With everything that had been thrown at us, we had not planned a trip away from Glendaruel until late January when Charlotte's (and Hugo's) 21st birthday created a natural time to head south for a few days. We'd got quite a few things to tick off the list, so a bit of choreography was required.
With John's medical requirements a gap between hospital appointments was possible from Saturday through to Tuesday am - which was about enough time to do what we wanted.
John's Uncle Hugh and Aunt Sandria were willing to come up and look after the cats, as Heather and Dave were away, despite it being quite 'wintery'. We had a lovely evening with them on the Friday, discussing why we all love Scotland, before heading off Saturday - we hope they will come again to see us, the house, the surroundings and of course be cat sitters if we need!
Normally, John's 48 hour post chemo 'pump' would be removed Saturday pm at home, but everyone was flexible to allow us to get it off on the Saturday morning at Dunoon, helping us get on our way south at a sensible time.
First job was dropping some parts of our old garden furniture set off at Erica Drive which had only partially made it onto the moving truck so we had decided to give to the new owners, and picking some items up that hadn't made the truck - a bird box which Amber had painted, and an outdoor bonsai Liz had been training. The new owners were busy sanding and decorating and making the place their own. We think they're doing it a bit differently to our style, being young trendy things!
Next, fight your way through the traffic works - a great reminder why we moved away from the busyness of the West Midlands.
We'd booked an Airbnb in central Warwick with a living room and kitchenette (actually just a microwave and kettle) so that we could host some family and have some quality time rather than try to see people in a hotel bedroom. First problem - where is it? The pin on the map was right, but the front door didn't match the photo so, after some frustration as it was cold, blowy and John had pins and needles from the chemo, exacerbated by the cold, we got in. The place was cold, like 8 degrees C cold, and John was pretty pissed. Liz had even e-mailed the owners before to request the heating was on. Not a good start and an old building with 2x 2kW storage heaters was going to take ages to warm up. There were additional heaters as well (hot airblowers) but it took us to midnight to find the remote control (stuffed at the back of a drawer) to get them on. Pretty grumpy all round and John was seriously considering going to Screw Fix the next day to buy a heater - the prospect of trying to huddle around in coats as a family on Sunday was not what we had planned for these special times.
The 21st party was at a local gin bar and we think they had a good time - we made our excuses after a couple of hours and headed back with Amber to the 'fridge', stopping on the way for some chips.
Overnight it did get warmed up and by morning it was ok and even too hot by lunchtime, good recovery, but other problems in the flat just added to the annoyance of the place. The hot water in the bathroom and bathroom fan didn't work - when John empties his bag, it's quite 'fruity' is all we will say.
Sunday, we both wanted to go to the morning service at what had been our church at Old Milverton. It was lovely to see everyone, welcoming but not too intense. Some private prayers were said with the leader of the service which was quite special. Afterwards Liz caught up with an old friend, Nick, walking around St Nicholas park with coffee and cake, whilst John headed back to the Airbnb (trying to put the code into the wrong door again....) as Liz's parents had arrived.
In the afternoon, John's nephew, Tom, wife Dawn and new baby Andy arrived and stayed a few hours and the kids joined us for board games, pizza and some quality trash telly.
Monday morning we de-camped to call in at our respective work places - having been woken by the traffic on the main street in Warwick. John had tipped a few folks off at Whitley that he might be passing and spent a couple of hours saying hello and getting his work laptop booted up. In a blink of an eye it was gone 11am and we were on our way for the final 'duty' - calling in at Yorkshire to see John's mum and dad, his mum having just been moved to a full time care setting.
Storm Isha, quickly morphing into storm Jocelyn, was hitting the UK and the journey was ok until we hit a diversion through Carlisle due to multiple lorries blowing over on the M6, eventually getting home about 9pm.
Reflections of going back to England and civilisation:
The water smells - of chlorine! Ours doesn't ;)
It's nice to see people, but its not 'relaxing' - John was exhausted the next day
We're glad to be back in our home
Selling Erica Drive was the right thing - we were done with that chapter of our lives
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