Home, Sweet Home

After 16 months away it was time to make our way home to the UK to recharge our batteries. Matt's batteries require: Ales, Pork Pies, Lincolnshire Sausages, Scotch Eggs, Friends and Family. Sarah requires less meat and more cheese.

After our brief stopover in Vancouver we touched down at Heathrow to be met by these clowns!

What a welcome party!

It was brilliant seeing Sarah's sister Katie dive through the barriers for a Broad girls reunion. Even better when Jamie was saying she'd spent the last half hour saying she'd definitely be restrained and stay behind the barrier!

Our whistle-stop social tour of England had begun. Leg 1 - jet-lag recovery at Al and Anna's for 2 nights. So - straight on the beer then.

Cheers!

Before meeting up with Katie and Jamie for a walk on the South Downs. Even though we lived in London for a good many years we got really confused by the network... Auckland's a bit of a toy town in comparison!

The South Downs were stunning and it was great to catch up with these guys, especially hearing all their stories of walking round South America for 3 months and cycling round the South of France for another 3 months!

Beautiful

Before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye to London and head up to our families. We did this using the quickest vehicle known to man - the hire car. Not quite sure how they accepted it back in one piece after most of the male members of my family had driven it round various fields, but they did!

First stop - drop Sarah off with her parents in Norfolk.

Returned in one piece, as promised!

And it was time to say goodbye for Sarah for a while as I went my way to Lincolnshire and Sarah stayed in Norfolk so we could both have time with friends and family.

Norwich Peeps!

Awaiting me in Bicker at my grandparents house was the Southern Cross proudly flapping in the wind!

In an English country garden

 Which definitely warranted a return trip the next day for some of my Grandma's amazing, and much missed, cooking. Here's the man of the house settling down with some good old John Smiths and a sirloin steak.

Grandpa

 Mum might read this, so I'd better put something about her cooking being good too.

Mum and Dad in front of the Lincolnshire mountains

 After far too short a time, it was off to see my brother and his family in Nottingham. This involved seeing my little nephew Caleb again (still cute, not little) and meeting my 16 month old niece Esme for the first time! After a couple of nights in Nottingham, we picked Sarah up at the local international transport hub (East Midlands Parkway) and headed en masse down to the Cotswolds. FUN!

Baker extraordinaire, Ney Bear

 We had a cottage for the Bank Holiday weekend and spent the weekend enjoying the local show, local food and big gardens/playgrounds for some racing against the kids.

Oh England

 Esme used about 6 words in total in front of me. But as I am gleefully resurrecting the role of "Uncle Knobhead" (Peter Kay, ithankyouverymuch) the only word I heard all weekend was nooooooo!

I can't imagine why...

Catering for Copes

I tried to take care of the kids - but my attention span often got the better of me. Resulting in beans getting the better of Esme.

Grumpy with me or with the menu?

 And for our final night, Katie and Jamie joined us!

Our cottage

 This little man was easy to keep entertained... How quick can you run round the garden? How quick can you run round the garden twice? Sadly, Chris and I also fell for the same simple lure of fun.

Caleb en vogue

 The sun finally came out for our last day in the Cotswolds. Whilst New Zealand has great scenery, it doesn't have any buildings more than about 200 years old. Bourton-on-the-Water blew us away. So did it's cream teas!

A rare moment of no wasps

 Back in the car and back to Nottingham. These two had some beans left so spent the next hour doing trampoline aerobics.

3... 2... 1... SUPERMAN!

Back in the hire car and back to Bicker. A quick hello from Sarah round the Cope family and then drop her off in Norwich at Emma's new house. Then back to Bicker. Phew. Time for some R&R with the parentals and a good walk down Frampton Marsh.

He's still got it. What's it? No-one actually knows.

 Frampton Marsh is, erm, a bit flat.

But beautiful all the same!

More goodbyes and then down off to Ely for a last meal with Sarah and her parents before onwards to London. But - we still had a tourist day with Al and Anna to look forward to and a big night out in Camden. So our hosts took us around the sights of London to try and tempt us back...

A new addition to London's skyline in our absence...
quite the views!

Followed by a cruise up the Thames

And a sighting of King Kong

And my favourite bit of London, the South Bank

 Back to Al and Anna's newly refurbished house... shower and rejuvenate (tea, tea, tea) and back into town for some long overdue catch-ups with good friends and a big night of partying at Ultimate Power - a club night of non-stop power ballads. Here's a collage of some of the night. Thanks everyone for coming along!

Good times!

 I'll blame it on the tiredness, but I had a lovely sleep in the taxi at 3am. Then a lovely sleep on the kebab shop table at 3.15 am. The manager didn't take kindly to that, so I had a little sleep on the pavement whilst Al collected our order.

They say a picture tells a thousand words...

 And before we knew it, it was our last day! Al and I freshened up with a run around Greenwich Park before heading back to tidy up the garden after their builders had trashed it! 4 hours later the ice bath was full, the barbeque going and the battleshots set up for a game or two!

Al's fire pit. We all thought someone had sold him a hole,
but it's actually a real proper thing.

Team Cope-Vollbracht trying to win at Battleshots.
A3? HIT!

 What a whirlwind two weeks... absolutely jam packed with seeing people, enjoying good food and drink and making the most of every minute. We got on the plane shattered (but still looking forward to a short city break in San Francisco) but happy.

But not before fitting in one last pork pie...

See you again soon, England!