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Monday, 21st September, 2015.

This is it...the final blog for Europe Trip 2015.   We arrived in Perth on Thursday afternoon, 17th September after reasonably comfortable flights and have never been happier to be home.   Our good friend Laurie collected us from the airport and drove us home and we were pleased to see both house and garden in good order.

Now that we're home and resuming 'normal' life, we are beginning to put events of the 22nd August behind us and are remembering instead the fabulous times  we've had with Boris in three fantastic European summers of touring, all the awesome places we've visited, the many wonderful people we've met, some of whom have become good friends and in more recent times, the generosity and kindness shown to us by total strangers who were sympathetic to our plight and who re-inforced our belief that, given the opportunity, most people will reveal their goodness.  I get misty eyed when I think about the amazing offers of help we received and can't finish without mentioning Mike and Marion, our wonderful friends who made life so much easier for us in the last few weeks...I don't know what we'd have done without them!

There was to have been at least one more trip with Boris but until the insurance company makes a decision we don't know what his fate will be...it's still up in the air so we can only wait to hear from them.   In the meantime, we have our gorgeous granddaughter holidaying with us from t'other side of the country and we will enjoy her company for the next week and have lots of fun times!   

We've not taken any photos lately so have chosen a few that may not have previously appeared on the blog.

Last Days in England.

Tuesday, 15th September.

We finished our trip to Cornwall on Monday 7th, making Philps Bakery in Hayle our first stop for the day.   We bought two standard Cornish pasties at £2.85 each, so big and chock full of minced steak and vegetables we struggled to finish them and were glad we had not bought large ones!  From there we drove to St Ives but alas, we could not find parking close enough to be able to walk down into the town and so made Penzance our next port of call.  We were able to park on the harbour front there and strolled  around the town in the sunshine, treating ourselves to ice creams before heading off to nearby Mousehole, a lovely fishing village which though busy, wasn't crowded so we enjoyed a stroll and a sit by the water.  Our last stop for the day, and the weekend, was at Jamaica Inn on Dartmoor where we had cold refreshments before continuing the journey back to Somerset.
We made it to Bristol on Wednesday 9th, no train breakdowns this time and we bussed from the station into the city.  A tiny cafe in St Nicholas Markets provided us with a light lunch and we filled in a couple of hours by wandering around the city until it was time to return to the railway station, but rather than bussing back there we ferried, much more enjoyable and at the same cost.
A short bus ride to nearby Nether Stowey was the last of our outings before spending much of the weekend sorting and packing for the flight home.
The Green Olive in Bridgwater was our destination on Sunday night, an excellent Turkish restaurant which is a favourite of Marion's and Mike's and after having eaten there on previous visits has become a favourite of ours too.  The four of us enjoyed a fabulous meal, our farewell dinner so there was a tinge of sadness in the air.
Yesterday, after packing the cases into the car and farewelling Mike and Marion, we drove through the rain to Wells, stopping there to have a look at the magnificent cathedral.  Admission is free but suggested donations are £6 for adults, £4 for seniors and a permit to take photos costs £4.  It truly is a wonderful building and Wells is a lovely city, it was a shame it was raining!
On then to Wiltshire to the home of Jo and Simon and their high schoolers Alice and Alfie.  After a pub meal at their local, we spent a comfortable night in their spare room....a brief but lovely, most enjoyable visit.
And now we are in Hounslow, having driven from Wiltshire today via Hampshire, where we paid a short visit to Sue & Mike, fellow motorhomers whom we met in France last year.  It's our last night in England for tomorrow morning we will begin the journey home.

Somerset, London & Cornwall.

Sunday, 6th September.

We've had an easy week, tried out the public transport with partial success, sold the telly, an extension lead and one bike on ebay, had a day trip to London and are currently in Cornwall.

The first public transport trial was on Tuesday when we decided to catch the local bus from the village into Bridgwater...the problem was that the bus company changed their timetable on that day but neglected to inform the general public which resulted in a 45 minute wait!  The main purpose for the journey was to return the GPS we'd bought in April and which failed us only a short time later, but it was found to be fixable!  We celebrated with a light lunch with Marion in Daisy May's Tea Room in the High Street, a lovely little cafe where the food is all home made.

Armed with a new timetable, we bused into Bridgwater again on Wednesday morning, having decided to catch the train from there to Bristol.  After buying return tickets at the train station we prepared for a bit of a wait but it wasn't long before the ticket officer informed us that the train had broken down and there would be a one and a half hour wait until the next one...apologizing, he offered to refund our ticket money and so we went back to the bus station, studied the route map and caught the next bus to Street, near Glastonbury.  Street is home to Clark Village, a factory outlet village which we roamed around, didn't buy anything there but bought cold drinks and shared a large slice of home made carrot cake in the Mad Hatter's Tea Rooms in Crispen Hall before busing back to our village.

On Friday, we went to London by coach to meet Mireille and Mark who are visiting their family there.  They met us at Hammersmith station and from there we 'tubed' to London Bridge.  They had previously been to the  'Shard'

and suggested that we might enjoy a visit...apparently it costs about £30 each to go up to the viewing floor and nothing to go to the 30th floor for drinks at the bar.  Needless to say, we went for drinks and enjoyed the spectacular free view.

The afternoon was spent lunching, walking along the river and across the Millenium Bridge, around St Paul's Cathedral, 'tubing' to Covent Garden where a scene from "Carmen" was being expertly performed,

We then strolled along The Strand and exchanging travel stories over drinks before finally parting, happy that we'd been able to catch up again.

On Saturday morning we collected a hire car in Bridgwater and drove through Dartmoor to Cornwall, with an encounter with a friendly horse along the way,

and visiting Port Isaac again, only this time we had to park at the top of the hill outside the village and walk down.  On our previous visit we parked on the harbour front but that was before Doc Martin moved in to 'Port Wenn', making it a popular tourist attraction.  It is a lovely old fishing village, higgledy piggledy streets with houses almost on top of each other and because we arrived late in the afternoon, not too many people about.

This morning we had a 30 minute ride on the Bodmin Wensford steam train

on the way to Padstow.  It was a gorgeous day and Padstow was chokkers, all the shops and cafes were full so we bought pasties and ate them as we wandered around the town.  Our thought was to drive south along the coast, ducking into some of the villages along the way but we found that to be a trial because of the traffic on the narrow lanes and shortage  of parking so continued on through Truro to St Mawes via the King Harry car ferry.  It was our first visit to St Mawes and we were impressed, though busy it wasn't crowded so we were able to stroll around at our leisure, enjoying the scenery and the yummy Cornish ice creams!

We were mistaken in thinking that we could ferry from St Mawes to Falmouth as the ferry is for passengers only, no cars so we returned via King Harry car ferry and made our way to our overnight stop near Hayle...more exploring to come tomorrow!