Peter & Joanne McLeod's Travels 2018

Our boat trip ended at Holyhead, the very north-west corner of Wales. Here we had to leave Robin & Brigitte to carry on to the Isle of Man and we headed back by train to London Gatwick. England and Wales are beautiful and the train is a wonderful way to enjoy the beautiful - in spite of the countryside being browner than it has since 1976. We got to Gatwick on Friday afternoon, a week after school had broken up for the year. It was 36C. The hottest day in London for years. It was one of the busiest days of the year for flights. Then planes started being delayed. No planes left the airport for several hours. No announcements - just delays. Our plane was finally called for boarding about 2 hrs after we were due to leave. Then we sat in the boarding area for another hour until they told us the plane was cancelled. 35 flights cancelled out of Gatwick, a similar number out of Stanstead and probably Heathrow too. There were very heavy thunderstorms all over London causing major ...

We arrived in London and traveled straight to the far west of Wales to Fishguard to meet up with Robin & Brigette and their new boat Ruby Tuesday. It is a Jeanneau 39 ft 6 birth yacht. Very roomy and good for cruising. They have been sailing for the past 2 months around the south coast of England and are now heading up towards Scotland. The sailing has varied from dead calm motoring to some nice sailing days. Some days warm other quite cool. Not Greece but a very good UK summer. England is DRY. All the parks in London were brown. the countryside also very dry. The west coast of Wales greener. Robin & Brigette have had beautiful hot weather for the past month or so - most un-English! We have stopped at a few small villages like Aberdyfe and Pwllheli (wondering how to pronounce those? - Try Aberduffy and Perfwhelly). Also stayed at Aberystwyth, a town of maybe 15,000 people, where Robin did his PhD 40 years ago. Quite a few of his lecturers and staff are still living...

We are on the way. Arrived safely in London last night We have left a very nice lady, Kelly Worthington, as a house sitter in our house all the time we are away. Joanne has got a new SIM card for her phone will we are here. Her no is +44 7425215077. I will keep my normal NZ number.