Just over 3 weeks in England from arriving back from Germ/Switz and leaving the UK.
5 days Eastbourne. Visited Mum, who is in good health; I was served tea and fruit cake…perfect. Eastbourne AirShow, but it started late because it was quite overcast. Met Denise briefly…Angela’s executor. A’s house just put on the market for £399k.
Went to Spoons on the 8th for over 3 hours with Alan n Mike to reminisce about Dad…and life in general. Unfortunately we left the piece of paper that we had all written on 4 years ago…’We Love You Dad’. But kind of fitting as we wrote it in a Spoons and left it in a Spoons.
Phil fixed my flat tyre which enabled me to do a few cycling trips to EG. Bbq on Sun 20th at Phil/Fatima. Lovely lamb burgers, sausages and salads.
Visited Alastair n Hilary’s for tea in their garden.
Alexandra..who works at the Frow charity shop; I was looking for a cheap 2nd hand travel umbrella. Said her mother was born in Arusha . Alexandra was very busy. I was passing a couple of days later and she asked me to help wheel something into the shop; I asked what her mother’s maiden name was and she said…Valaris. I said I have a FB friend called Peter Valaris, who turned out to be Alexandra’s uncle. What coincidence.
Sat 26 Judith treated 8 friends to a birthday dinner at Khans. Nice mix of people enjoying some delicious curry dishes. As it was around 10pm, 4 of us stopped off at the Brambletye to listen to the David Hay band. Great music as ever, just a bit too loud.
Well, I had 2 full days before flying to Dar, and I was stressing like crazy. I bought my Backpackers travel insurance for 9 months. Was waiting on Challa Htl to send me a dummy hotel booking so I could apply for my Kenya E-visa. It never came, so a last minute booking.com was required. Then I couldn’t upload my photo or pics of passport etc. Discovered a trick..send pic attachment to someone and have them send it back by WhatsApp and that reduces the Jpeg size to enable it to be uploaded. With Judith’s help the application was sent off on Sunday morning. The same day, I received notification that the application was approved…Phew. Although by the time I left on Tues I still hadn’t seen a visa attachment.
On Monday I started packing. Tried to destress. I dropped my bike off at Linda’s for her to look after while I’m away. Met my friends at the Club. Met Phil at the Swan. Tuesday I finished packing. A bag with papers etc went back up in the loft.
Caught the bus to EG. Met up with Chantal for coffee/lunch. We caught the train to Clapham Junction and chilled for a couple of hours at the pub. I bought a small travel umbrella from a charity shop for £5. I carried on to Victoria Station and caught the Tube to Term 2 at Heathrow. Easy check-in. Time for one beer then off to the gate for my Ethiopian flight. 21:00 departure left at 21:10…pretty good..! My journey to Dar via Addis had begun.