Last Wednesday, 15th September, we drove down to Derby to stay overnight with our eldest son, JP, wife, Andrea and our two beautiful granddaughters, Emma and Julia. We had a lovely time, eating out at a local Sizzler pub and catching up on all our news. They had been to Australia for three weeks to visit Andrea's sister, Pete and their new son Eamonn. He's a lovely little chap. They really enjoyed their stay despite it being the middle of winter over there.
The next day, JP drove us to East Midlands Airport, about 20minutes away, and we flew to Guernsey to stay with our middle son, Andrew, Marie and the kids. Jo was born on 11th September and is really beautiful, with a shock of dark hair and a turned up nose just like his Mum. Ben and Beth love Jo and enjoy giving him a cuddle. We spent 5 nights there and spent time with the family, helping out where possible and enjoying our lovely grandchildren. It was quite a wrench to leave on Tuesday, but we had to get home to prepare for our visit to the States. We won't see them till Christmas time now and the kids will all have grown, especially Jo.
It's been go, go, go since we got back with myriad things to do and organise. I think that trailer/caravan suppliers must be the same the whole world over. We have been trying to order some spare parts for our trailer from Orlando since the middle of August and have only just managed to get it organised yesterday. The trouble has been with Starcraft (the manufacturer) not the dealer, but after tearing our hair out, it's finally organised. The only problem is that they may not arrive for at least a couple of weeks - probably just when we want to move away from Florida and set off for Louisianna!!! So much for the parts to be there on our arrival and being able to fit them while with Connie and Jim.
The good news is that Connie and Jim have arrived back in Florida from New York State and emailed us to say the trailer and truck are still there!!! We are just hoping that we are not going to face infestations of creepy crawlies and mould!!!
We have been trying to get organised for our estate agent (realtor) to do any showings of our house while we are away and our solicitor to be prepared in the slim chance of getting a buyer!! Our daughter Helen is at home but is working, so she can get the house ready for a viewing but cannot do the viewing herself.
I've forgotten just how much there is to do and organise when returning to the USA as it's a year since we were last there. Anyway, we are just about ready and are beginning to get excited about our next trip.
It's an early start - 7.30am - on Saturday for a 2 and a 1/2 hour drive over the highest motorway in England to Manchester where we catch the 1.30 pm flight directly to Orlando - approx 9 hours . We expect to get to Connie and Jim's by about 9 pm local time. It will be 2 am English time as Florida is 5 hours ahead of the UK. Hope we can keep awake!!!
Yippee - hooray - USA here we come!!!
Sally.
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