Kate arrives in UK

It is the 25th August, just 5 days before we leave England and Kate arrives from Australia on her way to Vienna and spends just over 24 hours with us. We are so excited to see her at the airport, I am not at all sure how Stephen managed to focus on driving.
We head first to Brenda's for a quick shower and breakfast before the journey south to Bournemouth to see Stephen's Mum. The photo shows the 3 generations having a great time.

After lunch it is back to Bill's where my family gather. The photos show Kate with her 3 cousins and the entire family (missing are Stephen - taking the photo and Phil and John). We had a splendid time and Bill and Viv made us so welcome once again.


We drove Kate back to the airport and then spent the night with Hazel and David (ex ICL) who we had not seen for many years. We passed an entire evening catching up with the news of all our ICL friends.

One more visit to Stephen's Mum for a few days and it was time to leave the UK.

I should add that the van was sold the day before Kate arrived. It went back to the dealer from where we bought it in a very painless transaction. We would have liked a private sale which would perhaps have given us an extra 1000 pounds but it was not to be and we had always been prepared to lose a bit more than planned. Buying new gave us the best of both worlds - we had a new reliable vehicle for the trip and it was at least 50% cheaper than hiring for the same period of time.