Not a huge amount to report over the weekend. Dinner with Leah’s folks on Friday night (thank you to them!), then off to see 30 Days of Night which wasn’t too bad. Well filmed, poorly ended and otherwise nothing spectacular.

Dinner with my folks on Saturday night, with Sylvia and Tony – two very long-standing family friends who I’ve not seen in maybe seven years. Lovely to catch up with them and a long night was had chatting away and watching the dogs run rampant like spoiled children.

Sunday saw me back in TX Maxx buying the salopettes I was after, plus a new pair of trousers. Shame I can’t seem to find anywhere selling decent 3/4-length skateboarding shorts as I had to ditch my pair. They had gone past “funkily well-worn” to “trashed”.

I’m typing this up far too late in the evening having swapped my rucksack for a large Samsonite bag which will hold more stuff. Were I heading to Asia again, I’d have no problem fitting what I need into one day/laptop bag and one rucksack as I could dress light. Unfortunately, padded warm clothing plus light indoor wear and three changes of footwear does require something a little heftier than my trusty backpack.

Once again, I am leaving far too much stuff in my parents’ cellar, but it gives my dad an excuse for not doing the insulation. He’s not desparate enough to have the work done as to allow me to do it. I did volunteer. Mind, you’d have to be really desparate to concede to let me do any DIY.

So off to bed. I’ll be up at 6:45am, in the car half an hour later and checking in by – hopefully – half eight or thereabouts. Next update whenever I get the chance and hopefully regularly afterwards.

Not a whole lot of activity on the “going places” front over the week. I’ve been bobbing up to Dundee to help Leah move loft insulation and also to house-sit while she got her interwebnet installed. On Thursday I did a quick trip round Glasgow to re-visit my two wonderful grannies, and my awesome cousin one last time before I left the country again.

My cousin’s got a Nintendo DS, which is something I’ve been considering myself if only for that brain training game thingy. I’m still tempted, but everywhere is the same price and there isn’t a bargain to be had. Quite annoying. Maybe I can pick one up in France in January. I assume they have sales.

This afternoon I have been mostly trying to decide on jackets and salopettes, courtesy of TX Maxx and cheap pricing. I’ve got a groovy green jacket with a gazillion pockets, but couldn’t find a pair of trousers I liked. Off up to the Dundee branch tomorrow. I could also do with better gloves, though I do have a pair that will suffice in the meantime.

I will likely make one last update to the blog on Sunday evening. After that, I’m not sure when I’ll be online again but seeing as I am the IT guy in France for my employers, it shouldn’t be too long!

I managed to make it up to Perth for a little after lunchtime. If you have a late lunch. Enough time to fill the few remaining nooks and crannies in the cellar with the bumph I had in the car and then up to Dundee for pizza, Leah and more fireworks!

The park round the corner from her flat hosts the large local display each year and it was worth the time spent standing in the cold. Impressive fireworks set to some decent music. And a million billion blue light sabers in the crowd. I want one!

This makes four fireworks displays I’ve been to this year. Dundee, Hebden Bridge, Lightwater Valley and Vang Vieng in Laos…

We had a really long lie as both of us must have had a lot of sleep to catch up on. The beer / wine from the night before helped as well, I think! Kim sorted us out with cuppas and then we drove to Chris and Lyds’ (again!) where I filled up the car with the remains of the things I had left in their loft all those months ago.

Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to pop over to see Faisal and his new(ish) baby daughter. On the next visit, I promise. I dropped Sarah off for her return train with a hug and a promise that I would take her to see Whitby if she could get up here again sometime. I then headed north up as far as Tony & June’s where I unloaded the car for safety, and popped into Durham to see Fiona (a.k.a. Posh Bird).

I’d first met her in Hanoi, then caught up with her again in Brisbane and Melbourne. She turned out to be one of the few people who bothered to stay in touch (all you with business cards – no excuse!) and I hope always will. Dinner had been arranged on short notice. When I got back to Kim’s yesterday, I’d received a text message: “Hey, sorry I’ve not been in touch. I don’t have internet and I’ve been so busy. Hope I haven’t missed you and I get a chance to catch up before you leave again! I’m now living in York…” or words to that effect. Of course, yesterday we’d just been in York!

As luck would have it, though, Fiona was just outside Durham visiting friends and T&J once more agreed to give me a bed for the night so I could see her for dinner. As ever, it was a joy to spend a couple of hours with Fiona and recall how scatterbrained she is! A shame that despite 24 hour licensing, pubs still need to close at some point, and the night came to an end around 11pm.

An early start for a Saturday as I had to pick up Sarah from Leeds station at 9:35. I met her in London when I was couchsurfing with Lynne, and she said that she hadn’t seen the north of the country yet. A shame, as it’s far better than flipping London, so I invited her up for a weekend.

The weather was nippy but clear skies meant it was nice for a walk, and we drove to York where we tried to find somewhere relatively inexpensive to park. Realising that this was wishful thinking, we settled on a place that charges £4 all day and walked into the city centre.

York’s a lovely place and an ideal city to take visitors from outside the UK. Durham’s another favourite of mine, but York is more convenient from Leeds. The Minster is a wonderful building, but unlike most other cathedrals in the UK (and Europe) costs money to get inside. We just admired the stonework and wandered around the narrow streets.

The ramparts are good for a stroll and we circled the city on them, stopping briefly at a souvenir shop where the owner proved to be a very chatty and interesting bloke. We also spent a while in the gardens, laughing at squirrels running round with mouths stuffed full of nuts. Well, it’s getting to that time of the for the little blighters to start storing and nesting.

We settled on a nice pub outside of the central area for lunch and chatted for well over an hour before making our way back to the car and into Bradford. There we dropped our stuff at Kim’s and made our way to the centre where a completely free and secure parking space awaited us at the train station – thank you Chunky and GNER!

The train into Hebden Bridge was swift and packed. The local Rotary organisation put on a very impressive fireworks display each year. Unfortunately, we were too late to make it for the pre-fireworks festivities (rides, sideshows, hog roasts etc) but were in good time for the display itself. With a drink inside us and a warm feeling from Britain beating New Zealand 44-0 in the rugby (not that I care, but I just had to keep mentioning it to Sarah), we watched around £50,000 being blown up in a variety of pretty colours.

As the cold started to bite, we located another fairly empty pub and enjoyed a couple more beers until Chunky called to say he was finished work and we met him at the station for a lift to the Gasworks in Bradford. We didn’t stay long, but as ever I bumped into one or two people I’ve not seen for almost two years. Sarah had been out on the pop the night before, and had managed an hour’s sleep before catching the train, so not too long afterwards, we hopped in a taxi back to Kim’s and crashed out.

Oh, and thanks to Steve for the extra duvet as Kim only had one spare one!