Holiday Begins

It's official, we are in fact on holiday. In fact I've been "on holiday" since Thursday evening when I got home from work. The first task of the weekend was hiring a transit^* van and picking up table from Fliss' Mum's to replace the rather crappy white plastic one that currently fills our garden. We now have a surfeit of outdoor seating.

We headed up to Manchester for the start of our brief circuitous loop around the midlands and the north west. The rather helpful Anne and Ed came over to pick over various bits of the cellar that where skip bound. A little food bribery later and they stayed for a few more hours and helped us bag up and move the initial chunk of the cellar into the van. I'm very grateful as it made the surprisingly large mountain of crap not seem so massive the next day when I started loading it into the van at 6.30 in the morning.

The main driver for this uncharacteristically early start to the day was the absolute back marker of having to be in Buxton at 16.00, preferably having had a chance to change in time for Tom and Jules wedding. I also needed to have emptied the house of everything and get the keys to the estate agents for the hopefully, fingers crossed, touch wood, soon to be completed exchange of contracts.

It was a little sad waving goodbye to the old house but hopefully I'll not be stranger to Manchester even if I won't be laying my head down in Stretford in the future. It was also a lesson in how much crap you can accumulate through living somewhere for 7 years. I feel guilty enough as it is throwing this stuff away. At least the electronics and TV's were separated at the recycling centre.

We made it to Buxton with an hour or so to spare which gave us time to wash the smell of the tip off and be ready for the ceremony. Other people have better write-ups and some picture can be found here. It was a fantastic bash although by the time the music had finished I was starting to fall asleep. I managed to finish my last pint in the cockerel bar before leaving the others too make rude jokes.

Sunday morning was filled with tea and cakes in Buxton centre before we headed off for a long drive through the peaks of Derbyshire to visit some family. P&C as always were excellent hosts and ensured we had a lovely evening with plenty of flowing conversation. I did a little statutory computer^** support and we then finished off a number of bottles of wine before heading to sleep.

Today was a sprint back to Cambridge to get the van back in time and the traditional day before panic while we checked where our passports where. Tomorrow we start our European train odyssey. Reports may be limited but I'm looking forward to it.