Sat, 17 May 2003

author Tim	location Saltney, Chester, Cheshire, England
posted 08:02 BST 18/05/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Retrieving Rosie, up to Chester ( No photos )
We had originally planned for Alwin from my work to drop Rosie off on Saturday morning at our house (he was working night-shift), but some thoughtful souls had left about an inch on each end for maneuvering space. In a big bus, that's a problem. So, Alwin left a couple of notes which seemed to have done the trick, since he rang me at 6:30am on Saturday as I was on my way to pick her up, saying it was all ok.
That journey involves the 266 bus from just around the corner to Acton Mainline Station, then a small two-car train which sounds more like a truck along to Ealing Broadway station (only one station), where I went and got a coffee and croussant while waiting for another train which actually stopped at Hanwell. A suprisingly nice journey at that time of morning, topped off with a five minute walk to Alwin's place.
There appear to be no major problems with leaving her there, except for occasionally being parked in. When I arrived, I noticed that the cars on either side had left around half a car-length for me to get out!
Thanking Alwin for his attempts to get Rosie to us (which had made him late for work), I drove off along back past Ealing Broadway to hit the North Circular for the drive back to Cricklewood.
Liz had managed to drag herself out of bed by this stage, so we finished our packing in reasonable time, jumped in the van and headed north.
Not much to report from the journey, except that it took us about four hours of driving and another hour of being stuck in traffic once off the M6 pointing at Chester.
After a short detour into North Wales (it's about a mile down the road from where we are), we arrived at the target for our travels - Gladys and Reg's place. These lovely people are related to me by my Nan on my father's side being Gladys' cousin. That part seems simple, it gets much more confusing though!
Also there were David (one of Gladys and Reg's sons) and his wife Sue, and we were later joined by Norman (the other son) and two of his sons Andrew and James, who we have met before.
We had some lunch and chatted the afternoon away, even looking at a very old photo of when Mum and Dad came and visited them on their big Europe tour.
After a while, it was time to head off to a dinner booking just inside Wales. This seems to be quite a popular option as it is apparently a little cheaper and there were plenty of other people doing the same. The place was a thirteenth century pub in the middle of nowhere, accessed only by single-track road. Quite a change from Cricklewood high street!
However, Sue noticed that some of the overhead beams had been made to look old by chiseling bits out of them - cheating in any language. Still, it was a nice enough place, the food was fine even if the complex ordering system meant that the service was pretty average.
Sue and David were then brave enough to take a trip in Rosie as we headed back to Norman and Carol's place for the night. We sat around talking before everyone looked over-tired and it was time for bed.

(customised)