We have had a great and hectic Christmas this year – thank you to all of you who have joined us, hosted us and helped us have so much fun. However, after so much fun, we decided to run away to Dulverton for New Year. Lots of fresh air and a hearty walk each day…
It struck me, following a conversation with my Mum, that for many older people, the world slowly but steadily contracts. Shrinking in line with any loss of confidence in their ability to travel. Public transport can be daunting, particularly if they are less mobile than they used to be or hard of hearing. Driving may…
But the wedding of the eldest child of one of our oldest friends made re-entry to the UK and the return to reality, after a truly extraordinary 6 weeks in Japan, a little easier. It’s the first wedding of the next generation that we have been to and we were both surprised and delighted to…
Continue readingThere weren’t many things we’d have come home from Japan for…
So we have been back for 3 weeks and the RWC 2019 is officially over. Great competition, wrong result, but at no stage did England look like they would win the final, so congratulations South Africa. I have been ruminating about the trip and have decided, with the exception of a couple of slightly hairy…
It was 18 months in the planning and now we are done. Monday saw us packing our bags and returning the camper before an afternoon flight back to Haneda. I will miss the Camper, it was great fun and suited our purpose perfectly, but I don’t think we’ll be dashing out to buy one. We…
We were initially on our own for the France v Wales match, only planning to meet up with others post match at the Fanzone. Tim & Gary had departed outrageously early for Tokyo and the Japan v South Africa match. We allowed ourselves the luxury of a slightly later start because of that and so…
I woke at 5.30am with the sort of headache that would fell a giant troll, I drank some water and lay back down and hoped it might lift – dream on. At 7.30am Robert gave up trying to sleep though my huffing & puffing, repeated drinks of water and wriggling about trying to get comfortable…
We woke bright and early and thought we would spend the best part of the day exploring Beppu but it was raining and so after a quick couple of hours, most of which were spent shopping in a dry mall, we decided to have one last soak before returning to our usual game day stomping…
I tested Robert’s patience first thing with a whistle-stop tour of Shimabara Castle before breakfast. I had sourced him a hot, black coffee from the castle cafe on the way back from one of my many treks to the loo, so he wasn’t entirely running on empty, however following the tour, he announced, in a…
We bid farewell to Nagasaki after another really average breakfast involving mystery meat disguised as sausages and the runniest scrambled egg I have ever encountered, which given the lack of western cutlery, we were going to have to tackle with chop sticks – I opted for a teaspoon and then gave up altogether. We descended…