The final countdown (we know a song about that!)

Our table at the SMC Annual dinner: John, Pauline, Julie and Emma

Tired and emotional, well tired anyway....

As per the last entry, Sunday Tea club was fab as ever, it may have sounded strange to have a ChineseTakeaway on Friday but as much as we were in China town, once Crystal has worked her magic it’s not like any meal you get from the takeaway.

Monday Big Teds door fix went very smoothly and the warranty paid up, downside to the speed was they then didn’t want the van anymore, so we had to remove it to Mother’s drive a day earlier than we were hoping. It does fit, so all is well. 

Monday curry with Tim (L) and Bill (R)

What we didn’t know was whether the warranty had paid up, Brian found his main bank account had been blocked by the bank themselves. Quite a large sum had been paid in, the proceeds from selling a flat he had bought some years ago with his business partner. He had than paid money out into a new account for him, and a new account for me. Mine however he had immediately forgotten the password for, so having paid money in, so he thought, he couldn’t check, until receiving a new pin through the post! The main bank however saw this as ‘unusual activity’ so blocked this transaction and the account until he went and presented himself, with documents, at a branch. Just as well we weren’t in France yet!

Our campsite at West Harling (location: 52deg 25'51N, 2deg 54'45E)

Monday also involved a trip for me to the Physio to look at my tennis elbow, just to confirm my self diagnosis and to give me some exercises to make it better. Fingers crossed they work. We then went into the main post office in Birmingham to buy some international driving permits, just in case of a no deal Brexit in March, the AA has said our normal drivers licences may not be recognised! Not difficult, but what a pain!

View from the double bed over the cab in Big Ted that we decided to try out. Jackie's mum Pauline had the bed at the back

Woodland walk past  the isolated All Saints Church 

This was followed by a panic as I opened a letter from the motorhome insurance people, who had been notified, by a third party, of an incident in Scotland, involving our wing mirror, contacting the wing mirror of an oncoming mobilehome. Having looked at our dash cam footage we had seen little point in making a claim as it was likely to be ‘tit for tat’! The other party it would appear did make a claim on their insurance, who had therefore contacted our insurance. It’s horrible how your stomach leaps into your mouth when you read a letter like that! Having had a phone call and sent in our dash cam footage we have since had an email saying it would attempt a “bear own loss settlement” so fingers crossed our file will be marked ‘for information’ and no more will come of it!

Pauline at The English Whisky Distillery at Thetford

Monday night, fabulous last curry at Diwans with 2/3 of the Monday Club.

Tuesday was sorting the van for our night away with mum, and beginning the final sort of “stuff”. Third meal in the thermal cooker and a G&T with Sarah.

Wednesday an uneventful, but slow, drive to Bury St Edmunds, except for the huge stone chip we got in the windscreen! Are we jinxed? We had a lovely day with Margaret and Ron before heading to our campsite where the very kind people we were buying the spare wheel and tyre from said they would deliver.

Interesting artwork on the whisky bottles

St Cuthberts church in Thetford, built with blocks of flint

A cozy evening and comfortable night in the van followed for all three of us which was good, so Halfords then to get the chip repaired, she seems to have done a great job, so keep everything crossed! We did manage a visit to the English Whisky company en route which was worth a couple of samples! Another slow journey back, but fortunately Brian and I can be whirling dervishes when required and potatoes were peeled, sliced and put in the oven before mother had even got the coffee made. This was for dauphinois potatoes to accompany the ‘duck in a tin’ duck confit we had brought back from France after skiing that it seemed a bit daft to take back to France!

Flat packing our ski gear into a vacuum bag (thanks Abi) to go in Big Ted

Friday and Saturday were sorting and packing, seemingly endlessly. The evenings gave some great light relief though, a Friday night curry with Helen, Ian and Corinne before staying at theirs so enabling a few beers, and Saturday the Solihull Mountaineering Club 60th Birthday annual dinner, so lots of catching up with, lots of old faces, interspersed with a little ceilidh dancing. Talking to people we were both surprised by how many comments we got about the blog, so “Hello everyone, it was lovely to see you all”. We stayed just round the corner with Jo and Mike, so after a bit more chat and a late night we got up this morning to pop in to Denise and Paul to say cheerio, before getting back to Alvechurch, crowbarring the last bits into Big Ted and taking him to the weighbridge, fortunately he was well within limits, so we haven’t had to start the unpacking I had half envisioned!

Little Ted getting glammed up ready to go into Big Ted

More photos from the SMC dinner. Here's Andy V and Andy D

Must dash as one more evening out is calling, Bill and Martina, we are on our way....

Monday morning P.S. from Brian: Not so fast! Jackie wrote while I sorted the photos, which always takes longer than expected, but I was ready to post by the time she had written this entry. However, if I'd posted we'd have been late, so I have time to add and thank Bill, Martina and their son Alan for an excellent evening. Fabulous food cooked by Martina, excellent demonstration of Alan's Stirling Engine (who remembers how that works? Have a look at this website: https://auto.howstuffworks.com/stirling-engine.htm) and Bill's very old model of a fixed steam engine (As an aside, we managed to load up Alan's Stirling Engine and, for the anoraks reading, here's the results: we measured 4v output from it's little generator and drew a current of 100mA that it just about managed to cope with. That's 0.4watt or, in other words it would move load of just over 100g (1N) through a distance of 0.4m in 1 second - not bad for a tiny model!). The conversation was non-stop and covered all topics from engineering to the evolution of the world. Alan's theory that advanced civilisations on alien planets (or even earth) are unlikely as they would be self-limiting by either wiping themselves out through climate change or wars or by external catastrophy is particularly interesting (where does that leave us Alan and how long have we got?). 4.5 hours went in a whirl and now we have the final pack, drop our car off at the storage and be ready for the off tomorrow morning. France, here we come!

Brian's old friends Richard and Sue with John in the background

Current SMC chairman Ian during his annual award speech, presenting the 'Peel of the Year' award (best or most spectacular fall whilst rock climbing). Mike collecting the award on behalf of Rob who was unable to attend (not through him being injured from his fall)