So we have arrived! Finally! It has been a long journey to get to this moment and we are so grateful that we have been able to pull it off. We got to OR Tambo early, and Sam and I could hardly believe that it was happening. We didn't really even get a chance to be excited about things. We had some last minute goodbyes from Rob and Dominic and Cleodene, which made the wait a little more relaxed and easy. Walking down to the flight making some last minute phonecalls was an emotional time, a bittersweet moment as we waved goodbye to South Africa for now.
Our journey on Emirates was great, two easy flights, good seats, good food and both on time. As we arrived over London we were put into a holding pattern for 20 minutes, above a thick carpet of cloud. Welcome to Old Blighty! some might say. Clearing through passport control was very easy, as I was able to join the queue with Sam and was allowed in with no issues at all. Our luggage was out very quickly. Some of you know we have very bright purple suitcases with white and pink spots! Not the most masculine kit ever, but very effective for easy identification!
We have hired a car for the first 5 days, so we got that sorted out and then went off to find the Emirates Cargo building to get the balance of the suitcases we sent earlier last week. The GPS duly took us to the address provided by Servisair when we were in Jozi. One minor issue, when we got there all we found was a building site! Convinced then that the GPS was wrong, we proceeded to drive around in circles for a few minutes. I stalled the car a few times (we have a Golf 6 Tdi which needs a few revs to get going) which was making me more and more frustrated to add to the challenge. Eventually we found someone to ask, and to our relief, it turns out that the building site is there because the facility burnt down. Luckily, the burning down thing happened last year, so our luggage was not burnt to a crisp in the fire in question. We took the directions from the helpful guy, and off we went. Turns out he was spot on because we drove straight up to the door of the Emirates Cargo facility. We only had to wait 20 minutes for the luggage after paying some customs duty. Making the payment was a un-nerving experience, as it turns out, we have made many more purchases since then so it was just early jitters!
Its a good time to tell you we do have pictures of our adventure so far, but we have yet to unearth the cable for the camera, so we will post some pictures as soon as we can.
We obviously were very anxious to see our boys, and went straight down to Wey Farm to see them. It was very tough for both of us, and I think for the boys too. Jinx has been unwell and had therefore been seperated from Tigger for the last two weeks. As a result, he was not happy to be back inside a cage with another cat, even if it was his brother. They were still hissing at each other when we arrived. and then although happy to see us, proceeded to scold us for at least an hour for putting them through their trip and incarceration. We spent an hour and a half with them, and only left once we had both boys settled and sleeping and happy that they had seen us. It was a joy to see them, but we left feeling pretty miserable about how upset they were.
Finding the ferry in Southampton was also pretty easy, and it was a real novelty to drive our car up onto the ferry and go upstairs for the trip. As we left the harbour Sam and I thought it would be a good idea to go up onto the open deck, needless to say we soon understood why only one or two weather beaten locals were sitting on the deck. Lets just say the breeze could have frozen a chicken in a few minutes! Speaking of the weather, although we landed under some cloud, the weather improved all day, and by the time we got to the Isle, blue sky was appearing and it was a pleasant evening.
We met Jody at the home in Cowes, a picture of which I posted on Facebook on the day. We are so grateful to Jody and Mark, they have provided the home at a reasonable rental to us, and it really is fabulous. It has a nice large kitchen with a table for our meals, a bathroom downstairs, lounge and laundry. Also a deck and wendy house in the back garden. Upstairs we have two bedrooms and the main bathroom, and then a third large bedroom on the top floor. The only thing is the stairs are super steep, as in mountaineers keep knocking on the door asking if they can use the steps for climbing practice steep. And one or two of the door frames are a bit low, but two good cracks on my head has trained me like Pavlov's dog to duck my head when going into the bathroom! The central heating also works well, and the house is warm. It is fully furnished and well stocked so it has been very easy to settle into.
On Friday it was coldish and raining, but we went down to Newport anyway to do some shopping for groceries and also to look for the laptop that we finally bought in the afternoon. We got a great deal on a very well specc'ed Toshiba laptop, sold to us at Curry's by a South African guy. Small world I guess! Shopping for electronic goods drives home one of the realities of SA, in that the pricing here is 30 to 40% cheaper! So we are not complaining. At one stage in the supermarket we had to phone Kerri, who has been on the island for 9 months now, to ask her which brand of washing powder to buy. She thinks like us for sure, as her answer was what ever was on special!
On Saturday morning we woke up to clear blue skies and it was a beautiful day. We did some more shopping and bought a TV (more on that later), and then went to Conan and Kerri for a braai in Ryde. They live in a very nice area and we had a great afternoon. Jody and Mark joined us as well and so it was festive. We did a Pork roast and some sausages on the fire, so not exactly a propper Saffer braai, and by the time the meat was ready it was 3 degrees outside, so a little different from what we are used to!
Today we travelled over to Portsmouth on the hovercraft, which is quite an experience, very quick and fairly smooth across the water, although for some reason it still makes me a little green. Conan has been kind enough to let us use his car on the mainland and so we took a drive up to Woking to see the boys. They were much better today, but Jinx is still very grumpy with us. He said hello and soaked up some love, and then went and sat at the door and meeuwed asking his mom to open the door so he could go home. That really pulled on our heart strings but I guess he will do that more than once to us over the next 6 months! We finished off the day watching Moto GP and Top Gear on our new TV, and look forward to a good week finalising my work and finding Sam work too. And for the first time in a long time, I don't have Sunday blues.
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