Yes we are Back

Hi everyone

Yes we are back from our trip to the Antipodes and what a fabulous trip it too. When you get over the hill, and have seen and done as many things in your life as I have, you tend to wonder if anything can excite you, fill you with awe, astound you, and give you that teenage WOW factor.
Well the trip did all of that, though maybe I am just that type of person who has never grown up and will always find excitement.
The people we met the places we visited, the sights we saw will always be implanted in our memory and in case we forget I have 1600 photo's to remind us.
the flight back was really uneventful except for my metal knee setting off every security alarm, Why cannot the security staff accept that I have a metal knee without me having to do a partial strip at every security check, why can't they give you a card after the first one, I think they get a perverse pleasure from watching people strip, yet after a while I quite enjoyed being the centre of attraction all I wanted was some music to really entertain the crowd. All went well until we reached Heathrow were the staff are trained in the art of pure ignorance, down right unhelpful, despicable rudeness, and the failure to understand the queens English. As our flight from heathrow to Manchester was internal we were told that we had excess baggage to pay, as I said we had not touched the bags since leaving Australia that was impossible, I was the informed that the first part of the journey was international and the second part was internal with a lower baggage weight allowance. now there is common sense for you change the limit in mid transit just to confuse every one. and how is it that there are more staff speak English at Vanuatu airport than Heathrow ???????????????
Being back on the boat is great the weather could have been better but who cares we are back and even at this time of year the marina is very pretty. We have just about become adjusted to the weather. I never thought I could be so cold returning from 39 degrees to minus 5 is a bit of a shock to the system especial the toilet seat at 3 in the morning, I had to take a heart tablet for the shock lol
We are now in the process of getting ourselves and the boat ready for starting this years boat journey which we hope to start the week after Easter. We are expecting to head down towards Oxford but we shall see what happens So if anyone wants to visit us at the marina you have a couple of months, and if you want to visit on route the now is the time to give us dates??????

I want to say thank you to all those who have emailed regarding the blog, its nice and encouraging to know its being read???????

Sorry no pics at the moment

Speak soon

Big Al

PS
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