Farewell To The UK..

We left our muddy farmer's field at Maclesfield on Thursday morning.

Our first stop was Milton Keynes where firstly we visited my mum, who has been in hospital for the last few weeks, then we had dinner with a fair few of my family at a canalside pub ...

The publican didn't mind us parking in his carpark overnight which was good and it also allowed us to get a canal fix before we headed off down south the next morning ...

Next stop was Elaine's sisters house in Maidstone ...

Elaine and her sis

Elaine also caught up with one of her nieces, two great nieces and one great nephew. ...

Elaine and great niece Connie

Connie and Bombo

(Nearly) the whole family.

Elaine's niece and family and yours truly 

Evie and Bombo

On Saturday afternoon we drove to a nice pub on the outskirts of Folkstone where we spent the night with the added bonus of watching the rugby (well, I did!).  (El said she was meditating in the van but I suspect she was having a kip!).

This morning we were up at a ridiculous hour to catch the train in the tunnel ...

All safe inside ...

A few miles out of Calais and this is what greets you, lovely easy driving on uncrowded roads ...

We clocked up about 450ks before stopping for the night.  We stopped at a lovely little village called Bonneval.

The motorhome aire is outside a lovely looking building, which on closer inspection is the local psychiatric hospital!

There is also a moat surrounding the village, which we are parked right next to it and it is badly flooded! 

Hopefully we won't get attacked by a mad axeman or get swept away by floodwater in the night!

It's a fantastic feeling to be heading towards the sun again! I will miss my pints of Doombar though!

MOT Day

First up for the MOT was Elaine, hers was carried out at the Christie hospital in Manchester. She passed marginally with a few advisories against her, she was however  passed fit for travel.

Then it was a drive down the M6 to Middlewich where the van underwent her MOT, and what a test it was, the only place locally that can do it is Martins MOT centre at Middlewich, all they do is heavy goods vehicles, buses, trailers and motorhomes.

They put the poor thing through the wringer, he was amazed at the emissions put out by the Merc diesel, it was so low it didn't register on his machine that went ping!

The test took an hour and they check absolutely everything, amazingly it only cost £41.00.

I,m pleased to report it passed with flying colours, he did note that the front brake discs were worn and took me down the pit to show me. It didn't effect the brake test, however I want to keep the bus in 100% condition so I have ordered a set of new front discs and pads. I will fit these once we get back to Spain.

It is a very impressive set up.

Inside the testing centre. 

There was a huge low loader trailer being tested next to us, they failed it because one running light didn't work!

Tomorrow it is the turn of the little Citroen C3 to have an MOT plus we have to do a fair bit of running around to do in preparation to leaving Macclesfield on Thursday.

Escape Is Imminent

We have now been here three weeks and what can I say ..... we are desperate to head back for some sunshine!!  It has rained every day for 3 weeks!  We feel so incredibly lucky that we have missed most of the winter though.

England in the summertime is lovely, but winter ... it is absolutely awful.

I took the below pic of the local  church on a rare sunny moment ... it didn't last long before the rain returned ...

Elaine has two more medical appointments this week, but whatever the outcome we are heading back to Spain for the foreseeable future.  It is a lot more conducive to a healthy lifestyle and my sanity!

I have to get the car and the van MOT'd this week, then hopefully we will be able to pull the pins and escape this Thursday or Friday.

We are both very excited to be able to escape once again especially with a lovely villa just sitting empty waiting for us to return.

We do have a fair bit of trepidation involving Elaine's healthcare and the Spanish health system but at least we will be in a comfortable home with lovely friends and most importantly to us ... nice weather!

So apart from attending hospitals, waiting for doctors appointments, going for scans etc. what else have we been up to?  Not a lot really!!  I have frequented a few pubs to watch the football and rugby, whilst Elaine has been recovering nicely in the warmth of the van.

We did have a surprise visit from Elaine's brother and family the other day, who we haven't seen since 2000 ...

We also visited the wonderful boaters at Aston Marina, and came away with armfuls of pressies!

Roly and Bev will be joining us for a few months in Spain next winter as they are well and truly over the UK winter - it's worse for them as they also spent part of the winter in Wales!!! 

Sorry for the negative post.  I do try to stay positive 99% of the time but this appalling, disgusting, crappy weather is getting me down!! 

Happy Birthday.....5th February 2016

To my gorgeous beautiful brave wife Elaine......

Looking forward to many more fun times.

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