The End of Summer and Beyond

Well yet another month has passed here in Nottingham and with that now being 6 months back here in the UK, it's time for our winter plan to come into action. 

But more on that later!

Quick update on what we have been up to since I last posted here, starting with Daisy. We finished painting the overhead cupboards and are very pleased with the end result on them, with the nice glittery finish! 

We also have 2 speakers above the cab area and they previously just had a plain wood finish, so we decided to finish that with the metallic silver paint we already had, with some of the glitter and got a nice finish with them too.

The last bit of painting we were thinking about doing was the front of the fridge, Sadie wasn't sure about it as she wanted to get a custom design painted on there at some point, but for now we just decided to go over the plain wooden effect using the silver metallic paint again.
And once that was done it was a case of then deciding to use the glitter effect paint and we are very happy and glad we did it that way.

Finally the last bit of DIY we wanted to do in Daisy before the winter was to fit a couple of new USB sockets on the shelf I fitted (as seen in the last blog) for charging phones etc.

I ordered the parts and a friend kindly drilled out the holes needed to fit the sockets into. 

Then it was just a case of screwing the sockets in, and then connecting the wires up from each socket and then a connector block taking them to the leisure batteries. 

A simple ring terminal was then crimped onto the wires and connected up and there we had it, an extra 2 USB sockets at each end plus a 12V cigarette socket for our laptop charging.

Socially we have been out and about a few times, including an overnight pub stopover at a little pub near Derby which was nice to get out of Nottingham again for a night.

We also went back to New House Farm on the Bank Holiday weekend, however this time it was just with Ian, Michala, Strudders and his daughter Julia. 
It was nice to get away with friends again and with just the 6 of us, this time it was a bit more relaxing and we spent 2 nights there again. 

Last weekend we had yet another trip away booked, with 8 of us booked into Ashcombe Farm which is the campsite we use for pre/post Glastonbury Festival trips. 
With it being a 3 1/2 hour drive from Nottingham, and also me working till 14:30, it meant we didn't arrive till early Friday evening and had to leave Sunday afternoon.

But it was worth the journey there, its a lovely campsite and a beautiful part of the world. The Friday night was spent just catching up with friends, however on the Saturday we took a trip into Glastonbury town and went to a pub, had a sunset walk up the Tor and then got fish & chips which we took back to the campsite before a fairly early night.

This past week has been non-stop too, with 3 evenings spent having dinner with friends. Monday we went to Ripley to see Robert, Sam & Lenny and then for a few pints at the Honeypot.

On Tuesday it was a trip to see our friends Mark & Karen, who we haven't seen since we went travelling away back in 2017 and was nice to catch up with them.

And finally the Wednesday was spent having dinner with Ian & Michala, we had a few drinks and sadly we had work the next day for everyone but Sadie!

So that's the past month summed up, and now a bit about what our winter plan is for this year!

Sadie finished working at Morrisons last week, and I have just finished working at the bank after 6 long months there.

The reason we squeezed 3 dinner trips in during the the week, was due to running out of time to see everyone as Sadie has now flown over to France to see her family, for the first time in 12 months and she is spending a couple of weeks there with them.

And this weekend I have driven up to Scotland to see my family for the first time since December, where I will spend 4-5 days, before heading back down for hopefully one final camping trip of the year back at New House Farm.

But then the really long drive begins, as I then head down to Dover to get the ferry over to Dunkirk on the 28th September. I will then be taking 3-4 days to drive down to the South of France to meet up with Sadie and see her family again for a few days.

We then both head back over to our usual winter haunt of central Portugal taking around 4-5 days to get to Penamacor to see our lovely friends there again.

Its approximately a 2000 mile journey, which in normal times would be no problem and enjoyable with not having to worry about chosing a route and stopovers. Am currently looking at routes and country restrictions etc, and makes planning awkward as it can change on a daily basis!

I've not really mentioned much at all about Coronovirus in the last couple of blogs as it felt things had levelled off. But as you all know, cases are on the rise and with more restrictions coming in across the country, and Europe, it's a worrying time again. Hence the rapid plans to get to see our parents and then get over to Portugal to the relatively safe region before the shit really hits the fan again and we get another lockdown happening!

So there we are, we did have grand plans to go to Goa for a few months this winter, obviously now that isn't happening and we now plan to spend pretty much all the winter in Portugal with our lovely friends Noelia & Lief and family.. we are so lucky to have them in our lives 💜

And who knows what will happen if it isn't safe to come back for summer again or worse still, no events or work to come back to!

Stay safe all 

xx