This year we have had to get used to waving goodbye to each other as we attempt epic journeys. At the beginning of the year it was of course the 6,000 mile journey from San Francisco to Heathrow and latterly it has been the equally time consuming drive to Cornwall. It felt just the same on Wednesday morning when I drove through Stevenage ("twinned with the planet of the roundabouts") and dropped off J and H at the railway station.
I had made the same journey myself a couple of weeks before so I knew full well the effort required. Fortunately Harriet is better set up these days because she is now eating solid food (well not solid exactly, but non-milk food). It must be an amazing experience, having been used only to milk, to suddenly meet your first banana custard. Her face was a picture but we got a surprisingly good amount of custard eaten and she has never looked back (actually she has vetoed cauliflower cheese but who can blame her?).
Their destination was Yorkshire and their mission was to pick up the new Land Rover. After all my previous optimistic blogs I'm not going to say too much but (*touching wood, rabbit's feet and horseshoes etc) it seems to be going well. The new truck is very similar to the old one but with a few improvements. One of the benefits of having had the previous landy was that I knew a bit more of what to check. Thanks to this I immediately identified the dodgy lock on the rear door and they replaced it. This time it came with a full tank of fuel so no repeat of the last unwelcome break in a layby. Compared to the truck we last bought (although we don't really know what that was) this one is a year older but has done 30k fewer miles and seems to run well.
Well, fingers crossed this blog has jinxed us.
