York to Dartford!

Enjoyed a nice breakky of eggs on toast outside in the warm sunshine flooding Paul’s garden as his hens dusted themselves in the flowerbed! Then all too soon it was time to head off! We said farewell as Paul’s repairers started arriving to assess the damage.

We drove south on the A1, looking for a carwash to clean Chee Yuan’s car before giving it back to him. We pulled into a couple of service stops but the best we could find was an automatic car wash, which Chee Yuan would not want his car put through! We ended up at a Shell service station by the air and water pumps hand washing his car with a rag we found in the boot! After we had cleaned it best we could, we continued down the A1 and pulled into Biggleswade where Chee Yuan works right on time, just before 3pm.

Meeting up with him proved to be difficult! He told us to meet him at the Asda supermarket carpark but driving along the main road, we couldn’t spot the Asda! Eventually by chance we found the carpark! We met up with him and walked back to his office for him to collect his things. Then we grabbed a bite from Grieggs bakery before he dropped us to the Biggleswade train station to catch the train to Dartford.

The train ride was long, tiring and expensive! We had our big packs to carry and by the time we got into Kings Cross station it was almost 5pm - peak hour! We caught the packed underground to Charing Cross and made it just in time for the 5:25pm service to Gravesend via Dartford. That journey took about 40mins so all up we were on trains for 2hours!

Aunty Clem picked us up from Dartford train station and we returned to their place to dump our stuff and put in a load of washing. Then it was off for dinner at a country pub called The Green Man, about a 20min drive away. It was packed for a Friday night but we didn’t have to wait too long for a table! Uncle Alex got the mixed meat grill, Aunty Clem tried the duck, Di got the lamb shank, and I ordered the mixed fish grill. We enjoyed the cosy environment and chatting over drinks. The food took a while to come but it allowed us to build up our appetites! The food portions were huge and tasty as we shared around our food, me largely in an attempt to get the others to help me finish my plate! Got back to Dartford just after 10pm and called Oz!