As usual, it was pretty hard to say goodbye to Jen and Grahame. When you share such a small space for that amount of time, you get to know people pretty intimately. Jen and I discovered we were in harmony, especially badger wise.
We both ordered Ubers to get to Europcar hire company, and wouldn’t you know it? We ended up there at pretty much the same time! Goodbyes all over again!
For us, it was visiting the Stoke Europcar office for the second time. We completed the paperwork for our rental today, then tried to sort our rental for the debarcle we’d experienced 2 weeks ago.
We remained civil. Well, John did. I started choking up, just trying to explain how distressed we were two weeks ago when nobody turned up at their office. Europcar passed the buck. Again and again. For example:
‘Rachel was manager on duty that day, and she’s not here now because today’s her birthday and she’s celebrating in Manchester so we can’t call her’. Fair enough. If I were Rachel, I wouldn’t want my birthday sickie interrupted either!
We remain hopeful our £102.00 penalty for not picking up our car on the 7th will be refunded. But we will never use Europcar again!
Winging our way down the M6, M5 then the M40 brought us to Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire for our afternoon tea rendezvous with Avril and Bob.
Avril is my dad’s cousin, and when I was 14, I lived with them and went to school in nearby Berkhampstead. We’ve made a point of visiting them every time we’re in the UK.
Both nearly in their 90’s, Bob now has vascular dementia and Avril is being very stoic. Sadly, they also lost their youngest son Tony, aged 53, to cancer in March. It was a very sobering visit and made us realise that the phrase ‘time waiteth for no man’ is a pretty good mantra to remember.
It was lovely to see them, and I know we brightened their day because they said so!
From travelling quickly southwards, we made a massive right hand turn, joined the M4, and headed west.
Our Airbnb was in a tiny hamlet just outside Chippenham, called North Wraxall. With that typical Cotswold look, all the houses were built in picture perfect creamy coloured stone. The houses surrounded the beautiful 15th-century church of St. James.
The Airbnb itself was a converted barn. Stunning Reno.
Very quiet, no shops, no pub.
But it did have this.
It was maintenance time. Clean clothes, clean hair, bag unpack/ repack. Scrambled eggs for dinner! Amen.
Kanga And Wombats Adventures 