Goodbye Devon

Goodbye Devon

Rich & Rach had organized for Granny to come over for lunch with us before we head off, Nathan & I had to run some errands in Braunton before going so we said we’d give her a lift. We head out to Tesco’s around midday to get some chocolate to send home to my sister. Chocolate in Australia is no where near as good as it is in England, apparently they put something in it to stop it from melting in the heat, that something makes it taste like ass. So we spent 14 pounds on chocolate & 19 pounds on postage. Making that 3.5 kilos of chocolate very expensive so she better enjoy every single bite. Unfortunately, when we got to Tesco’s I reached to the back seat of the car for my crutches, which weren’t there. I was so used to leaving them in the car as I’m now ok to walk short distances around the house, I didn’t think to check. Neither did Nathan, which was unusual as he’s always on my back about being careful & taking them with me everywhere. I think he’d duct tape them to my hands for the 6 weeks if he could!
So I had to walk around Tesco without them, it was ok... as first. I quickly found the pain had sprung up on me & we had to hobble around getting what we needed so I could sit.

We head to the Post Office to send off the chocolate & tried to get some dollars converted to euros, which we had to first convert to pounds, but the Post Office didn’t accept Nathan’s card. So we had to dash to the bank first. Which meant parking a bit closer to it & more walking. We went inside & asked the lady who pointed outside, so Nathan went out to get some cash.
“I have a really strange request” I said to the lady behind the desk.
“I moved to Australia a while ago & my sister had the idea to use 1 & 2 penny coins to take home & make a mirror from them. Could I possibly get some pennies?” She giggled at me & thought it was a great idea. Without further a do I passed her 4 pounds and she slid me 200 1 pennies & 100 2 pennies. Nathan’s going to love carrying these around!

We head back to the post office to convert the pounds to Euros & perfect timing Granny rocked up & jumped in the que behind us. She’d taken the key home from the hotel & had to post it back.
She said I could put all my weight on her & Nathan if I wanted, however she is fairly shorter than me so It would of been a very wonky walk!

We got back & everyone had eaten, surprise surprise we were late. We’d got Rich & Rach a bottle of wine & some chocolate to say thank you. It was definitely not enough for all they’d done for us though.
We scoffed down some food & afterwards I sat out side with Granny, Rach & Dylan whilst Nathan snuck away to play Wii.
I was in a lot of pain so Rach gave me some dissolvable panadol & I lay on a picnic matt in the sun.

We packed the car & said our goodbyes, we were so gutted to be leaving it felt like we’d only just arrived. We have had such an amazing time in England I can’t thank everyone enough for their hospitality, for welcoming Nathan into the family & for the help with my injury. It was a teary moment for us driving away.

We left around 4.30 pm to catch a ferry at 2.30 am. It was a 6 hour drive but we are amazing at getting lost so we gave ourselves a lot of leeway. Before we even got onto the motor way we got lost, we were in the wrong lane to go left so Nathan had to do a loop around the roundabout, which takes a long time in England! There’s several red lights & they seem to go on forever. Without me noticing he somehow took the same exit we’d just come from & we were on our way back to Barnstaple, but we didn’t notice for about 20 minutes. This was when we had our first argument of the journey! We quickly found a roundabout & head back again, take two.
From here on it was smooth sailing, we had a few toilet stops & a sneaky wifi break to check Facebook. We made it to the ferry port 3 hours early... we were both so hyped up on coke, biscuits, chocolate & energy drinks we couldn’t sleep. We sat out the front for about half an hour before the cars started going through, I noticed a search team up ahead pulling cars over Nathan & I agreed that the caravan in front would definitely get pulled over for searching. Surely enough it did.
We were guided all around the port to the ferry & Nathan accidentally got in the priority lane for boarding so we were one of the first ones on.