Fullerton

 Here I am back at the Fullerton, just for the one night before moving on to Jakarta tomorrow with our merry travelling band. Six of us left London yesterday, and we have collected one more here, so we will be seven travelling on tomorrow, where we will have the small matter of dinner for about a hundred, before our travel group will grow by four or five more as we head on to Kalimantan.

Time currently late, or early depending on your point of view - 4.30am and woken by a combination of jetlag and not having turned down the thermometer on the room's aircon. Have caught up on some work emails, and might read some more.

Read Richard E Grant's book on the way over. Good job the plane was dark and people around me were sleeping. I managed to hold it together, but there were a few tears.

Have moved on to something considerably lighter - Hitchhiker's Guide - which I haven't read in decades.

Missing my Singapore travel buddy from January.

Sale

 We may have sold a house.

Well, Nicky may have sold a house - having done all of the hard work with organising visits, co-ordinating with family and neighbours/friends, meeting with agents and appointing them, cajoling the chosen agent every step of the way. After several months, we received an offer today, which Nicky negotiated up, keen to do the best for family, and here we are - offer accepted.

No doubt now the really hard work starts with conveyancing, final clearance, making sure everyone is happy ...

It's a good job Nicky is brilliant at this stuff!

Present

My lovely friends gave me a belated birthday present whilst we were away - track, display case and all, which is now proudly on display in the hall.

Cheltenham

 After a hearty hotel breakfast, off to Cheltenham for an explore.

We found the wrong bit first, which was populated by teenagers pretending to be football hooligans, because it was local derby day, the fans from Forest Green were in the pub, and they needed to be chanted at and have red smoke bombs set off in their general direction.

It was all rather amusing, but we gave them a wide berth around the one-to-one police marking that was being provided, and took refuge in a couple of shops.

Shortly afterwards I found the sort of second-hand bookshop I rather like, and somewhat over-extended the patience of my friends and my wife by studying most of the stock, before retreating empty-handed. However, I did dash back just before closing and buy twelve rather nice Bond paperbacks (just need to track down the other two to make up the set!).

Dinner back at the hotel, where Nicky and Z had the advantage of being on the side of the table facing out into the rest of the dining room, and happily made up stories about our fellow diners. Also, as will now go down in folklore, at one point Nicky did make a rather unfortunate Google search on her phone, the results of which left her and Z without the power of speech for most of the rest of the evening!

Ellenborough

 And so to Ellenborough, by way of motorways, Oxford, the A40 and a stop off at the poshest garden centre in the world (Burford). There in time to meet up with D & Z for afternoon team, which fairly seemlessly rolled into dinner in the bar, with barely a pause for breath (other than to check in, discover that the room thermostat was stuck on 28, and move somewhere a little cooler).

Exam

I went into the hospital today to follow up on my medical exam.

Jake had an exam of a different kind.

My exam had taken place at the start of March in the form of an MRI scan, and after almost six hours of waiting around at the hospital to receive the feedback, I was told that I may have something called a cholesteatoma in my right ear.

However, further investigation is required by ENT so I have been referred for an outpatient appointment.

(And maybe that will be the end of this being a health / medical blog for a little while, other than to say that I had a call from my GP whilst waiting at the surgery to say that they are prescribing something for my feet - no need for a blood test, but to let them know if I go a bit yellow when I start taking the tablets!)

Gate

This is the gate post ;)

(I'm sure if you hunt hard enough I've used that terrible pun before in this blog - most likely when posting from an airport.)

The gate people came to fix our fancy gates today, which had stopped working. Turns out the reason was that an insect had been shut into the box with all the electrics, and had rather fried them, as well as the SIM card. So, parts needed to be replaced, new SIM card needed to be ordered (with temporary one in use in the meantime), and box was re-sealed carefully - hopefully this time without any additional inhabitants.

Jabs

This is in danger of becoming a health blog!

Today was a trip to the local pharmacy to get some updated jabs prior to our next trip to Indonesia. As Nicky had managed to dig out an old vaccination card of mine, I didn't have to start completely from scratch, but still ended up having two in each arm, along with a request to go back next week for a couple more top-ups before travelling.

Peter also had four, and total cost between us - just over £600! I'm sure that last time I went along to the see the nurse at the GP and they were all free. Either I don't remember these things well, or times have changed somewhat.

Appts

 Health day! Finally, after much procrastination, spoke to someone on the 'Babylon' app about my feet, although they told me to see my GP as I need a blood test as the next step, so not exactly definitive progress, but still, progress nonetheless. Also, finally phoned the hospital about my MRI scan, only to be told I have to come in on Thursday to talk to them about it (and not for a specific appointment time, but to come in and expect a potentially long wait). Does slightly make me wonder - as soon as I enquire - six weeks after the scan - they want to talk to me straight away, but were they going to contact me at any point? And to top it all off, it was the dentist as well today, although I seemed to survive that one pretty unscathed.

Pitch

 A first trip of the year for Jake and me to the pitch and putt.

Amazingly, we both went round in <80, and I even got what we like to consider to be 'par'!

Must have been all the practice we had at Top Golf in Vegas!

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Mud

Dog walking in the woods after overnight rain.

Willow behaved.

Maisie did not.

Car

Out with the old, in with the new!