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Christmas & New Year In Little Paxton


We have been staying with Liam and Joanna and the children (Alba and Yarran) in Little Paxton for just over 2 weeks now and we have been sick the whole time!
Guy had some sort of gastric flu for 3 days, I had a chest infection, that turned into asthma and then sinusitis and then Guy deteriorated and got a chest infection and sinusitis as well. So now we are finally out of the valley of death and we leave for Florence on Monday!
Things were so bad that whenever I asked Guy if he wanted anything he just said....a bullet.
Liam and his family had all been sick before we arrived and were still recovering, so we are not sure if we caught everything off them or on the plane from some disease ridden person.
Anyway, the flight was not too bad - we really like flying Royal Brunei because of the two stops where you could stretch your legs (Dubai and Bandar Seri Begawan), the price is pretty good, the food's not bad either, and we had excellent seats.
After we arrived we picked up a car we rented for 2 weeks from Cambridge (about 40 minutes away). We took the car back yesterday and we had only done 100 miles which is so pathetic but shows how sick we were - I think the furthest we  drove was to Waitrose in St Neots (about 5 minutes away)
It has been  great to see Liam and Jo and the kids, Alba has really grown up and is talking all the time, Yarran is 4 months old and despite being sick he is a very smiley gorgeous little boy. We have minded them a few times despite being at death's door and it has reminded me why I only had two kids, they are really hard work! Guy is so good with children, he has much more patience than me.
The weather has been cold but really quite beautiful most of the time, clear days with lots of ice and blue skies and no wind,although today it is raining. We can't get used to the days being so short, it still feels like 5am at 8.30am and the sun starts to set at about 3.30pm.
 

We spent Christmas at Joanna's parent's place (they live quite close, within walking distance) and John (her Dad) cooked pork on the BBQ while we watched through the window as he fought the arctic winds and temperatures!! It was lovely lunch, lots of presents for all of us and the kids. On Boxing Day I took a turn for the worse and spent the day in bed. The rest of the week is blur of nose blowing and coughing. We baby-sat the children overnight the day before New Year's Eve for Liam and Jo so they could go into London and have dinner and see a play- it went OK,  the kids were pretty good for us.

New Years was quiet, it is very quiet in the estate where they live, a few fireworks went off but you could hardly hear them.
So now we just have today and tomorrow and then we catch the train to Italy- we are still keeping up with our Italian,we may even be able to tell the taxi driver where to go when we arrive in Florence !!! Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year.

4 comments:

  1. Happy New Year to you both. How unfortunate you were both so ill. We have just had 2 days of anxiety with 39deg. but the cool change arrived with rain last night and I did not hear the siren at Woodend once. I could, however, hear the muffled voices on the very busy 2-way radio float across the track. I hope you are well enough to enjoy the train to Italy and look forward to reading of your adventures. Ciao. Chris

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  2. Happy New Year! Love the pics and the blog - thank you for letting us live vicariously through your adventures. We now know that the flu epidemic is centered in Little Paxton! So glad that you can leave that behind while you chug along through Europe en route to Florence. You will appreciate the time you had with Alba and Yarran when you're feeling much much better! Cheers and we look forward to hearing from you again - take care, Maria & Victor

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  3. Hope your're better now. Enjoy the train trip.

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  4. Hope your're better now. Enjoy the train trip.

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