How to get home?

…Craig’s just decided we should drive from somewhere else in the world back to the UK. After all of 6 seconds spent persuading me, I agreed (god damn you Jim Beam)…although Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq are vetoed for obvious (“boring” according to Craig) reasons. So we are now considering our route, which Craig declares “requires more booze”. Where can I hide my credit card so I don’t wake up tomorrow to find we’ve booked some ridiculous journey or bought some clapped out old banger on ebay to get home in?! The vegetable drawer in the fridge??

2012

Craig did end up watching Trans-Siberian after all – too scary for me so I went to sleep to avoid the carnage – lessons learned: a) don’t pick up anyone else’s bags and b) the Russian word for “Cheers” (“na zdorovje”) . He reckons that this is all you need to know to we will need to know to make friends. However, the internet disagrees that this is the correct saying for cheers but I’m obviously not going to tell him that in case it means something random like sausages.

New Year’s Eve started off with an intense fight about when I should get out of bed (points to Craig for the use of the word “numbskullery”)…but it ended at about 10.3oam when Craig shouted “You will get out of bed because I’m the boss and I’M IN CHARGE”, a statement of such utter lunancy it made us both laugh so much we had came to an agreement :D

We spent the day doing a few errands with Craig navigating – a task made harder by his refusal to say the words “left” and “right” when I am driving. Apparently it makes it “more fun” when hand signals are involved:

“Left”:

“Right”:

“Straight over”:

Slightly confusing when you’re trying to keep an eye on the road but leads to lots of giggling! Also keeping us amused is the Horse game from one of my favourite films, Eagle vs Shark. Despite Craig changing the rules every time we get in the car, I was the clear winner of Horse and won all the horses. He is just bitter as he forfeited all his horses yesterday for spotting “horses” which looked suspiciously like cows (because they were cows).

We went to the Star and Garter for the evening with friends and had a great night although there were some tears for friends we won’t be seeing 2013 in with and some for friends who are no longer with us…the Jaegar bombs seemed a good idea at the time! Ended up walking back from Leamington to Warwick as there no taxis around…made slightly more painful by my shoes which although beautiful, were six inch heels and hated me.

Mature as ever :)

New Year’s Day was spent mainly lying down- followed by a lovely evening with Tim and Danni, Kate and Louis in Leamington. Danni made a great risotto and a delicious broccoli, asparagus, pine nut and chilli side dish. Then we had little filo pastry tarts made by Gemma and probably an entire deli counter’s worth of cheese and biscuits. Lots of laughter, good food, star gazing and travel stories. Despite earnest promises never to drink again earlier in the day, we did manage a couple there but bed was calling by 12 so went home and slept for a good 10 hours…

…in order to get up to navigate a walk from Harbury to Chesterton and back again with them and the dogs. I did take some pictures but as I only had my phone with me and its camera is rubbish, I’ve nicked this one from David Stowell.

Seven miles of sunshine-filled Warwickshire countryside, mud and exploration of delapidated cottages later and after all that exercise a pub lunch and a couple of pints were well-earned/needed. Unfortunately we missed out on seeing Gemma and Joe as they had to go back to London but we have cunningly invited ourselves down there a day or two before we leave to catch up with them and hopefully Tim and Danni too so we can catch up with them and then nip to Heathrow to get the plane.