Final Night....

I'm not sure how interesting this will be to other people, but I just wanted to record that this will be our last night in this house, our first home together!

We have spent today doing a lot of cleaning, and then at lunch time I popped out, bought some choccy biscuits, and drove out to meet my volunteering team for lunch. I had been hoping that we would be all ready by this morning, and that therefore I  would be able to spend the afternoon working at the nature reserve with the rest of the lovely Wildlife Trust Volunteers. But, sadly, we managed to stretch out the task of getting everything ready to hand over into all of the available time, so my visit to the nature reserve was brief.

While there, one of the volunteers, Colin, who I had become friends with during my short time there gave me something for my husband. It really was so sweet of him - he is a Saracens Rubgy team fan, and had remembered me saying previously that my husband was also a fan, and that he would love to see them play a home game before we leave the country. Next weekend is their final home game of the season, and they won't play again until potentially we have left the country. This lovely chap had a ticket for the game, but will be away with his wife and some friends for the weekend, so he brought me his ticket to give to Adam!! How wonderfully lovely and thoughtful of him :)

In return for this lovely gesture, I gave him my OS map of the area and a book of suggested walks. I have used these a bit while we lived down here, and Colin is a very keen walker so I thought he might be able to make use of them too. I'm sure he already knows everywhere covered by the book of suggestions, but he was very pleased with the map. It is the most recent version, and he said that his own one is mostly holes by now!

Photo taken previously for a post that never got written... Glad I had the picture though!

I felt sad to leave behind my map and my book - I have a huge sentimentally for both maps and books, and it would be lovely when we live abroad to have reminders of here. However, I felt it was happier that these things were being made proper use of, rather than languishing on a shelf somewhere. And besides, I have plenty more maps, and enough books to open a small library!

When I got home, I loaded up my car ready for the journey north tomorrow. My husband took a car load of stuff to the place where he will living during the week as of next Monday (I say "as of next Monday", but in reality he had been living there for a couple of months already. The only real change for him with be where he spends his weekends...). In the morning we will take the last of the rubbish to the tip - our local one has fantastic recycling facilities - and then load up his car. After a final check that everything is clean and in order with the house, it will only remain to wait for the house inspection to be completed, hand back the keys, and hit the road...  From one 'shire to another - Buckinghamshire to Nottinghamshire.

So there we have it, the final day of living in this house. I have enjoyed living 'down south', at least I love the countryside and some of the picturesque villages and market towns we have visited. I think we could have made more of our time here, but time does have a habit of escaping from you, doesn't it?

I'd love to say that the packing is over now, but once the cars are unloaded I will have to pack again, as on Friday I will be Herefordshire-bound for a long weekend Glamping for my sister-in-law-to-be's Hen Weekend!!  I'm also hoping to head from there on to Pembrokeshire to see my own mum, and maybe even to walk some of the coast path...  Hopefully I can squeeze in a lie-in somewhere along the way too... ;)

A few photos from Buckinghamshire:

Photos from the Pembrokeshire Coast Path near St Davids, taken on a short walk last year: