Uncategorized – The Vanninis' Manoeuvres

First couple of days

After getting back to Alex and Ian’s home in Bexleyheath, it wasn’t too long before Callum came home from school after being collected by Nana Chris & Grandad Barry. It was lovely to sit out in the sun and enjoy a good english cup of tea. I don’t know why but the tea always tastes better on this side of the world…..Yorkshire Tea of course, it can’t be anything else.

Sitting in the sun, so pleased to get the compression socks off and back to bare feet

The bag of goodies was opened and gifts given, news caught up on and more tea drunk. We both managed to stay awake until 7:30pm local time before we crashed into bed for a good long sleep. And sleep we did only waking for a couple of hours in the wee small hours before falling back into a deep sleep.

Blowing a kiss goodbye as Callum scooters off to school.

We spend our first full day catching up on life admin, you know, washing, unpacking, sorting out bits and pieces.

The following day, Friday 17th May, we were busy in the morning cooking up a big pot of chilli ready for a family gathering the next day, lots of washing and pottering about in the garden. We are on grandparent duty this afternoon at school as there is a school fundraiser which involved lots of bouncy, inflatable, apparatus.

Lots of excited kids with parents plus generators equals lots of noise!

Some people were well organised with picnics, rugs and chairs. Callum met up with his best friend Noah and they had great fun together.

Callum and Noah with their spoils at the end of the afternoon.

By the time we got home at 6pm, we were both exhausted, after all it’s only 48hrs since we landed and with body clocks not quite adjusted as yet, it is understandable.

And we are off!

It’s the last two days before we leave and the mind is racing, have we got everything? have we forgotten anything? what do we need to get done before we leave?

First things first, repack the bags and weigh them to make sure we are within the 30kgs bag allowance that we are allowed each. Roy and I have 25kgs of luggage between us, that’s pretty damn good for a five and half month trip, however there is a third bag which weighs nearly 15kgs which is full of requested goodies.

A couple of kilos worth of honey, probably a similar amount of chocolate, and then there is the 8 tins of reduced cream to go with the onion soup mix to make the quintessential KiwiDip!

Although we only have around 12.5kg of luggage each, it still does feel like we have far too much but at least we are way under our allowable limit.

Monday 13th May and it’s the day before we fly, the washing is done and up to date, everything else is tidied and checked. We have to go to the van as I’d forgotten a couple of things, the van is in at AD Motors in Takanini getting a tuneup, new spark plugs, air filters and goodness knows what else. Great news, we can pick the van up in the morning and get it across Auckland to Peter & Wendy’s before we fly out tomorrow night. That is such a huge relief that we can get it parked up safely for the duration. Talk about cutting things fine.

The rest of the day is spent doing “life admin” and trying to relax, I don’t know why I get myself all in a tizzy but I do, the mind is racing trying to mentally tick off lists and make sure we have everything we need. We don’t take cabin baggage apart from Roy’s backpack which mainly has his computers, meds and a change of clothes, and I just have my trusty handbag of the backpack variety containing the essentials including ipad, headphones et al which stows comfortably under the seat. I get really annoyed with people who have multiple bags that they want to stow in the overhead lockers…why?

We both have medical notes that not only state the medications we are travelling with but also that Roy has a stent and I have hip and knee replacements that will undoubtably set off the airport security alarms.

Tuesday 14th May is departure day, but first it’s a trip across Auckland to deliver the van to Pete. So long as we are back early afternoon we have plenty of time to get to the airport. We pick up the van from AD Motors in Takanini where they go through everything they have done. We try not to faint at the bill, but they have done a brilliant job, the motor purrs quietly and efficiently and now sips away at fuel rather than guzzle!

Have we said before how eternally grateful we are to have such wonderful friends as Wendy & Peter whom allow us to park our RV up at their place where we know it will be safe and sound. We cannot thank them enough for their friendship and kindness shown to us, we are forever grateful.

With the van delivered and parked up safely we head back across the city to Antony’s where we grab a bite to eat for lunch before having a shower and getting changed. The bags are packed with their final ephemera, locked, cable tied, and ready to go. Ants returns from work, we pack the car and head to the airport where we arrive early but whats this? New layout at the airport to try and confuse us, but it is all well signposted, Antony drops us off, we bade farewell and join the long queue formed at checkin. Many thanks to Antony for putting us up or should that be putting up with us for the last week, it made the run up to us leaving very easy.

Our bags are weighed, and yes we are well under our 60kg limit, the bags are labelled with wheelchair tags and sent on their way along the travelator. Roy gets his wheelchair assistance where we are taken straight away to departures, jump all the queues at security and go through xray where yes, I am taken aside and scanned again, knees, hips and bra I tell them!

All done, we are then taken past all the Duty Free Shops, no thanks, we don’t want alcohol, perfume or tech gear nor designer clothes or handbags. We are then transferred to a motorised golf trolley to take us to our gate, just as well too as it was miles away!

We settled in the seats at the gate lounge, charged up our devices, then I cadged a ride on one of the golf trolleys back to where I could buy a bite to eat and a drink, then a ride back to Roy who was waiting patiently.

It wasn’t too long to wait when they called all those who had wheelchair assistance, we were first on the plane, and quickly settled into our seats.

Looking out the window to an Air NZ plane, farewell Auckland, see you in October.

We have reasonable seats at the back row of the first section, we have no one behind us, just the bulkhead. We end up having the row of three seats to ourselves. And being of the vertically challenged variety, I could comfortably lie down curled up across two seats with my feet against the wall and get a bit of quality sleep. Roy can quite happily nod off sitting up, and yes I did get him to try and lie down but he found it too uncomfortable!

There no if and buts about it, it’s a damn long flight and after nearly 18 hrs we landed in Dubai.

We are met and taken straight through immigration and customs and then directly to our connecting flight. We only have just under two hours from landing to take off so it’s actually quite tight. Off on the last leg to Gatwick and at just over 7 1/2 hrs it’s not long now until we are back in old blighty.

Welcome to Dubai the sign in the sand says according to Google translate.

A quick trip through immigration, again jumping all the queues because Roy is in a wheelchair, collect our bags but what is this? You need a pound coin to get a luggage trolley, fortunately I do have some English coins in my purse but come on Gatwick, how many people arriving from the other side of the world have UK coins on them? Very shortsighted I would have thought.

It’s an emotional welcome from Alex who is waiting for us in arrivals, then a 40min ride home for a welcome cup of tea.

Now let the adventures begin.

A busy last week

After all the excitement of the past week, Sunday I gave myself a well earned lie in before getting on with chores and shopping. But before that I must first say a huge thank you to Peter & Wendy who cooked us dinners and lunches over the past few days and generally made our lives so much easier whilst Roy was being sorted. We can’t thank you both enough for your hospitality, generosity and kindness, it is extremely humbling.

Monday, Roy had a visit to the ear clinic then Tuesday morning he was supposed to get grommets put in both ears. This will hopefully sort out the hassles he had on our last trip in 2022 which wasn’t resolved until we had returned. You can recap that adventure here. But in what seems to be the norm for us at the moment there was a change of plan. The specialist was unavailable so it was postponed until Wednesday, which meant we had a quick rethink and replan. Instead we decided to pack up and move over to Ardmore on the south side of Auckland for a night. We would be closer to the specialist, also around the corner from Antony and we could drop off our luggage, after packing it of course, and then deliver the van to the workshop on Wednesday afternoon.

We quickly packed up, said hooray to Peter & Wendy although we shall see them again when we deliver the van back in a few days, and headed off across Auckland.

Once at Ardmore we started packing our bags, there is so much to think about what to pack for five and a half months away. But we soon had most of it done and we delivered the bags to Antony’s.

Wednesday morning we were off again across the city to the ENT specialist. He was fitting Roy in between surgery and other appointments so we had a little wait. Roy was soon in the chair and discussing the options. Two different types of grommets (who knew) were finally decided upon, one type in one ear, the other in the other ear.

Then the other….you can see right through now 😜

We returned to Ardmore and packed up the last of the essentials plus we attended to the emptying out of the cupboards as well as the fridge and freezer. We delivered all of that to Antony’s then it was back to Ardmore to take the van to the mechanics workshop but not before emptying the waste tanks along the way.

With the van safely delivered we are now guests at Antony’s for the next few days, I’m sure he’s delighted! At least he gets his dinner cooked, his washing done and his house tidied. We are repacking the bags, taking out unnecessary items and trying to minimise what we take. Although one bag is full of goodies that have been requested for delivery so we shall have one empty bag soon after we arrive!!

