miller). We had a drink in the watering hold next to the theatre – paying a wonderful £30 for 2 bottles of beer and 2 small glasses of wine – who said London was expensive!!! We had booked last minute tickets and were seated almost on the roof of the theatre. The play was really good, very enjoyable, lots going on and good witty dialogue. However, the seats were shocking, I am sure they were designed to make you never want to sit there again and stump up for the expensive tickets below.
20 April 2011
Scott has agreed to come shoe shopping with me – in fact he reminded me about it. So we are heading up towards Seven Dials to the Birkenstock Store to get some summer shoes. I am missing my shoes more than anything, so the excited it almost uncontainable. I do resist buying too much and get one pair, with the hope to come back again (minus Scott) for some more.