Ah I bet you thought I'd forgotten, oh no, not I - here's part 2 of our UK adventures documented for completeness. I think I left you on Saturday night with the BBQ in the snow, so the second Sunday seems a good place to start!
Sunday was the day of the ROAST. Yes, PROPER MEAT, YORKSHIRE PUDDINGS and ROAST POTATOES. Capitals required since they are important; yorkshire puddings are possibly the greatest food ever - I had some of mine with golden syrup, obvs. (We went to the Globe for pie - yes, again, though we've not been for a little while - last Sunday lunchtime and they were serving roasts. They did look quite appealing, but given they were double the cost of the pie, which we know to be awesome, then really it was a no brainer!).
Back to the UK... on Monday morning we woke up in Ramsbottom and so began Operation Road Trip (though really we cheated and got the train for some of it). We drove down to some random garden centre just off the Motorway near Stoke to meet friends for coffee. As I'm writing this I'm remembering just how cold it was! We sat in a cafe and enjoyed a good couple of hours catching up and drinking hot drinks! After this quick stop it was down to see Claire near Oxford.
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| Cruising. I think I took this when we decided to splash out on the M6 toll, hardly a car in sight! |
Claire has a lovely little house and we are very jealous and looking forward to a time when we have something similar of our own. It's in a small quiet village and about a zillion worlds away from Hong Kong life! I lived with Claire at uni and on several occasions when we were bored of engineering (surely not!?) we went to attempt to play golf. This now seems to be a theme and the last time we visited her we ended up at the driving range. Stephen had been desperate to play golf the whole time we were back but due to the snow it wasn't happening. Fortunately it wasn't so bad down south and lucky for Stephen he got to have a few hits/whacks/drives with Claire's top of the range (read bashed up very old clubs, bought for a few quid) - all good fun.
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| Skillz |
Then it was time for The Best Chinese In The World. Seriously, we may live in (kinda) China but you cannot beat the Peking Rendez-vous in Haddenham. I mean, it's even open on a lunchtime!
On Monday morning we then got the train to the big smoke. (We were going to drive but we worked out the train would only cost marginally more once you factor in parking and petrol so why not!). Stephen lived in London for 6 months last year and I spent most weekends down there so it was cool to go back. We met our friends Mark and Sarah (aka The Crazies) at the station (can't remember which, Waterloo maybe?) and off we went to the pub, naturally. We had pie and beer and a relatively civilised evening, fab.
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| Sunshine, but still cold. |
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| Last time I was here was after I'd stayed at Claire's and we'd got the early train in on Saturday morning to go to the velodrome and watch some olympic track cycling, happy memories! |
On Wednesday we left Mark and Sarah's flat and took a train even further south to Uckfield, to go see our lovely friend Jenny. We had a couple of hours to mooch round London before that so I suggested a trip to
Loop (I'm never normally that impressed but having been removed from pretty yarn living in Hong Kong I treated myself to a skein of Uncommon Thread sock yarn :-) ). The way to convince Stephen to let me go to Loop is to remind him of it's close proximity to
The Breakfast Club. We first had this one Saturday morning last summer after we'd been to collect our wedding rings (dawwww) and it was amazings! Pancakes with all the crispy bacon, winning!
We arrived in Uckfield before Jenny finished work and enjoyed a good cuppa with her mum and little girl while we waited for her to get home. We then had a great chilled out evening eating burgers and catching up on the gossip.
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| The Shard (obligatory picture given I was at London Bridge station, still don't much like it). |
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| Leaving London |
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| It snowed again! (only a very little bit, but still). |
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| Arrival at Uckfield. |
In Leeds I left Stephen home alone with my folks for the evening and went out with my fab knitting chums. We ate curry, we drank, we knit, it was brill!
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| Happy times! (Soz Rach, I think you'd gone home by the time the camera came out!) |
On Friday Stephen and I went into Leeds again to buy a few last bits to take back to HK and take the opportunity to have a few cheeky afternoon drinks in our favourite bars. Stephens family then came over in the evening and we had Harpos - the best pizza in Leeds (apart from Salvos) and a few drinks in the local.
Finally, on Saturday it was time to leave - sadface! We went to Weegmans in the morning to satisfy our sausage roll cravings and popped in to see my grandma. Then it was time to drive over to Manchester airport, with a quick stop in the John Lewis cafe to say bye bye to Stephen's folks.
We dropped the hire car off, checked in and off we flew to Frankfurt. We had a super quick stopover but I managed to find the time for a quick McDonalds (I had deep fried McPrawns!). Stephens brother and sister fly to Germany regularly and scared us with stories of Lufthansa meal offerings (sauerkraut featuring prominently) so we thought we best get something. I'm pleased to report that whilst the western meal looked questionable the asian option of noodles was really quite nice!
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| Sausage rolls in the sunshine |
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| The temperature finally hit double figures as we were driving to the airport! |
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| Frankfurt - Hong Kong, I believe this is a new Boeing 747-8. |
And that's that! We had the best time seeing everyone and are looking forward to doing it all again at Christmas :-)
