23-26 May 2010 Hong Kong to Zurich then onto Manchester

Davina and Roy's house at Newcastle-under Lyme

Lyn learning Sudoku

Davina Perrier

Vauxhall Astra - hire car

Ditto

Late evening 25th May 2010 and 26th May 2010.

Got to the Hong Kong airport after the 1 hour drive from the Cosmopolitan Hotel on the Island in plenty of time for the Swissair flight. When we got on the plane (Airbus A340) we were disappointed to find that it was an older style plane with seats that still had a slope forwards when tilted right back. I guess we had been spoilt on the earlier flight which had these beautiful cubicles which turned into full beds on Cathay Pacific. Anyway since it was 11pm we were going to sleep no matter what. Then of course the hostess arrived with the dinner menu which had heaps of choices but since we had already eaten in Hong Kong we declined the meal, layed back our seats, put on our earphones and masks and settled down to sleep. The beds were very uncomfortable to start with and it seemed that we didn't much sleep but when we opened our eyes at about 9am a lot of things around the cabin had changed so we must have slept. The flight was quite bumpy through the night and the pilot apologised for the turbulence.

Anyway we had a good breakfast about 90 minutes before we landed so it seemed to be a very quick flight. The Swiss style breakfast was excellent. We landed in Zurich on time and had to hurry to catch the connection to Manchester as we only had 50 minutes before the connecting flight was leaving. There were even Police waiting in the tunnel when we got off the plane to check our passports.

The A320 left on time and we were again offered breakfast of bacon and eggs, muesli with yogurt and/or fruit followed by Swiss chocolate bars which we grabbed 4 of!

Arrived in Manchester on time and sailed through customs to find our relatives waiting for us.

Then onto Hertz to pick up our rental car which turned out to be a Vauxhall Astra Turbo 6 speed manual which cost us $30 per day for 107 days, a bargain.

The drive to Newcastle-under Lyme was different but since Roy knew the way it made it much easier. We turned Lyn's Nokia N95 phone/gps on to see if it matched Roy's directions. (It didn't).

But it probably would have got us there as it wanted us to go down the motorway and Roy took us by the back roads.

The roads seemed very narrow to what we are used to and on the 'A' roads you can do 60 mph (100kph) which seemed much too fast. We arrived safely at their place and spent the day settling chatting and catching up with news.

They have a small house (by Australian standards) which is semi-detached IE 2 houses in the one building. It is very quiet here as the house is on and estate so there isn't any through traffic but the house is double brick with double glazing which makes a huge difference. The weather has been cool and today it is raining. Everything is so green and lush, but very small.