Dalzell’s Travels

Day 1  London to Zurich – Cold

We were up, dressed, had breakfast and on our way to London Heathrow Terminal 1 by 3.45am for a 6.00am Swiss Air flight to Zurich.  We arrived in Zurich at 20 to 9 local time and it was 2°.  We were impressed that we went straight through immigration and customs and by the time we got to the baggage pick up area, our bags had arrived.

We caught a taxi to the Hotel Continental to drop off our bags, but were surprised when we arrived to find that our room was ready for us, so we put all our gear into our room and headed off to explore.  We found the railway station, which was only a 5 minute walk and the bus terminal which was the meeting point for our Zurich Tour at 11.00am.  We arrived for the tour at 20 to 11 and waited and waited.  After some confusion and a telephone call to the agent at 11.15am, we discovered that the tour had been cancelled due to lack of numbers.  After some negotiation, it was decided that we would go on a trolley bus tour of the city with them and we would make our own arrangements to visit the other places that were part of the original tour and they also gave us a refund of the difference.

The trolley bus tour, which was aboard a unique Classic Trolley, lasted for 2 hours and took us to various places of interest within the city.  We saw the financial, shopping, museum and university districts, a section of the Old Town, the Fraumünster Church, a classy residential area, and Lake Zurich, where we had a view across the lake to the Alps, which had some snow on them.

After the tour was over, we caught a train to Rapperswill, which took 35 minutes and gave us the first sighting of snow on the ground.   Rapperswill is a charming little lakeside town referred to as the City of Roses.  We had a cuppa at a little café before heading off to explore. With the wind coming off the lake it was freezing, but we ignored our frozen body parts and soldiered on to discover the Old Town and, on top of the hill, a quaint old castle, which had some deer in the garden.  We had a wander along the lakeside and through the cobblestoned streets before heading back to the station to catch a different train back to Zurich.  This one meandered its way alongside Lake Zurich, which is quite large, and gave us some lovely scenery to look at, even although it was overcast and starting to rain. (We know that our photos won’t do it justice.)

Despite originally being disappointed that the tour was cancelled, we were able to see all the things that we would have seen AND were able to do it at OUR pace, taking the time to look and enjoy.

When we arrived back at Zurich HB train station, we went for a walk across one of the many bridges over the River Limmatt, into an area known for its cafés   and restaurants.  We found a charming place to have dinner before leisurely walking back through the streets to our Hotel.

So, all in all, a very pleasant first day in Switzerland.

We have been enjoying spending time with Janet, Adrian and Ella, just doing the normal day-to-day things and seeing Ella develop.  It is wonderful to be able to just sit and play with her on the floor amongst her new toys and watch her reactions as she starts to learn new things and develops her motor skills with things like stacking cups, although at this stage she is more interested in unstacking than stacking – after all, cup towers were meant to be knocked over.

Janet’s friend from Australia, Laura, arrived on Wednesday to work here for 2 years and is staying with Janet, Adrian and Ella for a little while until she finds somewhere to live.  She was lucky enough to organise a job through an agency, reaching in a small school in Reading.

On Friday, we all went into London by train and while Laura was off at a meeting with her agency, the five of us had lunch at South Kensington and then went to the Science Museum, which was interesting.  We had intended to go to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit in the Natural History Museum but the queue was out the door, through the grounds and out onto the footpath, so we decided to go to the Science Museum instead.  We visited the Machines section and the Flight section.  We didn’t have time to do the Museum justice and we are hoping to go back for a longer visit.

New Year’s Eve was spent having a lovely dinner together and then playing various board games etc throughout the evening – there was lots of laughter and merriment.  We celebrated the New Year with a glass of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Champagne, a gift from Laura’s Mum, Helen.

On New Year’s Day, we all rugged up and walked to church together and then had a lovely lunch at The Bear Pub in Maidenhead, before walking back home again.  The weather over the past few days has been overcast and showery.

Monday 2 Jan 2012– sunshine!

Today, we went for an organised walk with Janet and Adrian’s church community – there were about 100 people.  We started off at White Waltham, walked over fields and through muddy tracks to Corner Cottage, skirted the South Wood and Burrington Wood, past Shurlock Row, through Waltham to Shottesbrooke Park and back to Corner Cottage, and then back to White Waltham.  It was supposedly about 4 miles, but we think it was longer than that as it took 2 hours and we were walking quite briskly.  We had to climb over stiles (a step up and over a fence) and also through and kissing gates, which is a type of gate that allows people to pass through, but not the livestock.