The final countdown is on, as of now, just two more sleeps until we step on the plane. See you soon London and London family.

Birthday Celebrations

It’s not very often we get to have some of the family together, and so this opportunity to celebrate Antony’s 40th was too good to miss. Sarah had kindly offered to host a get together and dinner and with other family members invited we were all set to go for Saturday May the 4th. Very appropriate date seeing as though Antony is a Star Wars fan. However, as you would have read in the last blog entry, the week beforehand went a little awry with Roy’s angioplasty and stent procedure throwing a bit of a curve ball.

On Friday I went with Sarah to do the shopping and organise the menu, keep it simple yet delicious was our plan. Two legs of lamb to be slow roasted, a green olive salsa, a green salad, a chickpea miso & peanut salad, smashed roasted potatoes with garlic butter, and bread rolls. I said I would go round on Saturday afternoon to help with prep. However, those plans were to change.

Antony had no idea about any of our plans, he was under the impression that it was going to be dinner with Sarah, Shaun and family along with Roy & I. Little did he know!!!

Saturday morning we got a call from Antony, he was in utter agony with severe pain. As we were a good 45minutes away, we said for him to call an ambulance which apparently duly arrived within 15minutes. He knew what is was straight away. This is not the first time he has had kidney stones, he had them back in 2016 which you can read about here and here.

As Roy was still grounded from his recent angioplasty and wasn’t allowed to drive for 48hrs, I dropped him off at Sarah’s, made a few phone calls as I had to reorganise who was going to pick up Jason from the airport. Simon came to my rescue there thank goodness, and I then headed down to Middlemore Hospital. You would think being a Saturday the traffic would not be like it’s usual weekday mayhem, but indeed it was just as bad.

I arrived at Middlemore, found parking eventually, then found out where he was, I could hear him snoring long before I found his room!

He was pumped full of fluid and pain killers so wasn’t making much sense, I made myself comfortable in the chair beside his bed and proceeded to wait. After an hour or so he woke enough to tell me that the pain had now subsided, he’d had scans, blood tests, and was just waiting to see the Doctor. To cut a long story short, he was finally discharged at around 4:30pm, we then had to get his scripts, and find the car in one of the distant parking areas.

I took him to his home where he had a shower and a change of clothes before he decided he would be ok to drive his car over to Sarah & Shaun’s for what he thought was just dinner with us. He said he could always stay at Sarahs for the evening, I wasn’t giving away the plans that we had already formulated that Jason would be staying with him for the night!

We got to Sarahs just before 7pm, where Antony was very much surprised to see not only us but his brothers, cousins, niece, and second cousins. After the initial surprise we set about putting out dinner. OMG, the lamb was just amazing, falling off the bone and deliciously caramelised with lots of yummy, sticky with reduced baking juices and carrots, shallots, garlic that had roasted underneath the lamb in the baking dish with stock.

I forgot to take any photos, how unusual, but suffice to say the meal went down extremely well.

Laurie and Antony….yes, that was a hastily found candle for his cake!!!

It was a great evening enjoyed by all, which I must admit that we were the first to leave later on in the evening, I was utterly exhausted and needed to collapse into bed. Apparently there were some sore heads the next morning, not looking at Shaun and Laurie in particular. Jason drove Antony home and stayed the night with him before catching up with a Simon again on Sunday morning. And no I don’t have a photo of the 3 of them together, I shall try and rectify that next time!

All in all the end of a very busy week where the two Vannini men kept me very busy but at least they are both now very well and healthy.

Heart stoppingly lucky!

Have I mentioned before that we are off to the UK shortly? Yes, we are on the countdown, making lists, packing necessities, sorting out all sorts of stuff as we won’t be back until mid October. The days are whizzing by with many things to sort out and it is keeping us very busy. But sometimes things happen that you aren’t expecting which result in a whole lot of changes in plans.

Monday 29 April: Roy had an email from his cardiologist reminding him that he’s due for a checkup. Hmm, shall we see if we can get in before we go away or wait until we get back? We ring to see if we can get an appointment before departure day, yes, tomorrow morning at 8am is the only available time! We will be there.

