The Curtain Falls

And so ends my trip to Scotland. After two days of helping Paul carry large boxes of books from his old house to his new house, just across the road, it was time to give my arms a rest and drive home to Gloucester.

Always doing things back to front.
B = Scotland A = England

Arrived home to an incredible stack of mail. I left after New Year with the intention of popping to Belgium, then Edinburgh for a week or two. Four months later, I'm back!

It's been quite an incredible journey. You can catch up in the Scotland 2013 tag, and Belgium.

Among the circulars and unpaid bills, I discovered a couple of lovely surprises. My mate Cassie sent me a birthday parcel, including a lovely Lush Karma perfume stick, and my new favourite mug.

Morning cup of tea brought to you by
the letter T and refills 1, 2 and 3.
Mwahahahahaha.

Also received an unexpected parcel from the lovely Kirstin in Kenya, who's also a talented photographer. Tea masala, to go in my new mug, and an original.

Excuse grainy quality, think I have pastels on my scanner... best not spoken about.

Also arrived to find a royalty cheque for $40. Apparently I sold a couple of books. About bloody time.

The drive home wasn't bad. Put my foot down. Stopped once for petrol about an hour from home. It was glorious sunshine when I left Alva, then proceeded to pee it down with gale warnings all the way down the M6.

Managed to dodge a jerrycan in the fast lane. Wasn't so lucky with a large bundle of, what appeared to be, wires!? Saw the car in front dodge, but didn't have time to check whether anyone was in the lane next to me so had no option but to hold on tight and hit it.

Almighty thud. Waited for the wheel to deflate... thankfully it didn't. Seems to have cracked the front wheel guard, and there's a piece of metal and a piece of rubber hanging off. Doesn't look much more than superficial, though. Will take Kitty to the doctor's tomorrow and see what they say. Fingers crossed it's not going to be too expensive to fix.

Basically dumped everything from the boot onto the floor and now need to pack it away.

Four months on the road generates a
lot of junk.

Most of it is stuff Martine was getting rid of. She's a 'minamalist', which basically means she buys lots of stuff then gives it away to anyone who visits. To be fair, she was moving abroad.

Very pleased to have a full-blown Rwandan Peace Basket. Really wanted one of these but couldn't fit it in my luggage. Now I have one, and I didn't have to work out how to get it home.

Also found a big bag of Coltsfoot Candy in Callandar. Eaten one pack already.

And spent a night at Paul's daughter's place, where they cooked up an incredible breakfast including grilled tomatoes on the vine, which I feel is worthy of note, not least because it also came with a cup of tea served in a Penguin of Death mug! Awesome.

All of which brings me to the final stages of this blog for a while. The reason I decided to head South again was to catch my incredibly talented and hard working cousin, who was dancing with Birmingham Royal Ballet in Cheltenham yesterday. I hadn't seen him dance since he was a student at the Royal Ballet School, so it was incredible to get the opportunity to watch him dance as an adult now. Truly excellent performance, and nice to catch up after the show with cake and tea at a nearby café. 

Well, that's probably the end of my updates on this blog for a while. I'm going to take a couple of weeks to recuperate, then I need to head slowly towards London, via Northamptonshire, where I plan to try and write another novel. A fairly dull process to outside observers, as the only adventures are the ones in my head. Ta ta for now.