Abroad Susan Mary 2025

 Look what I found!!!  Sam and Maddy will be so proud … even if it did require a small amount of assistance from Mandy.    Team Australia - standing next to Philly (mother of 5) … I should have held my stomach in!                                                                    Mandy and Keith                                                                              Breakfast

                                           Sam and Will with their partners, Maddy and Zoe. Mandy should start a business as a party organiser!  She and Philly have just never stopped - with able assistance from family and friends.   The Olympics featured so many activities - Australia v UK - I don’t think there was ever a tally up to declare the outright winners … but there was badminton, cushion throwing, connect four and a variety of other “sports” to participate in - I lost my game of connect four without too much trouble, despite a reasonable amount of success the evening before … and managed to avoid too much more involvement.  Spectator sport is very definitely my forte. A four piece “jazz” band, followed about an hour later by a solo guitarist got the party ’rocking’ with  a really well catered bbq evening meal … and the Parry boys provided kareoke, d...

  The main reason for coming to the UK was to celebrate Keith’s 80th birthday - tomorrow.  So today four carloads of us travelled for 4.5 + hours to a Lincolnshire Manor house, owned by a friend of Keith’s.  I have a double room to myself, with shower … and a shared loo, right by my door.  Mandy has worked tirelessly on organising the weekend away and Philly has hit the ground running, to assist as much as possible. All manner of activities are planned - and I’ve been co-opted into Team Australia for the Olympic Games, planned tomorrow … an unfair disadvantage for them, but I suspect that Sam, Joe and Will will make up for any inabilities of mine. Time will tell.  Watch this space.  

 The weather hasn’t, yet, turned on a heatwave, though I’m assured another one is on its way - this weekend. The Australian family has been scattered to beds far and wide - so when Les came to pick me up to take me to have afternoon tea with his sister and family, I understood I would be returned to Ray’s house eventually and would have time to pack a bag in preparation for the four days of octogenarian celebrations in Lincolnshire.  Evidently I’d missed one of the bulletins because Les understood, I was going back with him and Philly at the end of the day, so that I’d be ready for the convoy leaving at 11 am.  So at midnight, we returned to Ray’s to pack my bag, and I’m now sitting in birthday boy’s house waiting for the others to assemble. We had a lovely day … starting with sunshine and very little wind, suddenly turning into a deluge and equally suddenly, returning to sunshine and warmth until more rain at about 11 pm.  And so, we had afternoon tea with Les’ sist...

 59 hours after leaving home, the 4 weary travellers have arrived in the UK.  I’ll be seeing them today, but I expect they’re pretty exhausted, if my own body clock is anything to go by.  It’ll be a great story to tell in the future,  but I’m guessing it wasn’t much fun at the time.                                                                Sam, Will, Maddie and Zoe  Yesterday was a happy, relaxed day.  My mum always used to tell me I was born during a heat wave - hard to believe, during a winter freeze - but if the UK forecasts are anything to go by, this year’s celebration has fallen between 2 anticipated highs.  It was a very relaxed, happy day - culminating with home made enchiladas (and Happy birthday banner) at Richard and Sarah’s and a home-made, VERY tasty, iced chocolate cake made (...

 What should have been a quiet(ish) day turned into chaos of reasonable proportions … mostly of my own making. Thinking it was Matariki today, I reasonably assumed that the bank and shops wouldn’t be open - only to be told mid-morning, that Matariki is being celebrated next Friday.  Matariki celebration changes every year, based on the Māori lunar calendar, but always on a Friday.  Don’t blame ME - it wasn’t my idea.  So it was a late start for some rather rushed last minute shopping and banking … especially when I phoned the little man who was supposed to be fitting an automatic blind in my kitchen as a cunning deterrent for anyone thinking I was not at home.  He thought he’d told me he was coming at about 12 noon (he hadn’t) and that it would take an hour.  Long story short, he was still here at 5.00pm suggesting that because he was going to Bali on Wednesday and he couldn’t get the remote to work, I might just like to leave the blind down for the 3 month...

 Having nagged poor Sarah to get me a British SIM card, I then forgot to send the details in Blog No. 1. I WILL have my NZ phone and iPad with me, but I’m not sure my NZ phone will connect once we leave New Zealand shores.  My email address will still be in use and I guess WhatsApp will still be available.  Time will tell.  I’m sure it was much easier, when I did this 11 years ago. My British phone number will be:     074752.96413. Hopefully it will be up and ringing by 26 June.

A number of friends have asked me whether I will be writing a blog while I’m away. I guess this answers your question…  Well done if you’ve got this far … my lovely techno whiz neighbour has got ME this far … I hope you have similar assistance at hand if required. I collected my tickets last Wednesday and realised that I had miscalculated my flying times.  I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong date - it should have been Tuesday, 24 June at 5:55 a.m. NOT Wednesday 25th. The very next day, I realised at about 5 pm, that I had been wearing my jeans back to front, all day.   Should I really be let loose, on my own?  You may well ask!! I have borrowed a second phone to bring with me and have asked “2nd cousin in law” Sarah to get me a UK SIM card so that English family and friends can make local calls if you need to get hold of me.  My NZ phone is a Samsung but my UK one will be an iPhone … forgive me if I cut you off for the first few days!  It won’t be intentional...