Tuesday 30th April: We join the throng on the Auckland motorway to get to Ascot in Greenlane. Roy has his checkup, but, oh no, things aren’t all that they are supposed to be, his heart is not working properly when he was on the treadmill. This needs to be checked out pronto. The upshot is that on Thursday morning he will be going in for an angioplasty/angiogram and if required stents will be put in. As you can imagine, that put us into a bit of a spin, with many things to organise and sort. Just as well we have medical insurance albeit just to 80% of the cost of procedures, the bank balance is taking a hammering but better than the alternative.

Things are having to be rescheduled, the first being that he was supposed to be having grommets put in his ears on Thursday morning so we had to cancel that appointment and try to reschedule. Meanwhile the audiology centre rang to say that they wouldn’t be able to take Roy this afternoon for earwax removal as their audiologist was unwell. Many phone calls to and fro, we have a new appointment for the ear wax removal for next Monday but the grommet procedure cannot be rescheduled as the surgeon is fully booked. We get back to the van and have a bit a regroup. It never rains but it pours!!

Wednesday 1 May: The ENT specialist rang to say they are going to squeeze him in on Friday 10th May as they knew the main reason for having the grommets put in was for flying, so phew, we can get that done. Meanwhile Garry called in on us to see if we could look after his ute for him for a couple of days and pick him up on Friday when he returns from delivering a truck to Rotorua for a family member, no problems with that, and yes Peter & Wendy kindly said it was OK to have his vehicle at their place.

Thursday 2 May: We arrive at Ascot Hospital ready for his 6:45am procedure. At least the traffic isn’t such a problem at that hour of the morning.

I am allowed to wait in his room for his return from the angiogram where they inject dye and follow it on the scan. The nurse comes tell me that yes, they are definitely putting in a stent, but he will be back to his room in a short while. He is soon returned with the procedure all done in under an hour. Isn’t it amazing what they can do and all through a small incision in his wrist?

There was major narrowing of an artery, down to 0.1mm we are told, with the stent in situ, the opening is now 4.1mm

Scan of the before and after procedure with the narrowing highlighted.

We cannot believe how incredibly fortunate we are that this is discovered and sorted now, he was a walking timebomb.

All done and dusted, colour back in his cheeks, coming round from the “happy meds”.

Once he was settled back into his room, he was allowed breakfast. We could peruse the menu and order whatever he wanted, once it was ordered I took the opportunity to make a quick trip out to Beachlands to meet up with John’s partner Jude as she had brought some honey up from Opotiki for us to take to the UK. The weather was pretty rubbish but the drive wasn’t too bad and before long I was back at the hospital ready to play the waiting game.

We had to wait until the incision wound stopped bleeding, as Roy is on blood thinners, this took a little longer than usual. Then we had to wait for Mr Jaffe to come in and check on him, give him some new medications and instructions before we were allowed to leave. Meanwhile the ENT specialist rang again to reschedule his grommet procedure which will now take place next Tuesday, which then meant we had to cancel his appointment at the Skin Clinic. Why oh why are all these appointments happening in the last two weeks before we leave? Note to self, get all these appointments out of the way well before travel! By 4:30pm we were back on the road with most of Auckland for the slow drive home.

I don’t think it has really sunk in yet as to how fortunate we have been for this to have all fallen into place, I mean how canny that the email came thru and we decided to act on it straight away? But also that it was picked up and sorted before it caused a heart attack.

We are off to buy a lotto ticket now!

Housesitting and housekeeping

Where has the time disappeared? Our housesitting stint came to and end but we have a number of housekeeping duties to attend to and I don’t mean just the cleaning kind. I mean getting things in order ready for our big trip, things like doctors appointments, getting tests completed, getting prescriptions filled…yes, we need 6 months worth so we need to be organised. Making sure we have letters from the Doctor listing all the meds we are carrying with us – yes, it is necessary as sometimes they check at borders. Included in my letter is the fact that I have joint replacements as I set off all the alarms and it’s not fun being searched at every border crossing. Oh and getting jabbed again, this time was my second shingles vaccine plus the flu jab, and yes my arm was very sore for a couple pf days but I feel pretty fortunate that is the only side effect I have. Covid jabs will be next, but not for another week or so at least.

Roy has another appointment at the skin clinic to get a couple of suspect skin lesions removed. He had some biopsies done earlier in the year which all came back ok, so this is a follow up. Plus he also has to have grommets put in both ears and his hearing aids tweaked. Some of our regular readers will recall the kerfuffle he had with ears and hearing aids on our last trip to the UK in 2022.

Then there is the packing and what to take, what not to take, remove half of what you think you need, remember pack light, there are shops on the other side of the world!

We have enjoyed our wee break away from the van housesitting although I am looking forward to getting back to it for a week or two before we leave besides, the housework in the van is minuscule compared to the house.

Our last day to housesit was Anzac Day, Roy went off to dawn parade locally at Browns Bay then the rest of the day was spent packing up all our gear, tidying, washing, and getting back to the van which is parked at Peter & Wendy’s.

Of course I had left something behind, just a charging cord so we picked that up on Saturday on our way back from Shakespear. Yes, we had been back to the park as the Rangers put on a thank you BBQ for volunteers. It was a great lunch and such a friendly welcoming group of people who willingly give their time, knowledge and expertise to make sure the Sanctuary remains such a great asset to the city. It’s lovely to see everyone get on so well, there is a great range of groups whom we don’t necessarily see very often. There’s the Crack Track building team, there’s the nursery team, those that do trapping, planting teams, bird monitoring teams, pest control, farm teams, translocation experts, even a lizard specialist, just to name but a few of the wide variety of jobs that are done by volunteers under the expert eyes of the Rangers.

Now onto sorting out everything before we leave, the list seems to be growing each day rather than getting shorter, but hey, we will get there!

Birthdays & visitors

Antony came to stay with us for a night, as it was his 40th birthday on the 13th! Goodness, where has that time gone, and how did I get to be old enough to have a 40 year old!!!

We had a nice dinner together before he headed out for the evening, I did a slow roasted leg of lamb with all the trimmings. I had a cake for him for morning tea on his birthday.

He was off to play poker on Saturday afternoon, where the guys surprised him and gave him a new Phoenix (NZ football team) shirt and they also had a cake for him. Lucky fella.

A few days later and Roy was having a birthday, he is nearly twice Antony’s age!!! We headed up the road to Eatery Rothesay Bay for brunch, delicious it was too and one of the best coffees I’ve had in a very long time.

The following day we had friends come to visit, all are volunteers at Shakespear whom we have got to know quite well over the years. Skip & Mindy along with Alison & Selwyn have been stalwarts of the volunteer community at Shakespear, the backbone of what keeps the park running smoothly whilst taking a lot of pressure off the hard working Rangers. I had made a large pot of soup for lunch which was fitting for a dull day. And yes, I forgot to take any photos.

The following day, another wet miserable day, Peter & Wendy came over for lunch. We spent a very pleasant afternoon wiling away the day. And I even remembered to snap a photo.

I forgot to take a photo which included us ladies., oh well, next time!

Housesitting

We are housesitting in Rothesay Bay (next to Browns Bay in the North shore of Auckland) for my niece Sarah and her husband Shaun as they are off on holiday with their three teenage sons to Thailand and Malaysia. We have two cats to looks after, Charlie and Rosie, and a gorgeous house to relax in.

Map of general area with Browns Bay highlighted. NB the blue dot indicates where the van is parked at Peter &Wendy’s, just a 14 minute drive away.

We quickly settled in and made ourselves familiar with our surroundings, hmmm, I’m thinking that the pool may get used a little if the weather stays warm.

The house has been recently renovated so is pristine and sparkly, which also means we have very little to do apart from feed ourselves and the cats.

However, it does mean we can catch up on lots of little things that have been put into the “later” basket. I did take advantage of having a washing machine at hand and washed, Bluo’ed, dried and ironed, yes, ironed, all my sheet sets!! Do you remember Bluo?

It’s not available in NZ and hasn’t been for some years but I found some when we were in Melbourne a few years ago and bought a few bottles home with me. Funnily enough I also have a packet of blue bags in the cupboard, probably should be in a museum now. It does work though and now all our linen is beautifully bright white again, ironed and neatly folded into sets. The sets of sheets and pillowcases, get folded up and placed inside one of the pillowcases turned inside out, which when folded over you can use the pocket on the pillow slip to neatly fold over encasing the set neatly into a package. I took the opportunity of clearing out my linen cupboard and relining all the shelves. Yes, I know, I’m weird!!

We’ve kept ourselves busy going back and forth to the van, to measure things, pick up something we’ve forgotten or doing a few chores. Tax returns have been completed as well. In the midst of doing all this I had a wee panic as I couldn’t remember where I had safely stashed our passports, I found them, put them back where they belong then got back to the house to realise that I hadn’t checked the expiry dates. Oh I must have a photo of the passports somewhere….after a quick search of photos, emails and messages I eventually found the photos, and we both have relatively new passports. Phew! Note to self, put all travel document photos into an album for easy retrieval.