It was an enjoyable morning out in the sunshine, although the muddy conditions made walking hard going.  Early in the piece, Sandy got her toe caught on a branch and went A over Z, face first into the mud, hurting nothing other than muddying her beautiful new Gore-Tech jacket and her jeans.

Tuesday 3 January – Showers most of the day, heavy at times and very windy – top of 11°

This morning, Adrian had to go back to work – we have really enjoyed spending time with him over the past 2 weeks while he has been on holidays.

So, the festive season has ended and Janet, Laura, Richard and I took all the beautiful decorations off the tree, packed them away and Richard stripped the branches, ready for the bin – an undignified end to our beautiful Christmas Tree.

We will have lots of happy memories of our Christmas in the UK.

It was quite warm inside today, so Richard was getting around in shorts and tshirt and bare feet while he was cutting the tree up and taking the bags outside to the bins – now he knows why Englishmen don’t go around dressed as he was – nearly froze his little toes off!!

Although it didn’t snow, we had an amazing Christmas! Adrian finished work on Tuesday afternoon and is now on holidays until 3 January, so it is lovely to be spending more time with him.  On Christmas Eve, we baked our ham, made our pork, apple and sage stuffing and also our Festive sherry trifle.  With our Christmas tree lights twinkling, we rang Katharine, Eenie and Maria, as well as Adrian’s family before heading off to bed.

We all woke up on Christmas morning just before 7.00am – it was still dark outside and Ella had no idea that Santa had been!!  After breakfast, we unwrapped all our presents and played with Ella and her new toys before heading off to Church at 20 to 9, where Janet led the singing. We, and several people sitting close to us, were highly amused when Ella fell asleep during the service and proceeded to snore quite loudly!

After church we came back home and put our turkey in the oven, prepared our roast vegies, which we cooked in goose fat (an English tradition that makes them really crispy) and prepared our honey-glazed carrots and parsnips. We also had pigs in blankets (small sausages wrapped in bacon), crispy Yorkshire puddings, cranberry and port sauce and gravy.  Later in the afternoon, when we had room, we ate our trifle. Our traditional English Christmas lunch was delicious and we were very pleased with ourselves!

As predicted, England had unseasonably mild weather over Christmas and the temperature was 11°.  We all went off to bed after a most enjoyable day, feeling blessed that we were able to share Ella’s First Christmas with Janet and Adrian.

On Boxing Day, Janet and Sandy made a Mars Bar Slice and we all went for a walk into town (rugged up in our coats, gloves etc as it was 4° and had a coffe/tea/hot-chocolate/mocha. Ella was most impressed to sit in a high chair, looking out the window and eating her rusk.  In the evening, we watched “Love Actually” – another lovely day.

On Tuesday, we made potato bake and then we all went to Janet and Adrian’s friends, Wanda and Alan’s place for lunch.  We had ham, potato bake, broccoli, brussel sprouts, carrots and bread rolls and then for dessert we had a panettone sprinkled with icing sugar and our Mars Bar slice.  We spent a lovely afternoon, chatting, laughing and enjoying their company.  After a fun game of Bananagram (similar to scrabble without the board), we headed home about 6.00pm, had leftovers for dinner and sorted through our photos.

See photos in gallery.

Monday 19 December – cool, occasional showers – top of 5°

This morning, Janet took us to Holme Grange Craft Village, where we enjoyed looking through all the shops – we didn’t buy anything, but were certainly tempted!  When we returned to Maidenhead, we bought our ham and turkey, ready to cook on Christmas Day.

Tuesday 20 December – occasional showers – top of 8°

What an exciting adventure we all went on today!  This afternoon, Janet, Ella (in her pram) and the two of us walked down to the station and caught the train to Paddington.  We then caught the tube to Charing Cross and walked around to Trafalgar Square and had a cuppa at Costa, while Janet gave Ella her dinner and we waited for Adrian to meet us after he finished work.  The five of us then went to Trafalgar Square to see the lovely Christmas tree.  From there we walked up Charing Cross Road to Oxford Street and then down Regent Street and then into Carnaby Street – where they had amazing lights hanging above the streets.  We then continued along Regent Street and caught another tube at Piccadilly Circus to Waterloo, walked through Southbank to the German Christmas Markets, where we wandered along looking at the stalls and eating our baguettes that we had brought from home.  After a dessert of marshmallows on a stick, dipped in chocolate, we then walked over the Waterloo Bridge, along the riverside to Embankment Underground, caught a tube to South Kensington, where we changed to the tube to Knightsbridge.  We walked along to Harrods, found a café across the road and gave Ella her night time bottle, and then had a look at the Christmas windows at Harrods, before catching a tube back to South Kensington and then to Paddington. From there we caught the train back to Maidenhead and walked back home.  What an absolutely wonderful night!  The weather was kind to us and it only started raining when we were on our way home.  Richard and Adrian had it down to a fine art, carrying the pram up and down stairs and onto escalators, so that we didn’t have to take Ella out each time.  She stayed awake the whole evening – too much to see to want to sleep!

