First of all, it's good to be back in the UK. We already feel a bit "at home". A whole summer like this in the British Isles is very special.. Special. And beautiful!
We now recognise very visible peculiarities of the country. We have to smile about the many steering wheel claws in the cars, about several parking machine systems. Some only take cash, others only accept payments via the apps available exclusively in the English app store.
Then we also observe here the clearly unhealthier diet on humans and animals. We hardly find anything healthy in small restaurants. The food is so much more often packed in plastic and unfortunately the ingredients are also listed by quite a few "E".
But we also see a lot of good at every corner: "Charity", donations here, donations there. We notice many dog owners, very many. Often people even walk with two or more dogs. The roads are as bumpy as in Ireland, only a bit wider and the familiar kilometre-long hedges are back again, limiting the view!
And we finally come across rubbish bins again. Our trained rubbish bin search eye scans the roadsides, ah, a big rubbish bin there, a rubbish bin here. Finally we can empty our little mini-bucket every day. Because, unfortunately, this is where the circle closes: in England it fills up much faster, because everything, really everything, is packaged several times and thus produces a lot of plastic packaging.
We already shop with our own bags and pouches, but vegetables, bread and fruit without plastic? Not a chance.
Our early morning highlight today was the charity event right in our front garden. Directly on the beach, we are not far from the RNLI, the British Maritime Rescue Service, or as we would call it. Today, the big vehicles are presented to the public in a shiny, clean state.
Kids are allowed to compare themselves in the lifebuoy throwing competition, while the big, mostly male kids marvel at the engine compartments and gearboxes. The rescuers present report on their missions, 70 to 100 per year.
The best thing about these volunteer events is always the cake buffets. Gerd buys a piece of lemon cake, his absolute favourite (which I don't like and therefore never bake...) and after he's had it in no time, he immediately stocks up on more pieces, because the day could still be long. And a day with lemon cake is a good day, my husband says.
So we leave our charity donation money in little RNLI collection buckets and head south quite happily after this wonderfully successful morning.
And: we roll into Wales almost unnoticed. Well, we can't wait to see what Wales has to offer.
Merci for "travelling with us
We are thinking about taking another break from travelling in the summer and visiting our families in Germany and Switzerland. One of the ideas is to organise a Lecture about our long journey to the Persian Gulf to prepare. If you would like to, what would interest you the most? We will also tell stories here that don't find a place here on the blog. We're thinking of the Bern and Berlin area - simply because we have family there. But other places are also conceivable. Feel free to write to us.
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