Portsmouth, Windsor and Morecambe
After leaving the housesit in Devon and the beloved Freddy behind, we headed to Portsmouth for 3 days.
Andrew (ex military man) had a HMS Fearless, Battle of Falklands (40 years) reunion black tie even that we had effectively built the UK itinerary around. Arriving Friday late afternoon to a blisteringly warm Portsmouth, we parked up the bikes and headed straight out for a beer. Further to a change we went to meet friend Joe for an Indian dinner. The big event was Saturday evening - dolled up in his (rented) suit and shoes borrowed from Joe! and my little black number that I had packed from Perth and subsequently packed at the bottom of my bike pannier, we headed off to meet up with Andrews old unit who were in the Falklands in 1982.
Next saw us on a ‘hany’ 3 day cat sit in Old Windsor. This was a strategic tactic on our part so that we had free digs for a pre planned Perth gang reunion! Tom, now based in London and girlfriend Fiona, just flown into the UK to see UK family. It was a perfect stormy day to sit in the pub all afternoon (and evening!!), drink lots and have a great catch up.
Fortunately we had a whole day to recover from the drinking session before heading north from Windsor to Morecambe, 250kms on boring british busy motorway. An overnighter with cousin Ali in Morecambe which happened to be the Queens Jubilee celebrations so we even experienced a sing along and fireworks - in the rain! - on Morecambe Promenade.
Still raining the following morning we set off for the remaining 1.5hrs to north of Keswick in the Lake District for our 2 week housesit at the foothills of northern Lakes peaks.