It was great not to rush to vacate our flat in Kilburn as no-one was due to come in and we had the leisure of not adhering to the official 10 AM check out time. This was especially good as Karl and Annika had taken the Tube to Heathrow to pick up our Peugot lease car and we could load the car directly from the flat rather than dragging all our gear somewhere else while we waited. Cleaning and packing finished, we relaxed for a bit and then carried all our gear downstairs.
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| Our trusty lease Peugot...left hand drive mind you, because it is coming with us to Europe! |
My camera, despite me praising it and the photos it takes every day, won't recharge for some reason and I am distraught! I love my camera. In lieu of souvenirs, I take photos and I can't! Annika has kindly let me use her Ipod but the quality of the photos just isn't the same. I am so hoping this glitch can be resolved as I am very happy the my Nikon 340 which until now has been excellent. I am lost without it.
And we were off down the A40 to
Banbury. The traffic even at non peak hour was constant and fairly
heavy. Once again we were very thankful for our Tom Tom to direct us as
we really don't know how we could have negotiated the back streets of
west London if we just had the A-Z.
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| Banbury - our place looks like a hundred other places on the estate! |
Our "City Pad" in Banbury is a nice modern apartment in a quiet residential area with little parks throughout the estates. After we had unpacked and gathered out thoughts, it was time to explore our new surroundings.
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| Luke settled in quickly once he found his Lego |
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| Annika and Luke's room |
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| Unpacking into wardrobes spacious enough but with no hangers |
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| Well equipped kitchen but unfortunately two hot plates won't turn off unless the whole cooker is turned off! |
Within 5 minutes, we were on the banks of the Oxford Canal, full of narrow boats and grey nomads on their "adventure before dementia." (I borrowed that phrase from Jet and Ralph who have just returned from their honeymoon.) So peaceful and quiet and none of the sirens of London which I realised seemed to be ever present.
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| "Our "locky" day"! |
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| Oxford Canal |
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| Canal side art! |
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| Peaceful indeed |
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| Canal user opening the locks |
We wandered along the canal which the boys making use of any available gymnastic equipment and finally found the shops Karl had located on the map.
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| Caution: Gymnast at work |
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So lovely by the canal but it was late when we finally got home with our food. We saw a little wild rabbit by the canal. I think we are going to like the peace here.
Luke is always great with words. His latest one, which will no doubt become a family parlance, was: "I'm a makesurer". We all know what he meant, and couldn't think of a better way to say it, so makesurer it is! Another goodie was "strayhem"which is a badly behaved dog from RSPCA.
Looks lovely!! Nice to be in a quiet place for a change :) how long are you there for? It's extremely cold and dreary here. Cold snap going through, Greg leaves for camp at mt Buller on Tuesday so there's going to be plenty of snow!! Love those words Luke!
ReplyDeleteChilly! I bet you are glad that you did buy that expensive sleeping bag back in Year 9 for him!! I remember thinking it was a bit of an investment but it will be used! That's assuming they are camping outside! Yes, we are here for a month...and school starts tomorrow. Always a juggling between school and adventures. The evenings are still so long here, still lightish at 9.30 so we have daylight at the end of the day to do things.
DeleteJust realised you said you'd be there for a month, that'll be nice :)
ReplyDeleteHi Helen, just back from Central Australia. Took lots of pics, I empathise with you re camera. There may be a firmware update you could do? I'm no expert, just searched and that was a suggestion. Do you need a new battery? I do hope you are able to find a quick solution. Like you I love my camera and would have been very upset if it had malfunctioned during our holiday. All the best, Gillian
ReplyDeleteLove to see your photos Gillian...or even a blog! We think the recharging micro USB point might be the problem so we will try to buy a battery recharger. The problem is, in a different country, you don't know all the shops like you do at home!
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