The last leg..............................part 1

St Albans is the last part of my journey and after 3 train rides from Birmingham plus a taxi, we made it to St Albans and to Sylvia (Simon's mum's house), It was for us time for a big Sigh, we have reached our final destination, the next place we go will be home to San Francisco.

Shortly after we arrived, Gilli and Stan arrived and he is the most adorable little boy we all had fun chatting, eating and drinking, after dinner, Gilli left and Simon and Sylvia had some fun bonding time writing stories and reading a book.

I am desperate for bed, I was lugging all the suitcases....however Nathaniel has other ideas!!

Eventually..... I got to sleep and suddenly find we have 9 days left, so what have we been upto the past week of our Hertordshire leg

Wed - a relaxing time until late afternoon with Sylvia, I explored the changes in St Albans and Nathaniel and grandma explored the fun of just being together, later that afternoon we headed over to The Pratt Household to spend some days and nights with Isabelle, Jessica, Lily and Nick,

Thurs - we had a playdate with Charlie, Jack and Sean which was a crazy few hours of boy play, the afternoon we hung out in the Garden of lily's house having some much needed out door time

Friday - we caught up with best friend Charlie Duffin, and it was fun, we then moved over to Stanmore to cath up with Greg and Rachelle before they headed out to France. Rachelle and I hit a bollywood night for great food and way too many drinks....of course this was regretted on saturday but we survived and Richard came over for dinner.

Sunday saw us relax at stanmore in the garden before I headed over to Hertford to catch up with gilli, Steve and Stan

Monday and Tuesday have been relaxing days I am getting tired and really beginning to get excited about heading back to the US and seeing Simon and my house. Nathaniel also feels the same.

not long now

Birmingham..............

Nathaniel and I left Newcastle on a very wet Monday morning, using British Rail and our travel card we sped south, The train are looking pretty nice since i last used them a few months ago or maybe it is just the East coast ones that are a bit slummy!!

The journey was only 3 hrs so we played games, dozed and ate our picnic lunch, i was just disapointed I got no phone reception at all. Arriving in Birmingham New Street, Daniel and Neil Robinson were there to meet us, we sped back to their house and had 24 hrs of fun with them and jacky and Frankie, playing, the nice walk along the canal and feeding the ducks, with - you guessed it rain!!!!

The next day we departed for our journey to ST ALBANS our final destination.

Glasgow and beyond

Tuesday - with John feeling a little queezy we decided to drag him round the science Center in Glasgow, as John has all his clocks set hours in advance we arrived there at 10.30 and spent 6 hrs learning how to build Rockets (and fire them across the park), juggle (with scarfs and balls and then moved on to spinning plates), blow bubbles and many other cool science things, we enjoyed a picnic lunch and a Nando's dinner,

then returned home to rest, a long day but........................John is feeling better.




Wednesday - Headed over to Loch Lomond after taking the train from Coatbridge to Balloch, again it was a very grey and wet day but we felt we could still see some amazing sites and it would be a fun train ride. Exploring the woods, seeing the lake and enjoying a pub lunch were some of the adventures we saw and also had the chance to introduce Nathaniel to Midgies, it was so exciting he wanted to back the next day too...




Thursday - Heading back over to Edinburgh to spend time with Julie, Cameron, Andrew and Gracie, after a few hours at their house we headed to Vogrie Country Park for a play and a picnic. The climbing frames were amazing and the kids had a lot of fun playing in the bushes and climbing trees, unfortunately the rain came down and although not too bad and certainly didnt bother the kids as they fished for frogs and tadpoles, during the pine cone hunt it just got so bad we had to make a dash for it! We are still drying off...............................................after a great mac and cheese dinner, we headed home exhausted! The day ended with torrential rain and thunder and lightening which had John hiding under the bed for the rest of the evening

Nathaniel with Cousins Andrew (left) and Cameron (right)

Friday - A very relaxing morning before we drove down from Coatbridge to Carlisle to meet mum who took us back to Newcastle, we stopped at Morrisons for some grub and then headed back, despite the rain, the journey was uneventful and since about 5pm the sun has actually been out making me extremely excited about tomorrow's prospects - we shall see!!



Only 2 days left in the North....................................