2018 Jul-Dec
In July we headed to Dorset to stay with Gill and Aidan for a week or so, helping them install a watering system to help them through this dry, hot English summer. But after a week, we realised our own garden must need attention and we hadn’t yet had an offer on the house. So, we returned to Southampton and spent a busy week watering the vegetable garden and lawns. Fortunately, this revived them from parched dry to lush green. The house was still looking tidy and clean after our month away and a week later we received an offer which we accepted. Now it was a case of waiting for the UK conveyancing system to meander its way through the tortuous process. Until we agreed an ‘exchange of contract’ date, we wouldn’t know if the sale was going through – and certainly couldn’t make any travel arrangements. This was very frustrating…
We also managed to catch up with Rob & Jas and Rosie & Juno and Charlotte & Rachel for a very hot sunny day at 4 Kingdoms Adventure Park in Newbury – rides, animals, and messing about on boats. A great day – with the exciting news that Rachel is expecting a baby next January! A third grandchild to look forward to – we were so pleased.
At the beginning of September, we drove along to Chichester to meet Sue & Bill (SY Camomile) completing their circumnavigation. The date coincided with their 40th wedding anniversary and quite a crowd turned up to greet them.
By the end of September, we were ready to go – but then the sale of our house fell through and left us in the lurch. Thankfully our good friends Gill & Aidan in Dorset and Maggie & Trevor in Hampshire stepped in and allowed us to ‘couch-surf’ while we sorted ourselves out over the next three months. For this act of kindness, we will be eternally thankful.
We decided to stay in Europe to welcome the new babe – but somewhere different this year – at Lagos in the Algave, Portugal – where it is warmer than the UK. We rented an apartment from early December through to mid-January, ready to return to the UK for the arrival of Alba Edith due on 19th January.
Having mentioned (in our Christmas newsletter) our plans to stay in Lagos, we received an email from Willie & Gloria (ex-Linger Longer) letting us know they were also in Lagos. They had driven their motor home down from Switzerland (where they live) to spend the winter months enjoying the warmer climate in Lagos. It was fun to catch up with them – we’d last seen them in Auckland in 2008.
During our stay in Portugal, we had fun researching possible routes to take on our trip to Australia – and where we might possibly settle. We had really enjoyed our time in Brisbane but figured we couldn’t afford to live there. But we still fancied living in Queensland. While we were in Brisbane, our good friends Shirley and Doug had come to visit and we’d hired a car and done a daytrip to the Sunshine Coast, about an hour’s drive north of Brisbane. The only thing we could really remember about the day was that there wasn’t a lot of high-rise buildings and that we’d had to ring the RAC when Christine couldn’t start the hire car! So, based on this vague recollection we decided to start our search on the Sunshine Coast!