Wednesday 21 December – overcast but warmer – top of 11°

More excitement today!  This afternoon, Janet and Adrian took us to the Christmas Pantomime, “Peter Pan”, at the New Victoria Theatre in Woking, which was a 40 minute drive from here.  It was lots of fun with traditional audience participation encouraged by one of the main characters.  One of the UK’s best known actors, Steve McFadden, who plays Phil in EastEnders, played the dastardly Captain Hook.  The special effects were great, with Peter Pan, Wendy, Michael and John flying around the stage.  Ella was mesmerised throughout the whole panto and the four adults acted like big kids, joining in.

Before we went into the Panto, Janet and Adrian took Ella to meet Santo in his Grotto and had a photo taken – she looked adorable in her little Christmas outfit.

Another fun day was had by all.

Friday 16 December – brief light snow – top of 3°

Great excitement – at 9.00am it was 1° and we had some brief light snow – although by the time it reached the ground it had melted.  So, now we are waiting for longer periods of heavier snow!

Just before lunch, Janet headed off to her farewell from the Piggott School, where she worked until she went on Maternity Leave, and we minded Ella!! We had a wonderful afternoon – gave Ella her lunch, played with her and had lots of cuddles and didn’t get up to too much mischief!

Saturday 17 December – overcast, showers – top of 1°

Adrian had to scrape the ice from the car before we could head off to Janet & Adrian’s friends, Hilary, Andy, Emily and Oliver’s house at Wokingham, for breakfast and to purchase our Christmas tree.  We had a lovely breakfast of hot croissants with various types of jams, juice, tea/coffee.

All nine of us then piled into two cars and headed off to Ashridge Manor Farm to purchase our Christmas tree.  This took some time to choose the perfect tree and as the staff were not too busy, they helped – the criteria was that it had to be approximately as tall as Adrian, not too sparse, reasonably fat and of course, the perfect shape.  Eventually, we found the perfect tree!  It is 200cm tall and is a Nordman Fir Tree. Two of the staff put our tree through a wrapping machine to wrap all the branches together in netting, for easy transport home, on the roof of Hilary and Andy’s car.  Sandy bought some mistletoe to hang over the doorway into the lounge-room.

Andy and Oli carried the tree upstairs and Adrian put it in a special holder that he had ready for the tree, the wrapping was cut off and voila! our tree was standing perfectly in the bay window at Janet and Adrian’s place.  We thought it was so nice that Emily and Oliver came with their parents to help us choose a tree and bring it home.

After the four of them left, we decorated the tree with tinsel and lights and all of Janet and Adrian’s special ornaments that they have been given over the past four Christmases.

At 3.00pm, some of Janet & Adrian’s friends started arriving for our Christmas Tree Party.   This has become a tradition since the first Christmas that Janet and Adrian were in the UK, when Hilary and Andy took them to buy a tree and suggested that they invite their friends to a Christmas Tree Party and ask each of them to bring an ornament. Emily and Oliver came to the party with their parents too and Emily gave Janet and Adrian a lovely arrangement of Holly and Ivy that she had made.

So, we had all the carols happening:

Oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas tree…

It’s Christmas time, Mistletoe and Wine…..

The Holly and the Ivy…..

We had a lovely afternoon and evening, catching up with Janet & Adrian’s friends, who we had met on our previous visits.

We took lots of photos (see gallery).

Sunday 18 December – Cool, overcast, hail, sleet – top of 5°

Janet, Adrian and Ella went to church in the morning, but unfortunately we didn’t go as Sandy had a migraine.

In the afternoon, Janet and two of us went shopping for a Christmas turkey and ham – we are almost ready for Christmas!

In the evening, the two of us went to St Mary’s church at Maidenhead for their Carol Service – Janet was singing in the choir.  We enjoyed the carols and stayed to have a hot drink (we could have had mulled wine) and a warm fruit mince pie and a catch up with some of Janet’s friends.

We are getting used to rugging up in our jackets, gloves, scarf etc to go outside but we are still comfortable in light clothing indoors because of the central heating.

Monday 12 December 2011  - Sunny, quite warm – top of 32°

Meika, the cat, deposited at Eenie’s house, winter woollies and Christmas presents all packed, the house locked up tight.  We were chauffeured to the airport by Katharine and Steve for our 2.40pm Singapore Airlines flight to London via Singapore. We were very excited about spending 8 weeks with Janet, Adrian and Ella but a little bit sad to be leaving Katharine, Steve and Eenie behind.

This is the third time that we have caught this flight – an A330-300 from Brisbane to Singapore and an A380 from Singapore to London (once again we were lucky enough to be on the top deck).  We landed in Chiangi Airport, Singapore for our 2½ hour stopover in terminal 2 and caught the shuttle skytrain to terminal 3 for our flight to London Heathrow. This was a bit different to what we are used to as we have previously landed at the same terminal that we left from. We had a good flight and even managed to get a couple of hours sleep on the second leg.

Tuesday 13 December – overcast, cool, top of 7°

Arrived in London at 5.55am (only 2° and light rain) to be met by Janet, Adrian and Ella after getting through Customs with no queues and the usual 20 minute wait for our luggage.  Adrian then caught the train to work and the rest of us headed back to our “second home” in Maidenhead.  First we had a nice cuppa, then had showers and unpacked, before heading off for a walk to the shops in Maidenhead. We arrived back at the flat at abut 4.15pm and by then it was getting quite dark, which was very different from our last trip when we had twilight until well after 9.00pm.  At this time of the year, the sun rises at about 8.00am and it is quite dark by 4.30pm.  We enjoyed our first day in the UK, playing and having cuddles with Ella and chatting to Janet and Adrian.

Wednesday 14 December – overcast, cool, occasional showers, top of 5°

Janet took us to High Wycombe to the Eden Shopping Centre, which is a fairly large indoor/outdoor complex about 20 minutes drive from Maidenhead.  We had lunch at a lovely café, where Janet was able to give Ella her lunch too – much easier now that she is on solids.  After lunch we went to Matalan and Sainsburys and headed back to Maidenhead for a quiet afternoon.

In the evening, Janet and Sandy went to the Piggott School Carols, which is held at the local church in Wargrave.  Janet enjoyed catching up with some of her former work colleagues and students.  The two of us had a lovely night.

Thursday 15 December – showers all day – top of 5°

Today was spent doing the shopping for food for our Christmas Tree party, which will be on Saturday.  As Ella was unsettled overnight, we were all up early and were at the shops at 8.30am.  We also cleaned the flat and wrapped all the Christmas presents.  We spent a quiet afternoon with Janet and Ella and then went to bed early for a good night’s sleep.

I am officially retiring on 8 July 2011 and,  as I am still on holidays until then, I don’t actually have to go back to work!! Yaaayyy!!  Richard will make a decision after he has finished doing the end of financial year stuff at his work.  I am really looking forward to being able to potter around, do some scrapbooking, go shopping etc. and, when Richard does retire, spending time with him and planning some more adventures, as well as continuing to spend time with our kids and spoiling our grandkids!

I will be heading off to Leeton for a couple of weeks shortly – unfortunately, my beautiful Mum is no longer able to look after herself at home anymore, even with my amazing sister, Maria’s help and home help, so she has decided to leave her much-loved home and move into a nursing home.  So, as soon as I get the call to say that the paperwork is all sorted and everything is approved, I will be heading off to Leeton to help Maria move Mum into the nursing home and pack up Mum’s house.  Being retired means that I can come and go as I please and I don’t have to worry about what is happening at work and whether or not I can get away – yippeee!

So, I have finished “practising for retirement”, bring it on!!!

Sandy

Friday 3 June 2011 – our last day

We have thoroughly enjoyed our last few days with Janet, Adrian and Ella.  On Thursday night, we took some photos of the three of them – see gallery – and then went out to dinner at the Novello Pub on the A4.  We all enjoyed our meal and reminiscing about the last few weeks together.

Today, we packed in the morning and then in the afternoon, Janet took us down to the Thames River and we took Ella for a walk in her pram, along to Boulters Lock.  We continued along the River path for some way, enjoying the scenery including watching the ducks, ducklings, geese and goslings playing in the river.  We sat and had an ice-cream and watched the boats going through the lock.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and quite hot.

