Last full day in the UK... See you next year...

Taken at around 6 am on my last day at Theddingworth, a lovely sunrise but it was freezing cold. A day of packing and shopping for food to take back with us.
In between I managed to get the drone up twice, in the morning, then again late afternoon after the batteries had charged. I was quite pleased with the footage and even let Rémy fly it for a bit at low level. He seems to be a natural.
Mme MB is to drop me at Market Harborough to get my train to London tomorrow morning at 9 am. Then she'll travel to France with our kids very early on Sunday.

Mixed feelings as usual coming home. Travel worries and haivng to leave a day early stressed me out a bit. I'm also aware that although those we've seen have been lovely during our visit, I know that once I'm back in France I won't be hearing from them very often. It is always strange and I'll never get used to the "distance".

Yesterday I heard from an old CB friend of my Dad's via Facebook (I had posted some CB era photos on a local history group months ago), which was a really nice surprise. I suppose I was hoping we'd have a bit of a catch up, but it seems they had other ideas and cut the conversation short.
I'm a senstive soul, the memories from 40 years ago came flooding back and I just felt a bit disappointed. I'd love to toughen up, but it is something that happens a lot when I hear from someone in the past. When they hear I'm in a totally different country, I tend to get dropped like a stone. When I left in 1997 my "friends" ceased contact quite quickly afterwards. I still don't understand why? Jealousy? Perhaps? There is absolutely no reason to be! Perhaps it sounds like I'm bragging when I say I now live in France. Certainly not my intention, it is just a *fact*. It's definitely not "Escape to the Château". Yes it is nice living here and I've been very lucky, but as a family we have the same ups and downs as anybody would have back in the UK. Living in France doesn't magically make things better than living over there!

Anyway, that's it for another year. We'll be back in 2026. I can't make the trip to the UK often as it is so expensive. So if people didn't get to see us while we were there, well, they have to wait a year. :-)