Horsham and London - glorious weather

Today we are having a rest day at the Caravan Park at Barns Green outside Horsham where my cousin Linda lives. We are staying here eight nights, and will visit Ightham in Kent (where my mother’s family hail from) tomorrow.

On Saturday, we spent a delightful day with Linda (Tucker) and her husband Peter Harrison live. We met a couple of their friends (also Margaret & John) and Linda’s older son Dave, his wife and three children aged 7, 4 and 2. We had brought over some Australian books for the kids, and these were very well received, especially the travel picture book of Australia called Are We There Now? Sound familiar?

Like Ray and Trish in Banbury, and Ange in Southampton, Linda and Peter have been most welcoming and helpful. Things always seem to go wrong with the van or John’s wheelchair, and this time it was the ladder to the top bunk and the bedside lamp. Being without a working ladder could have been disastrous.

Yesterday we arose early and caught the 10.04 train from Horsham to London Victoria, where we met Lisa and Jereon, an English/Dutch couple. Lisa was a backpacker journalist in Sydney in 1999, and John supervised her work at the Physical Disability Council of Australia. She stayed with us for the first two weeks in Australia, and then travelled for a year prior to going to New Zealand.

Lisa has since married Jereon, a Dutchman she met in Australia, and they took us on a walking tour of Buckingham Palace, Westminster and the Thames embankment. Due to the brilliant weather (28 degrees and very sunny) there were masses of tourists around, and especially near the London Eye. There was a lot of entertaining street theatre as well. A wonderful day yet again, but exhausting.

However, John is now well over his medical problems, and is now simply dealing with tiring days, as am I. It still takes us four hours to get ready in the mornings due to the constrained space within the motor home. Nothing we can do about that really. We have become as efficient as possible, but no way around it, due to John's lack of independence, even to turn over in bed by himself. (It ain't like home).