The Wright's on Vacation: 'Allo "Allo!!

Granny and Leo busy in kitchen

One of Granpa's impromtu picnics

Our last week in SA sped by very quickly. We had a lot of “lasts”, like last coffee milk shake at Wimpy, last fried jalepeno’s at Mug and Bean, last braai at home, last visit to the beach etc. We had a lovely dinner at Benita’s house and what a house it is. Gorgeously decorated with a Mediterranean look, we were having a good look around when Leo asked me where his bed was going to be! You know you are raising nomads when that happens. I quickly explained we were just there for dinner and he would sleep in his bed at Granny’s house tonight. Bless.

Birthday Girl

Party Guests

We also had Spencer’s first birthday party which was a roaring success. The average age of the guests was 60 but Spencer loved it anyway. She made a grand entrance dressed as a fairy and won everyone’s hearts. It was great to be able to have that milestone shared with Granny and Grandpa and all their friends. Leo had a good time too even if he couldn’t help himself when it came to blowing out the candles and opening the presents!

Outside King Shaka Airport

It was very sad to say goodbye to Granny and Grandpa, as a global family we are never quite sure when we will see each other again. Pete drove us through to King Shaka airport near Durban and we started the next leg of our journey. I must admit, sitting on the hour long flight to Jo’burg I started to get a bit jittery….Sth Africa was always going to be an easy, relaxing holiday for us with family and a roof over our heads but now here we were heading out on our own with the kids relying again on friends and family in the UK but completely on our own in USA.

Just as I was questioning our judgement and ability on making this trip fate (or rather Leo ) introduced us to a lovely lady named Vivienne. Leo made friends with her on the one hour flight by popping his head up over the back of his seat and chatting to her for the full hour. By the end of the flight we were all friends and she has an amazing story. Vivienne is a lovely looking Sth African lady in her early 50’s, she had a high school sweetheart who moved away to Australia to become a surgeon and fell out of touch. They both got married, had families and got divorced before finding each other again on Facebook about 4 years ago. They travelled together, made retirement plans together (bought an apartment in Gul f Harbour NZ of all places!) and were about to get married when Rob called Vivienne from Australia to tell her he had an aneurysm and needed urgent surgery. He fought through 17 hours of surgery but didn’t make it. Devastating is not the word for it. All those plans for the future gone and only memories left. 16 months after losing her fiancé though and Vivienne is taking the bull by the horns and travelling to Italy to take up a teaching position for 6 months and try to make a life for herself there (having never been there before and knowing no one). It’s like something straight out of “Under the Tuscan Sun”. What an inspiration and another lesson to us that life throws us curve balls sometimes and we just have to do our best to catch them, and live life to the fullest with our loved ones while we can. We had dinner with Vivienne and kept her company for our 3 hour stop over in Jo’burg where upon our paths separated. Needless to say we are now friends on Facebook and I can’t wait to hear how it all turns out for that lovely lady.

We flew SAA again and managed to get an awful old plane again. No TV’s and an 11 hour flight. First we were delayed because the Service Co-ordinator called in sick and Vodacom was down so they couldn’t get hold of any replacement…..that was sorted after an hour and we prepared to take off only to get another announcement that during the first delay 3 passengers “had managed” to get off the aircraft and now they had to find their luggage in the hold!!!! Almost 2 hours after we got on the plane we left Jo’burg. To make matters worse they had no hot water so we couldn’t give the kids their bottles until we were in the air. We have now vowed never to fly SAA again.

Steve and Emma's pad in Leatherhead

We were very blessed to have Steve Kavanagh pick us up at Heathrowe and take us to his and Emma’s house in Leatherhead. Steve is an old friend of Justin’s and he was also MC at our wedding so it was lovely to see him and Emma again. They were very kind to have us stay too because they have beautiful wee 6 month old Grace and we all know how hard it is to have guests when you have a young baby let alone guests with two kids who get into everything. They live in a lovely 3 storey brick house with A LOT of stairs and we were staying in the loft with the kids so we soon learned to become very organised at what we needed downstairs and what needed to come back upstairs for sleep time and in the meantime we got buns of steel from all that climbing. Steve and Emma also have a lovely garden so we spent a lot of time out there passing the time with the kids.

Stinging Nettles!

We saw our first fox, a lovely specimen that visits their garden at twilight and Leo had a brush with stinging nettles when he was chasing a squirrel. He was not a happy chappy and the welts were quite nasty but a bit of Emma’s magic sting spray later and he was fine. He couldn’t believe that a plant would “bite him” though!

Just, Steve and kids

Bubble fun

Sainsburies has treated us well so far, nappies, formula, wipes, fruit , veg and bread etc are all cheaper than at home i.e. you can get 2 packets of 80 wipes for GBP2!! However eating and drinking out are more expensive. At least this time around we are only doubling the pound, last time we were hear it was a 1:3 ratio for NZ dollars. Sainsburies now also sells clothes which is new and you have to pay GBP2 to use a trolley which I don’t remember having to do 10 years ago.

Hyde Park, Kensington Palace

London put on glorious weather for us and we were really pleased that it stuck around for the picnic we had arranged in Hyde Park with family and friends. We took a day trip into London for the picnic, catching overland and underground trains which Leo loved. London is a very different experience with kids, it made me nostalgic but definitely not wistful…the gritty wind that greets you as you head down to the underground and the slight burn it gives you in the back of your throat, the hot tubes and busy people. It’s not pram friendly at all, no lifts at most stations so you have to heave the prams up and down stairs and negotiate those steep escalators. Heaven knows how you get around if you were in a wheelchair. It was a relief to get up onto Kensington High Street and stroll to the park which was in full swing on a hot London summer day.

Tributes for Di's 50th

It had been Princess Di’s 50^th birthday 2 days earlier so Kensington Palace had a few tributes outside and there were all the Brits sunbathing in next to nothing as they do in the parks. We met Sarah and Andrew Baker and their kids Ruby and Leon and also cousins Matt and Dagmar for our picnic. It was lovely to see them all again and the kids had a great time. Ruby and Leo were great mates and got up to a bit of mischief.

Cuzzies in London

Bakers and Wrights

Ruby and Leo

Leon and Spencer

Princess Di Memorial Park

Leo basically dived on a poor unsuspecting sunbather by accident during a romp with Ruby and more than a few leaves and sticks were thrown about. Matt and Dagmar needed to leave for another gathering but the Bakers and us took the kids into the Princess Di memorial park which is fantastic. It’s made up of sand and water play areas and a massive Pirate ship where the kids can climb up the riggings etc. Soon the kids were knackered and we still faced the trip home so off we went…this time down through to Notting Hill Gate.

Sleeping it off in pub

Trains

Ole' Victoria Line

The kids were asleep before we hit the tube so we decided to have a sneaky drink in the Old Swan (and watch the Wimbledon final) while they kipped to fortify us for the journey home. With the anniversary of the July bombings so close I expected to see lots of security but I didn’t. Justin spotted a bag in the men’s toilet sitting by itself at the Wimbledon stop and reported it to the guard there, then we hightailed it. The guard too k it seriously and also raced off to tell his superiors. Just as we were getting on our train out of there we heard an announcement to the tune of “we advise you not to travel via Wimbledon etc”.

It was a huge day and I have nothing but respect for families living in London that have to navigate public transport. I was pleasantly surprised however at the amount of help offered to us from complete strangers in terms of carrying prams up and down etc. Lovely new experience compared to the sullen, busy, rat-race-like attitudes we’ve been used to in the past.

Our trip up to Liverpool by train was also a bit of a mission but we have managed to get down to one big bag, 2 backpacks, one pram and 2 kids so it could have been worse. Justin thought it was nice to get back on the Victoria line, this was the one he used to travel the most when living in Walthamstowe. Euston Station was chaos and brought back many memories of waiting for delayed trains up to see friends in Peebles, Scotland. It was a hot, hot day and Spencer and I managed to get locked in an airless baby changing room for 15 minutes, I pressed the alarm there because I couldn’t open the lock on the door. After a while I hear a Russian sounding voice telling me to turn it off so I tell them we are stuck and turn it off……5 minutes later we are still there with no one coming. Eventually with both of us close to tears I managed to get the silly lock to work and burst out into the fresh air. I wonder how long we would have been there if I hadn’t got it working.

Wright cuzzies in Wirral

Spencer has come down with a nasty throat virus so the journey wasn’t too pleasant and Leo was also a bit feverish. Kelv met us at Lime St Station in Liverpool and delivered us to their home in Wirral which is lovely. Cal and Chris (Cal’s mum) pulled strings and got us into the emergency room at the local hospital to check Spencer out. She is fine, just a virus but her eczema on her bottom is a bit infected so we have new cream too. The NHS s great, no charge for doc or prescription despite being tourists so that was great.

It is great to see the family again. The kids hit it off as though they had never been apart and we feel really at home. Cal and Kelv have had to go to London for a conference so we are babysitting – very nice to finally be doing something for someone else!

Meols windfarm

We have had a lovely week looking around this area; Meols, Hoylake, Tam-o-Shanter Farm, West Kirby and Liverpool itself. There is an awesome boardwalk along the coast line in Meols looking out to the Irish Sea and a wind farm, sand as far as the eye can see. The kids had a great time at the farm on the tractors. This is a farm owned by the local village, volunteers run it and it is free to enter and feed all the animals etc. LIverpool is pretty cool, we had a whole day wondering about and went to Albert Docks to the Maritime muesem, the Slave Trade muesem and we were going to go to the Beatles museum but it would have cost us GBP13 each which was a bit too steep for our budget. It was very interesting to find out that in the 1700's Liverpool was the capital slave trading centre for shipping West Africans to America. Over 1.5 million poor souls passed through those docks. The city has a shopping complex called Liverpool One which is amazing, made up of 4 outdoor levels and spanning many blocks.

We had lunch at a pub called The Liverpool, which apparently (as we learned when we told Cal) is one of the oldes and roughest pubs in LIverpool, trust us to find it. We actually found it quite civilised and they put up with our kids and us having to change nappies etc at the bar, so we can't complain!