Farewell Visit & Travel Plans

Pete's cold continued into the beginning of the week and made work a little hard considering his nose hardly stopped running for two days. His new desk performed admirably and made for a better working environment. Still he got over his cold by the middle of the week, just in time for Matt's arrival - just as Julie started the cold!

Alfie, our cat, developed a limp on Tuesday and had to be taken to the vets where they found he had been bitten on one of his back legs. Probably a cat fight, but we never heard anything so must have been on one of his nightly excursions. He is really good at the vets and never complains. On this occasion he had his leg shaved, an injection and his nails clipped for good measure and he was as good as gold. We found a box, put his blanket in it an he stayed there for a day.

Matt arrived at Totnes late on Tuesday night. Plan was for him to travel back with Pete, but work plans changed and Pete never went to London so Matt fell back on his £12.50 ticket. The train was a little delayed and we got home a little after midnight. Matt's allergic to cats so we had a good clean up before he arrived, but unfortunately he was affected almost immediately - still the plan was to keep him out of the house as much as possible, which we did.

On Wednesday night we took Matt to the Victoria Inn and shared the evening with Sarah and Bill and on Thursday we went to the Royal Oak in Malborough and had a host of friends turn up. Matt had been on a Butlins lads weekend prior to coming down to Salcombe and had drunk his fair share of Guinness and he continued the theme throughout the week,

On Friday Matt went off to see a friend in Paignton whilst Julie and Pete went to Cliff House for the Neil Diamond tribute act. A very good night - not quite our style of music, but entertaining never the less. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and many really threw themselves into it.

On Saturday we made our way back to Essex for the final preparation for Matt's departure. Over the weekend we had to sort out a few things and help Matt empty his stuff from his friend's house where he has been living. Julie's mum's was the temporary store for the stuff we had to bring home with us to store until he comes back from Oz. Julie also had to do a fitting on her niece's wedding and bridesmaid dresses so another opportunity to catch up with Julie's brother an his wife and have a lovely meal with them.

Matt leaves for Oz on Tuesday and still things to do.