"The long and winding road that leads to your door"

Well “the time has come the walrus said, to talk of many things,” and so our time on Corfu has come to an end. The Three months has flown by but it also feels as though we were there for an age. At 5am and in 26 degrees of heat we left our lovely Greek house and set off to Corfu Town for the ferry and saw our first sunrise in 3 months.

We left Corfu with the same amount of amusing confusion at the ferry port as when we arrived in June. Two ferries leave Corfu at the same time, two separate ferry lines Minoan & Annek, both running the same route so it was only understandable that the port authorities would tell passengers for both ferries to be at the same dock at the same time! As both the ferries steamed into port, passengers for the Minoan line (ours) were told that we should be ½ mile away at the new port. Consequently cars raced off in all directions, foot passengers had to power walk, dragging large suitcases behind them to the other dock. There seemed to be thousands of back packers of all nationalities queuing for the journey home, at this point and throughout the crossing we were so glad that at the last minute we’d managed to obtain a cabin!

People slept everywhere, in walkways, under-stairs, inside & outside, there where even a couple of tents & a hammock set up. It was like being at the aftermath of a massive teenage party!

First stop was the Greek mainland, which involved lots of complicated unloading and loading of various vehicles. Then 2 hours later we were sailing back past Corfu on our way to Venice!

All the TV’s on the ferry were tuned to channels showing the latest news of the tragic fires all over the mainland, which made us realise how small the mountain fire was that we had seen back in June.
Because of the large numbers on board all the restaurants were very busy, so we ended up sharing a table with two other couples. An Austrian couple who were both teachers & musicians and a Swiss couple who lived on the Italian side of Switzerland but spoke French to each other and spoke German to the Austrian couple & English to us. We had a fascinating couple of hours sharing tales of our experiences in Greece.

After a fairly early night we woke as the ferry edged its way into the port of Venice, it was 7 o’clock in the morning so it was deserted and looked even more beautiful than we had seen it 3 months earlier. We set the Sat-Nav up to go to Sheila’s & hit the road. We arrived in Simione mid morning and Sheila had cooked us a “Full English”! Still confused & “ferry lagged” after 3 months living a rustic Greek lifestyle, Keith very nearly went to the toilet in Shelia’s bidet by mistake & so nearly put the paper in the plastic water bucket next to her washing machine, sorry Shelia! Later after a bit of retail therapy and a glass of wine (no cameras broken) we headed off for Debbie & Franco’s in Milan for an overnight stop.

Deborah had made us a huge turkey pie, as she too thought it would be nice for us to have some “English style” cooking for a change! We had no problem finishing it off & with the help of a bottle of Red wine that had managed to travel outside of Greece and still taste ok, we tucked in & then went happily to bed. Zzzzzzz.

Wednesday morning up early & off to Heidelberg to stay with Liz’s brother and family. By now the weather had started to change & the temperature was dipping down to the low 20’s. We hit rain before we reached the Alps but it was still an amazing journey through the mountains & lakes.

We arrived at Paul’s between 5 & 6pm the kids were away so Paul & Milena were giving their house a complete makeover, none the less Milena had prepared the most delicious Italian food & with a couple of bottles of red wine we had a chilled out evening, dining out in their pretty courtyard followed by a stroll round their local town. We slept very well in their superb annex!

On Thursday morning we set off on the last leg of our journey up to Brugge to catch the overnight ferry to Hull. This time we drove up through Germany, which was very different from the drive down through France 3 months ago. The German autobahns have got to be experienced to be believed, they are so fast. Which was ok for Liz (behind the wheel) but having experienced Paddy’s driving @ Mach2 on the autobahn before, I was building my version of the Berlin wall until the Belgian roads kicked in, then we slowed down to a sedate 90mph. Think I saw lots of vineyards in the Mosel region of Germany but in all honesty it was all a bit of a blur!!

The one thing we did notice was how much space there is in Europe compared with islands like Corfu & Britain, such vast areas of land between towns all the way from Switzerland right up to the coast in Belgium.

The ferry was the usual cross channel stuff except that now the smoking ban has kicked in the only place one could smoke was in the cabaret lounge. The “turn” must have thought they were the best thing since sliced bread, they weren’t, it was the only place that smokers anonymous could gather on board so the lounge was packed. We had an outside cabin with a window for the journey, & as dawn broke we watched Hull sail into view on a grey Friday morning. Welcome Home!!!!!!
We have been home for 3 weeks now, back at work, central heating on, wearing socks and shoes, watching telly, goin‘t’ pub, RAIN! Home sweet home. Still we have a few gigs booked to look forward to, Crowded House, Police and an evening with Frank Skinner …… and Liz is working!!!! 6 months contract (aren’t they all)

And of course we have got Christmas in Australia to look forward to and so have you guys because we are going to keep on bloggin !!!

“Workin 9 to 5 What a way to make a livin”