We had a slow start to the day after our travel time last night. Kim went out for a dog walk and then we both went and took the train to Basingstoke, like old times!
We saw Curtis’ cousin and his wife and child for the first time! We had some Nandos, lots of conversations and just a really fun time overall!
We took the train back to Kim’s parent’s place and continued to sort out remaining items to keep/not keep.
We had veggie meatballs for dinner and then after dinner Curtis watched the final Great Britain hockey game.
Day 2
We went out for breakfast and then Kim went out to Thorpe Park (the theme park) with Abbie! Curtis had a chill day and did very little.
When she got back, Kim walked the dog again and then Curtis met his friends Ben & Josh for dinner! They went to a Nepalese place in the town, which Curtis didn’t know even existed.
Day 3
This day was another relaxed one, with a baguette being purchased and eaten from the same place as before, of course.
We visited Curtis’ family and when the kids got home from school, we went to the shop with Curtis’ sister, Evie, to buy a few supplies and just hang out a bit.
We went to visit Kim’s family friend Debbie at her house and there were quite a few people there to say hi to us! Kim got to see a lot of people she hadn’t gotten to see yet, which was lovely, and we had some drinks and snacks too.
Day 4
This day was spent packing and getting everyting sorted out, as well as a few remaining items left to sort from when we lived there.
We took the dog out for one final walk and then had a really lovely final dinner with the family at Wagamama, our favourite Japanese food chain in the UK. This was great as a lot of our family were there so we had a great little last time!
We had a drink or two at a pub down the road after and then headed back home to sleep before having to fly the next day.
Day 5
We got a lift to the airport and said our goodbyes, with a few tears from Kim.
We had breakfast at a bakery in the airport which was surprisingly nice and then we went to get a coffee and relax.
We decided to book extra legroom seats for the way home and that was much better! This flight was super easy and we were able to be more comfortable and get a bit of sleep on the 9 hour flight, too.
When we got home, the airport took FOREVER but we finally got through it and onto the train home.
We arrived back home and did very little. It was great to be back at home but we did miss everyone back in the UK!
We started day 8 with going to get a car rental! We picked up a small Toyota Aygo and set off for breakfast at the McDonald’s that Curtis used to work at when he was younger.
After breakfast, we set off on a drive to Wales! We aren’t sure where in Wales it was, but we were visiting a friend there!
We got to her house after a few hours of driving and we sat and chatted for a while before we went out for lunch at a nice local cafe.
Post lunch, we jumped back in the car and drove off to Plymouth! We have a few friends that live there, so we drove down to see them, have some dinner and drinks and just chat a bit.
When we arrived, though, we had to drive around Plymouth which is just hills! A bit crazy and not super fun to drive or park on. We got parked up and luckily we had a friend that was letting us stay with them overnight, which was nice.
We had a curry for dinner at an Indian restaurant with a bunch of people and by the time we ate and left it was already bed time! We headed back to the apartment and went to sleep. We had another drive the day after so a good sleep was required.
Day 9 – Bournemouth, UK
We were up early and we drove out to Bournemouth!
We had a concert to see so we thought it made sense to keep the car for the extra day and drive to Bournemouth from Plymouth.
We were staying at a Premier Inn again because it’s practical and we know it’s nice!
We got ourselves settled and then we went out to a Sigrid concert. This concert was a small intimate concert and was very short but was amazing!
We left the concert and had a bit of a walk around Bournemouth and then grabbed some KFC for dinner.
Day 10 – Andover & Basingstoke, UK
Once we headed to a nice cafe for breakfast, we had a bit of a walk at the beach in Bournemouth, which we both used to go to with our families when we were younger.
We drove back to Andover and then off to Basingstoke for a bit of shopping with Kim’s family.
We took the car back after we were done in Basingstoke and then we had to pack to go to Norway!
We went to have pizza with Curtis’ dad and it was really nice to see him, too.
We stayed overnight at Curtis’ family’s house and then off to Norway we go!
The next blog will be about some time in Norway, which was an awesome time with celebrations and lots of hanging out with friends.
It’s been 5 years or so since we’ve been in the UK so we thought it was time to visit the family and friends in our home land.
We arrived around 11:00, got picked up from the airport by Kim’s dad and then we went back to Kim’s parents’ place to stay.
