UK Trip Day 32 Farewell dinner at Susan's

Farewell dinner with friends

It's our last full day at Susan's place before returning home to Maleny and Susan has invited her long standing friends Christine and Thomas and Jane and Eddy over for lunch so we can say farewell.
John and Susan spent the morning preparing food for our guests, while Barb helped by vacuuming and tidying.

The dogs did their part by playing in the garden. Bella is recovering well from her recent surgery to remove some lumps from her neck and shoulders. She has been wearing an old T-shirt for a few days and has been scratching a bit, but the wounds appear to be healing well. She comforts herself with her favourite toys, including the vampire bat toy she got at Whitby.

Jane, Eddie, Thomas, Christine, Susan, John

Same gang, with Barb taking Eddie's place and Eddie taking the photo

Bella hogged the new bat toy - mum Daisy didn't get a look in

Daisy enjoys her walks in the wheat fields

 

Bella is so proud of her new toy

 

Will miss walking the dogs in these fields

Daisy seems to be enjoying the hydrotherapy she has been having a couple of times a week to help with her arthritis. And she still likes going out for walks although she does tire easily, so that the return walk is a lot slower than the outward one. We'll really miss these beautiful dogs when we leave. They both have really loving natures and enjoy lots of cuddles and petting and are forever presenting toys such as their pheasants, and latterly the bat, for admiration. It's hard to love a toy pheasant made gooey with dog dribble, but how can you say no?

We dined inside in Susan's formal dining room, as outside was too hot and there was a threat of rain (Heat and rain? C'mon, this is an English summer!). It was lovely to see Susan's friends and there were a lot of laughs along with the champers. We always enjoy seeing these guys each time we visit the UK and it's good to know Susan has the support of such lovely friends, with family being so far away.

We spent the rest of the evening packing. It's amazing how much extra stuff you accumulate on holidays. Luckily we had packed an extra soft bag (luckily my foot, it was in anticipation of buying Stuff) and were a long way under our baggage limit on the way here, so hopefully even with the extra stuff we won't exceed the allowance. Geoffrey arrived back later that night after a week long trip to Budapest to attend a series of Wagner Ring cycle and kindly regaled us with tales of his experience.

We tried to book a coach from Stansted airport round to Gatwick and were horrified at the cost - £60 or more.  Still worse was the schedule length of the trip, 4 hours or more, and the need to change coach en route. Susan has very kindly offered to drive us to Gatwick on Friday, where we'll spend the night at an airport hotel before flying out the next morning. (Late Extra - traffic on the M25 on Friday afternoon is always appalling, but the FOUR hours it took her to get home was much worse than I recall.  What a martyr to our cause). Susan has been so kind and generous to us this whole visit and it's been great to have the use of her Mini Cooper too so we could get around and see so much.

Neither of us much look forward to the long haul flight home, but needs must. Bye Bye UK!