Sun, 04 May 2003

author Tim	location the 17:02 Thameslink to St. Albans, London, England
posted 17:06 BST 06/05/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Welwyn Garden City ( No photos )
It was strange to wake on Sunday and still have two days of the weekend left - these past few weeks have been so hectic between Norwich, Amsterdam and Turkey that we have all but forgotten what free time felt like.
After ringing and waking up Meaghan, much to her disgust, we eventually decided that a short trip in Rosie would be a good way to fill in a couple of days. A bit of consultation with the bus maps later, and we found that a bus right near us takes us to Acton Main Line station, from where we can get a train to Hanwell, which is where Rosie is parked near Alwin from work's house.
However, this train doesn't run on Sundays, so it took a bit of wandering around with the A-Z (that's British for street-map) before we caught a bus instead. Eventually locating the right street, we were over-joyed to see our expensive future home once again, all in good order. We grabbed the keys and drove back to Cricklewood, a much faster journey than the one there had been.
Loading up with a doona, pillows, and many other "essential" items, we then drove off to a site of the Caravan Club, up in Welwyn Garden City.
They journey went suprisingly well, I hesitate to say it lest something go wrong, but I am getting used to this sitting-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-car thing quite well. Judging by the smaller number of panic attacks Liz is having, I am even staying in the lanes a lot better now :)
We arrived at the caravan park around 4:30, where the kindly old couple running the place happily signed us up as members of the club (it looks quite good, they have all sorts of tips and tricks, as well as lots of advice for "first-timers" like us), and showed us to our little lot.
We still need to gather a few bits and pieces for the van, one of which is an electrical hook-up cable. No problem for the night, as the helpful owners lent us one of these too! Trundling around to our campsite, we set up for the night and plugged Rosie in. After fiddling for a while, it turns out that everything inside works just fine with the exception of the fridge, which doesn't seem to get cold. Will have to get that looked at soon.
The evening passed with us wandering down to the rather sparse local shops for some Chinese and a good chat at the pub.
We returned to the van, where Liz tackled some of her journal while I read some Australian newspapers that Alan Heighway has unbeknownst to us been sending over for a while! Good to read that not much has changed back at home in the nine or so months(!) since we left.

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