We showered and went right out to get our first food item that we’ve been wanting to get for a while…A baguette!
There’s a baguette shop in our hometown (Andover) that sells terrific baguettes, so we walked down to get that and have some lunch.
We relaxed for a bit but stopping ourselves from sleeping after the long travel.
We went to see Curtis’ mum and then we both went with her to meet Curtis’ siblings from school and surprise them! They were surprised, as expected, and they both cried!
After picking up the kids from school, we stayed at Curtis’ family’s house for a bit and hung out with them until we got picked up by Kim’s sister, Abbie, and driven back to Kim’s parents’ for some Chinese food!
That was the end of the first day, which was mostly just getting acquainted with the timezone again and eating food.
Day 2 – Andover, UK
We finally got to take the dog out for a walk with Kim’s family. It was nice to see the doggo again too and be able to take a walk around places we used to walk around a lot.
We needed to go to the bank to get some boring admin stuff sorted but it was good to get that done. We had to visit 2 banks in total but we did it all in a day!
There was a bunch of stuff that we had left in the UK that we really needed to sort out. There was a large pile at each of our parents’ houses so we each had a bunch of stuff to sort. We spent a lot of this day sorting Kim’s items and deciding what to keep (which wasn’t much!).
We had some leftover Chinese for dinner and watched a movie.
Day 3 – Andover, UK
It was time for another dog walk! We took the dog out for another nice long walk and had some decent weather too.
We then went out for brunch with Curtis’ parents at a ‘new’ garden centre, which was really tasty and nice to hang out with them.
Before heading out, we stopped in at our first UK shop on our trip so we had a great time walking around there finding all the great snacks and seeing how cheap everything is!
We had to get ourselves a UK SIM card for whilst we’re visiting which we can also use in other countries, so we went into the town to buy one of those.
Curtis then went back to his family home and cleared out his items that he left 5 years ago and mostly just got rid of everything!
In the evening, there was a really lovely family BBQ at Curtis’ family’s house with a lot of his family as well as Kim’s family so it was a really great gathering with great weather.
Day 4 – Andover, UK
We went out for breakfast with Kim’s family down at a local pub and then went out to Basingstoke for some shopping and wandering around! We used to love going there for shopping and a few other things so it was good to see what was there and Kim was able to take a look at a few shoe shops, too, to see if she could find something she needed.
Once the evening came, we met with a bunch of friends and had some drinks and pizza! We hadn’t seen most of them for many, many years so it was a lot of catching up, chatting and having a really good time!
We found it easier to stay in Basingstoke, so we booked in to a Premier Inn, which is one of our favourite chain hotel brands in the UK so we wanted to stay there too!
Day 5 – Andover, UK
We had breakfast out at the pub again on this morning and then we went over to visit Kim’s sister at her house and see the house for the first time which was amazing to see!
We then had a really nice picnic in the garden as it was Kim’s mum’s birthday! This one was of our more relaxed days which was really nice to have.
Day 6 – Andover, UK
This was a day of meeting with our friends!
Kim met with 2 friends separately, Ashleigh & Eloise, and she had a bunch of really great conversations with them!
Whilst Kim did that, Curtis met with Shane, who was his best man at his wedding. He had lunch with him, and some drinks which was great to catch up. There was a lot to talk about.
We went out to Curtis’ auntie’s house to see her and her family and it was very, very nice to see them.
Dinner was at Curtis’ family’s house which was really nice to get some time with them and Curtis got some home cooking from mum!
Day 7 – London, UK
We took the train to London in the morning which was exciting! We love taking the train and it was super easy from where we used to live.
We did some walking around/shopping, as you do in London, before we went to meet Kim’s cousin, Bethany, in Camden!
Kim used to love going to Camden so we went there to go to the food market with her cousin, who is super lovely and we had a great time chatting and wandering around with her.
Once we finished up with Bethany, we took a train to a place we’d never been to before called Kingston. We met with a friend who lives there and had some dinner with her as well as a nice walk along the river.
We had to take a couple of trains to get back to Andover but we were close to the final train so we had to get a move on and do that! It took a while but we were able to get back home for some sleep after a really busy but amazing day!
We were away for a long time, so this is just part one, but it’s been a while since there were any blogs, but enjoy!
Mr & Mrs Hale 