The pool man came to clean the pool one day, it almost looked good enough to dive into!!

We are enjoying our time here and getting to explore this area, the beach is at the end of the street and there is a great cafe at the top of the road. I’m sure the time will go all too quickly.

Albany and an oops!

We parked up at Peter & Wendy’s in Albany for a week which has been lovely, we had plenty to keep us busy and a few days after we arrived, P&W arrived back from their Easter break away.

Parked side by side before the great washing of vehicles took place.

Peter washed his vehicles after being near the sea to get all the salt and sand off, whilst the water blaster was out we also washed both of our vehicles, then we watched Pete expertly backed his RV into the barn. I don’t quite know how he does it as the van is tucked into one corner of the barn avoiding all the other vehicles and obstacles.

We are here for a few more days until we go housesitting, but first we have to take the van into RVRepairs for an insurance assessment, you see there was a little bit of an oopsie a few weeks ago when a guard rail at an unmanned fuel station leapt out and caught the side of the van.

The van will be going in to be repaired hopefully soon, another thing off our list of things to get done over the next few weeks.

Peter & Wendy have been extremely generous in allowing us to leave the van with them whilst we are away, it’s good to know it’s safe whilst we are away housesitting and later when we go to England.

We enjoyed our stay with them and especially the peace and quiet however we will still see them over the next few weeks as our housesitting stint is only 14minutes away and there is bound to be bits and pieces we have forgotten to pack.

Uretiti and Easter

Arriving at Uretiti is somewhat akin to coming home for us it seems. We arrived in good time after leaving Kerikeri and once we arrived at the camp we got our frozens taken care of by the kind hosts which means we can relax a little and survive via chilly bin for a few days until the fridge gets delivered.

You will have to read the previous post for all about the fridge and it’s installation which seemed to have consumed our lives for the better part of a week.

After all the fridge work was done, there was a day of rest and recovery, besides, the weather wasn’t great so it was a good day to relax and watch a movie. The next day (Thursday), the fellas went out fishing for the morning whilst I had a good s~~pring~~ autumn clean up, they did return with fish as well which was great. Garry was leaving us that afternoon as he had family arriving for the weekend. It was also the start of the influx of campers arriving for Easter weekend.

Over the next day or so, the camp filled up with people, I don’t think we have ever been here when it has been so busy and I must admit that I don’t really enjoy being surrounded so many people, crowds have never really been my thing.

Good Friday and we were off to One Tree Point to visit Gary & Marg for lunch. It’s always a good catch up with these two and we always have a good laugh regaling tales. Of course narry a photo was taken.

Friday night we had a bit of a shock to our system, the temperature plummeted down to 8 overnight, it was a little chilly and we are not ready for cooler temperatures yet! At least the day afterwards is a clear blue sky day and it quickly warms up into the mid 20’s.

Saturday was spent doing a few chores that we’ve been meaning to do for ages plus pack up ready to leave Easter Sunday. We are heading back toward Auckland for the next few weeks until we fly out to England. We are also taking full advantage of the Brynderwyn’s being open for the Easter weekend and we chose to travel on Easter Sunday when we guessed the traffic heading south won’t be too heavy and before it closes again on Tuesday for them to complete the major roading repairs.

The Brynderwyn’s are a range of hills that form a natural boundary between Northland and the rest of NZ, we always feel that going over the twisty road to the top of the hills is like driving over a country border as when you reach the top and see over Bream Bay to Whangarei Heads you feel like you are in another country.

There was a steady stream of traffic heading north along the Highway, and it wasn’t long before the sign indicating that the road was open welcomed us.

The southbound lanes are blocked off with major repairs to the washed out road being undertaken.

Major earthworks and millions of tonnes of earth have been removed already.

Lots of earthworks still to be completed.

The rest of the trip went by very quickly and we were soon parked up at Peter & Wendy’s. Oh it’s so nice to be here in peace and quiet, the birdsong is very noticeable and joyful to hear. We are here for the next few days until the weekend and after that the van will be staying here as we are off housesitting for a couple of weeks, somewhere which is a new housesitting stint for us, we are looking forward to it.