London to Portsmouth

Thursday May 29

As we left London the weather improved! It stopped raining and we even had to get our sunglasses out again. We caught the train back to Gatwick Airport as that is where we had arranged to collect the hire car. Why Gatwick you ask? The reasons were simple - it is well out of London and to the south, which was the direction we were heading.

We had booked a BMW 3 series (or similar) through our travel agent with Avis, and as usually happens they didn't have one available for us. Instead they had a Peugot 508 which didn't sound as good, but it did have a few redeeming features over the BMW, namely it had a Sat Nav and it had a Diesel engine. Once we got over our initial disappointment and had the car explained to us, as well as fitting all of our luggage in the boot, we set off thinking maybe this was a better car for our needs.

As usual, when driving a car and relying on its Sat Nav for the first time, we made a few wrong turns, missed a few gears (it's a manual like most hire cars here) and couldn't get the heating/cooling right. We asked the Avis man to key in the address of the B&B in Portsmouth where we had booked and to take us on the shortest route. This, of course, turned into the slowest route but it did take us through Charlwood in Surrey where Noelle's grandmother came from so she was happy. We drove through the typical English country lanes and forests, totally relying on the Sat Nav, but I was glad to see some bigger roads where I could get above 40 mph!

We finally arrived at our B&B and were pleased with its location and our lovely room. We didn't have time to explore as we had arranged to go to Sarah & Mark's house in Petersfield (relatives of Noelle) before meeting Alan and Ann (Sarah's mum and dad) for dinner at a nearby pub. Unfortunately we got caught up in the peak hour traffic out of Portsmouth and this doubled the journey time to Petersfield. The south east of England is very popular as it is commuting distance to London, so a lot of people live in the area and the roads struggle with the volume of traffic on them.

With Alan & Ann at The Drum pub in Petersfield

We hadn't seen Alan & Ann since 2007, and it was 1985 when we last saw Sarah, so there was lots to catch up on. Also it was the first time meeting Mark, Francesca and Zoe, their 16 and 13 year old daughters. We all enjoyed a lovely meal and caught up on everyone's news then, after a quick tour of Petersfield and a cuppa back at Sarah & Marks, we headed back to Portsmouth.

Sarah with daughters Zoe & Francesca

 

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