I think my last blog was written in Blarney and we were anticipating my lovely parents Golden Wedding anniversary, well I’am delighted to report the night went off marvelously and I even made a short speech which even though I say it myself went well! We then headed back to Ireland to prepare for this season and I caught up with a few jobs on our coaches before we headed off on 23rd December with our new car on the night ferry to Liverpool from Dublin, on reaching Liverpool the weather looked a bit grey and continued to deteriorate as we headed up the motorway and we were in a blizzard within an hour, at that point the radio travel news announced that our normal road over the Pennines – the A66 was closed so we had a considerable diversion via Carlisle in tricky conditions. Once we aarived we had a very nice family Christmas and headed away for New Year to Bimingham and more snow but had a great time at our favourite New Year party at the Jam House (a superb live music venue).
We were due to leave for Thailand on 6th January and true to form it was still snowing hard, we checked in at Teesside Airport for a KLM flight to Amsterdam but were later told the airport was closed and we had to go on a coach transfer to Newcastle (oh, a coach- what a pleasant change!) By the time the runway was cleared at Newcastle we had missed our connecting flight to Bangkok at Amsterdam and so had to spend a night there (kindly paid for by KLM) and caught the flight the following afternoon so we arrived in Bangkok one day late, we then settled into the serious business of enjoying our holiday and had a wonderful time in fact I will post more stories of the trip and some pics soon.
Fast forward now to our last week and we had had a great night out with friends for drinks but during the night Chris felt unwell and was rushed to hospital, it turned out she needed an operation and had to be kept in for a while, we had to change our return travel plans but at least we had a few days to recover. The healthcare Chris received was absolutely superb at The Bangkok Pattaya Hospital so thanks again to all there. Chris is now well on the mend and seems to be in good health now probably better than she has been for a long while now.
We had to change our return flights and returned to Newcastle by Emirates via Dubai – a long haul but as comfortable as cattle class can be! We then had to collect Celtic Princess from Durham as it has been having an overdue makeover so we headed back via Liverpool to Dublin ferry and arrived home on Thursday at 9 at night.
On arriving home we had more misery which we expected really, our neighbour had contacted us way back in January to tell us that we had a water leak at home and there was water gushing from the eves. On inspection he found that a pipe had burst in our loft and the resulting flood had brought two ceilings down, the burst pipe was due to the extreme weather, we had temperatures as low as minus 12 in January!
Whilst we knew about the damage nothing can really prepare you for the mess and even though the flood was 2 months ago the smell and damp remains, we are now faced with finding a builder and having extensive work done to both our bathroom and bedroom, this is in addition to the thousands of other jobs we have to do in preparation for this season. More to come about my first tours and the holidays next week!
The Scene at Newcastle Airport
Happy days on holiday!
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