All too soon it was time to say our sad farewells and for Adrian to drive us to the airport.  Our flight was due to leave Heathrow shortly after 10.00pm and so we left Maidenhead just after 7.00pm.  Saying goodbye is always sad because we enjoy spending time with Janet and Adrian, but this time it was even harder because we did not want to be leaving our beautiful new grand-daughter, Ella, there.  The only thing that kept us from falling apart was that we knew that Katharine, Steve and Eenie were looking forward to our return and we had missed them all while we were away!

Sunday 5 June, 2011 – Home

Our Singapore Airlines flight from London to Singapore on the A380 top deck in two seats of the 2-4-2 configuration, was comfortable and we were well looked after by the cabin crew, but as always, the 13 hr flight is very long!!  We had a bit over 3 hours at Changi Airport and then boarded our A330-300 flight bound for Brisbane.  We arrived at Brisbane International terminal at approximately 6.20am, which was half an hour early, and we had absolutely no queues at Immigration,  went straight through to collect our luggage and straight through Customs as well.  Katharine picked us up and brought us home, where she had organised a lovely morning tea for us and we were joined by Steve and Eenie.  At 4.30pm Katharine and Steve drove us over to Capalaba to collect Meika, our much loved and spoilt pussy cat.  The four of us had dinner together – lovely soup that Eenie had made for us – just after 6.00pm Katharine and Steve headed off to church and we went to bed!!

We have thoroughly enjoyed our almost-9 weeks with Janet and Adrian and feel honoured that they invited us to share in such an exciting time in their lives – the birth of their beautiful daughter, Ella.  We feel blessed that we were able to meet our new grand-daughter, Ella minutes after she was born and to share in the first 7 weeks of her life.  It was wonderful that Katharine was able to come and spend some time with her new niece and we still find it incredible that we were able to keep Eenie’s visit a surprise.

As well as the mundane things like washing, ironing, cooking etc, we did get to see some more of England (the Witterings, Chichester, Brighton, Bletchley Park, Blenheim Palace and Leeds Castle) and also the south coast of Wales.

The two of us are looking forward to plotting and planning our next overseas adventure together.

We have put some of the photos taken on Monday afternoon into the Gallery –  they are absolutely gorgeous!  When Katharine was here she wanted to take some Anne Geddes style photos but Ella was just too little, so we did some just for her!!  Our favourite photo of Ella so far is there – check it out!!

Friday 27 May 2011 Leeds Castle – overcast, cool

Because we are going on a big adventure tomorrow, we picked up our hire car this morning. It is a Ford SMax  7 Seater – similar to the Ford Galaxy, with lots of room for Ella’s baby capsule and two adults in the back and loads of room in the boot for Ella’s pram etc.

Janet took Ella to school to visit the staff and also her tutor group students, so the two of us headed off to Leeds Castle in Kent, about an hour and a half drive from Maidenhead.

Leeds Castle has been the private property of six of England’s medieval queens and was the home of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon.  The first part of the castle was built by a Norman baron during the reign of William the Conqueror’s son, Henry I.

The two of us thoroughly enjoyed exploring Leeds Castle.  When we arrived, we were greeted by a peacock displaying its tail plume to a nearby hen, who was ignoring him.

We walked down to the castle beside the moat and entered the castle via the cellars.  We were impressed with the way each room has been preserved with furnishings and we were able to walk from room to room taking photos (unusual in a lot of these places).

After lunch at the Fairfax Hall Restaurant, we walked through the Culpeper Garden and the Lady Baillie Garden to the Aviary, where they had various types of birds including a Toucan, Kookaburra and Galahs.  In a field not far from the Aviary, we watched the World of Wings Show, which featured three Parrots, a Merlin Falcon, a Blue and Gold Macaw and four White Storks from Africa.  All these birds were untethered and were flying freely around “putting on their show” for the audience.

We had a leisurely walk back through the Wood Gardens, where we saw an albino peacock and various ducks and geese, and after an enjoyable day of exploring Leeds Castle, it was time to head for our second home.  Although we were only an hour and a half from Maidenhead, it took us two and a half hours to get home as the M25 Motorway had turned into an 8 lane parking lot for some time because there had been accidents in both directions.

Saturday 28 May – Weekend in Wales – overcast, cool and showery

At 8.00am, after packing the car with Ella’s pram, two overnight bags, and various other baby essentials, we headed off, in light rain, down the M4 towards Wales.  By 11.00am we had driven through Cardiff and Cowbridge and were on the South Coast of Wales.  We stopped at 11.00am at Porthcawl, a lovely seaside village, to feed Ella in a little café.  From there, we drove to the Gower Peninsula and stopped at Oxwich Bay for lunch.  It was quite windy and Ella didn’t like the wind (neither did we), so we sat in the car and ate our lunch while Janet fed Ella and we enjoyed the view across to Three Cliff Bay.  We enjoyed a walk at Rhossili – Janet and Adrian put Ella in her pram, which they covered with her clear plastic rain cover to keep out the wind and she promptly fell asleep.  We walked down the cliff-top path towards Worms Head – the craggy cliffs were spectacular – lots of photos were taken and even although we nearly got blown away in the wind, it was well worth it!

We continued on to Tenby, where we had booked into Heywood Mount Hotel for the night.  After checking in and depositing all our gear, we drove into the town, parked the car and went for a walk along the Esplanade, which was set high above the beach.  From there we could see Caldey Island which still houses a monastery and a working lighthouse.  Off the point at the end of the beach was a small rocky island with the old Castle ruins – apparently at low tide, you can still walk out to the island.  After taking lots of photos and enjoying the beautiful scenery, we walked through the streets and down to the old harbour.   The various small boats and the pastel coloured buildings surrounding the harbour made it look as though it had come straight from a postcard.  The town is surrounded by an old stone wall which was built in 13^th Century and some of it still exists.

We had a delicious three course meal in the restaurant at the hotel before retiring for the night.

Sunday 29 May – overcast, cool

After a lovely breakfast we drove to St Govan’s Head in the  Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, with its varied landscapes of rugged cliffs and sandy beaches.  To get there, we drove through Pembroke, where there was an old castle in the centre of the town and then out into the country along narrow laneways only wide enough to fit one car at a time.  The cliffs were very picturesque and reminded us of the west coast of Ireland – the Cliffs of Moher.  Our next stop was Milford Haven, which is the biggest port in Wales and one of the largest oil and gas ports in Northern Europe.

We drove through some beautiful countryside with green paddocks that looked like a patchwork quilt – our photos will not do the area justice because it was overcast and misty.  As we came down a hill and around a corner, there in front of us was a beautiful surf beach, Newgale Beach.  It is, apparently, one of the best beaches in Wales – there were several people kite-surfing. The beach is about 3 kilometres long and is backed with a huge pile of loose rocks next to the road – we can assume this was to keep the ocean from flooding the road or entering the caravan and camping area beyond.

We drove through Solva, a pretty little village with a long, thin harbour nestled in a valley – the tide was out when we drove past and the boats were all high and dry!!

From there we drove to St David’s, which is on the south west coast of Wales and is classified as a city because of its cathedral.  We parked the car, had lunch in a quaint little café and then went for a walk through St David’s to the Cathedral – we walked through the ancient gatehouse and down the hill to the impressive and large Cathedral, which is a grey granite building built in the 12^th century.  We were able to take photos inside the cathedral, which was unusual (we just needed to make a donation, which was a brilliant idea, rather than to not allow photos and try to sell postcards to the visitors).

We headed out to St Non’s Bay through many narrow roads and found ourselves at St Justinians, where we could see out across Ramsey Sound to Ramsey Island.

After a lovely 2 days exploring the south west coast of Wales, we decided not to stay overnight because Ella still wasn’t feeling 100% and so we headed back on the M4 to Maidenhead, stopping at a services along the way for coffee, tea, mocha, strawberry frappucino and a feed for Ella too!!

We have thoroughly enjoyed our short visit to Wales, exploring the diverse, picturesque countryside and seaside villages.

We found another very handy feature of the hire car was that the middle seat in the back was able to fold down, thus turning it into a change table and so the person doing the changing of Ella’s nappy didn’t have to go out in the cold or rain!!

We forget how small the UK really is until we asked the GPS to plot our trip home from St Davids, the most westerly point of Wales, to Maidenhead and it told us it was only going to take just over 4 hours.

Monday 30 May – Maidenhead – cool, raining (one of the few rainy days that we have experienced since we have been here!)

Today was spent relaxing, catching up on cuddles with Ella, sorting photos and doing our blog.  Aunty Katharine will be delighted to discover that some time this afternoon was spent taking some “Anne Geddes photos” of Ella.  See our gallery and Janet and Adrian’s blog tomorrow for photos, thesuttons.name