How to lose 2 kilos quickly (Day 189)
Having decided to take only Cabin Laggage, oh dear - how to lose 2 kilos quickly?
What a delight our hosts’ little boy is, Ted is a chatty happy 3-year-old and this morning he was such a delight to be with. He showed us his helicopter, but the blades were no longer going round. Perhaps the batteries needed replacing. He informed his Mum that there was a red screwdriver in a particular drawer and she was amazed to find that he was, indeed, correct. After changing the batteries, the blades were still not working. He shrugged his shoulders, said that maybe it was because he had pulled one of the blades off and then said: “It’s a Pirate sword now”. So sweet. Later Tim did his usual magic trick, making a small object disappear and then retrieving it from Ted’s ear. His little face was a picture of delight. He then wanted his Mum to do the same trick. There was a big gulp and she had a go and did pretty well, it fooled Ted anyway.
We had packed up our cases, said our goodbyes and walked to John’s via Arno’s Vale, down a tree-lined path to a large grassy area which was having its first cut of the year. The smell of freshly mown grass filled the air…luckily no hay fever occurred.
When we reached John’s the first thing we did was to get the scales working. I gingerly placed my case on top. Argh! 9.7kg. 2.7kg to lose! I had a few quick wins, the extra padding for our tablet, my big baggy hippy pantaloons and a spare blank exercise book to leave behind. Tim lifted his case onto the scales – 10kg! Oh dear.
We took all the small items that we could stuff in our pockets such as our watercolour paints and brush, Travel Adaptor, scarf and hat (I hope the airlines aren’t reading this) and eventually got down to 7.4kg. That will have to do. Tim had to ditch his spare swimming trunks and took all our toiletries out, that seemed to help a lot. By then, John had returned from seeing a patient to kindly drop us off at the Megabus stop. We just have to finish sorting stuff out later.
Arriving in the city centre, we had about 15 minutes to wait and our bus hadn’t turned up yet. A quick visit to Blacks just to see if I could get a replacement cardi from my lovely but very scruffy orange wool one. Yes – a nice turquoise Weird Fish fleece was found and it was in the sale – bargain!
The journey was uneventful; Tim slept and I read my book written by Nick who we met in Tasmania. We reached Victoria Station and rushed to get the 9 minutes past train towards West Byfleet. Oh dear, I sensed Tim was getting “Hangry”. Fortunately, we needed to change at Clapham Junction, so found a café on the platform and grabbed a baguette and coffee. Just a few minutes later we were sitting on the train to Byfleet and was met by Agata our lovely sister-in-law.
Lots of chats later, Mike, Tim’s brother arrived and we sat down to dinner. It’s so wonderful seeing the two brothers together – so much laughter, banter as well interesting discussions. At one point Tim was creased up double as he was laughing so much when Mike suggested we should put our rucksacks under our coats so we looked deformed, Agata suggested that I could wear mine as if I was pregnant. The suggestions just got worse -You had to be there!
Tim and Agata went to pick our nephew Alex up from the school disco. Apparently, the girls in the year below were asking him and his mates to dance and then wanted a kiss at the end. He is 8! We haven’t seen him for 7 months – wow – he has grown so much. His face looks a different shape and even his voice seems deeper!
Once he had gone to bed, we got all our toiletries out. Crikey, do we really need all of this? Sifting through we managed to abandon 702g of lotions and potions. Tim reweighed his case. For some reason, it had put on weight since our journey from Bristol. How did that happen? A quick sort through, taking out a few more things. Poor Mike and Agata now have a pile of our rejects in their home.
Time for bed…our last one in England for a few months. Despite the sadness, it has been lovely to see nearly all our family and we look forward to seeing them all in August for our next slightly longer fleeting visit.
