Was woken up this morning at the ridiculous hour of 4 a.m.! Sara's alarm went off to remind us that Tom was going off on his geography field trip to Holland and was being picked up, along with another couple of lads, by one of the fathers at 5.45 a.m.! Sara kindly made tea and busied about finalising packing for Tom which he had confidently stated, last night, was finalised! Amongst things he didn't have were gloves (it was freezing cold this morning), a camera and his phone hadn't been topped up. Sara drove to the top of the hill where we can get a signal to top it up to find that as it is a touch phone she couldn't find a keypad to key in the code to top it up with. Hence he has gone without his phone. He has borrowed my
Olympus digital camera and I told him in no uncertain terms that if he doesn't bring it back in one piece he needn't bother bringing himself back. I hope that the message has got through! I went back to bed for a short time then needed to finalise my own packing for my trip to Liverpool today. I attended the Ambassadors breakfast at the Grasmere Hotel this morning and found that Complex's details had already been posted on to their website. I sat with Clive B's friend Jackie who suggested that I would be an ideal candidate to serve on their Committee. I said I would think it over. I then drove up to Liverpool via Devizes (where I stopped off to do some banking at the the local HSBC branch), Chippenham, and Bristol and up the M5/M6/M62. It was a fairly uneventful journey with only a short delay with heavy traffic at Walsall. I arrived at Malcolm's in Sefton Park at around 2.45 p.m. I spoke to Sara on the phone who was thrilled to tell me that she had managed to swap our Bahamas' time-share week for a week at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I am delighted as this means that we can now get return direct flights to the Carolinas and need only drive from South Carolina to North Carolina to spend the second week with Sara's father. I was really concerned about the complicated travel arrangements if Nassau was added to the equation. We'll book a week in the Bahamas for 2011 at the earliest opportunity (October 2010) to avoid any disappointment next year as the kids will definitely want to return to Atlantis. I think that travelling out to the Bahamas every other year is a good idea as it will make us choose other locations in the intervening years. I quite like driving in the States so will look forward to the journey between Myrtle Beach, SC and Youngsville, NC. I've driven up from North Carolina to New Jersey before now. Tonight Malcolm and I walked along Sefton Park to the "chippie" where I ordered my usual Singapore-style king prawn chow mein and ate them with the chopsticks I'd left in Liverpool on my last trip. Malcolm and I talked about our respective job nightmares and how we were adjusting to retirement - although in Malcolm's case he hasn't actually retired but is "resting". We managed to polish off a bottle of Italian red wine. However, I was dead tired by 9.30 p.m. and went to bed at 10.30 p.m. after watching a little TV (Al Murray at the Apollo which I'd seen before). Off to see Saints v. Tranmere Rovers tomorrow.
Was woken up this morning at the ridiculous hour of 4 a.m.! Sara's alarm went off to remind us that Tom was going off on his geography field trip to Holland and was being picked up, along with another couple of lads, by one of the fathers at 5.45 a.m.! Sara kindly made tea and busied about finalising packing for Tom which he had confidently stated, last night, was finalised! Amongst things he didn't have were gloves (it was freezing cold this morning), a camera and his phone hadn't been topped up. Sara drove to the top of the hill where we can get a signal to top it up to find that as it is a touch phone she couldn't find a keypad to key in the code to top it up with. Hence he has gone without his phone. He has borrowed my Olympus digital camera and I told him in no uncertain terms that if he doesn't bring it back in one piece he needn't bother bringing himself back. I hope that the message has got through! I went back to bed for a short time then needed to finalise my own packing for my trip to Liverpool today. I attended the Ambassadors breakfast at the Grasmere Hotel this morning and found that Complex's details had already been posted on to their website. I sat with Clive B's friend Jackie who suggested that I would be an ideal candidate to serve on their Committee. I said I would think it over. I then drove up to Liverpool via Devizes (where I stopped off to do some banking at the the local HSBC branch), Chippenham, and Bristol and up the M5/M6/M62. It was a fairly uneventful journey with only a short delay with heavy traffic at Walsall. I arrived at Malcolm's in Sefton Park at around 2.45 p.m. I spoke to Sara on the phone who was thrilled to tell me that she had managed to swap our Bahamas' time-share week for a week at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I am delighted as this means that we can now get return direct flights to the Carolinas and need only drive from South Carolina to North Carolina to spend the second week with Sara's father. I was really concerned about the complicated travel arrangements if Nassau was added to the equation. We'll book a week in the Bahamas for 2011 at the earliest opportunity (October 2010) to avoid any disappointment next year as the kids will definitely want to return to Atlantis. I think that travelling out to the Bahamas every other year is a good idea as it will make us choose other locations in the intervening years. I quite like driving in the States so will look forward to the journey between Myrtle Beach, SC and Youngsville, NC. I've driven up from North Carolina to New Jersey before now. Tonight Malcolm and I walked along Sefton Park to the "chippie" where I ordered my usual Singapore-style king prawn chow mein and ate them with the chopsticks I'd left in Liverpool on my last trip. Malcolm and I talked about our respective job nightmares and how we were adjusting to retirement - although in Malcolm's case he hasn't actually retired but is "resting". We managed to polish off a bottle of Italian red wine. However, I was dead tired by 9.30 p.m. and went to bed at 10.30 p.m. after watching a little TV (Al Murray at the Apollo which I'd seen before). Off to see Saints v. Tranmere Rovers tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment