Kitting Up

The Old Fisherman
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Week 2

Sunday 6 April

We are in West Reading where we ended up basing ourselves while we bought cars and vans.

Temperatures have dropped from a balmy 10 deg to ZERO!

Anne in Snow
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Its snowing, 2 to 3 inches on the ground after about an hour. Pictures show some very slight evidence of a little bit of dementure in some Aussies taking in the Sunday morning air.

A drive in the country amongst the snow was simply beautiful. The snow did not affect us at all and the sun came out in the afternoon and it soon melted.

Lunch was 4 roast beefs in the Red Lion at Theale. Been there several times and are recognised now and had long chats with the bar ladies. Found out that England is having trouble with its anti-smoking laws and 10 pubs a week are closing. Not good when you think about the family focus that English pubs provide.

White House
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The Red Lion has a free wireless internet so we made ferry bookings to Ireland and checked our emails. Not able to upload to the blog but will do very soon.

Why West Reading? The house mistress committee had consulted several trade magazines and concluded that around Reading was the place to look and advised Rob and me. It turned out to be a very good choice. We did zoom about the place, 100 mile to the north and then 100 mile to the west for comparisons at what were advertised as large dealers. There were some real surprises from Ma and Pa kettle with their business in a falling down barn (biggest ad in the magazine) to very high pressure highwaymen.

Theale
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We visited about 4-5 car dealers and van dealers and settled for Swindon for the cars and West Reading for the vans.

Bought 2 caravans today. They are almost identical and in good condition. They have central heating!! Around 17' internal length and 1300 to 1400 kg max weight. UK vans are very different. We are very happy with the deals for the cars and vans, better than we originally expected.

We can now relax a bit and go to Ireland while the dealers get the cars and vans ready. We pick up the cars on 14 April and the vans on 15 April.

The Red Lion
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We are in business, almost. At least we will not be homeless! After Ireland we need to get kitchen stuff (the lovely ladies have a list) bedding stuff (another list) etc.

We were slowed up a bit in this afternoon with some snow flurries as we drove north west towards Hollyhead.

The plan is to go from Hollyhead to Dublin by ferry and then what ever happens in the following week.

What a first week! Achieved a lot, got messed up a lot and had a lot of fun, pubs and snow.

Anne and Dick
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We all want to thank Kathryn for setting up the blog and getting it started. Particular thanks from me for getting me on the right track to add stuff. Hope you all like the 'stuff'. It is a bit hard providing the 'stuff' on the run so updates will always be irregular and not daily. There are too many distractions and internet access for pictures is not always easy or cost effective. Prices are ₤3 to ₤5 for 15 mins. Its simply not possible to mention everything.

April 7

Arrived in Dublin around 2.00pm. and headed south (might be a few points of a degree warmer?). Everything is in Euros so getting in practice for later........... More soon.