Taking A Break

On 31st July 2014, after a total of 989 days on the road, we flew back to the UK.

View at takeoff from our Thai Airways flight from KL to Bangkok

We’re having a rest at home and in August we rented a lovely house back in Northampton that we have until January.

Returning to living a ‘normal life’ has been interesting. We’ve unpacked the kitchen equipment, purchased furniture and collected things like clothes, paperwork, tools and lamps that were being looked after for us by friends and family. It has been wonderful to have all my shoes back!

Our new kitchen that came with a washing machine

I’ve stocked our newly refurbished kitchen up with almost everything and the novelty of being able to cook has not worn off yet.  I’m also a little bit in love with our washing machine and have been spending quite a bit of time in the bath. It is amazing to sleep every night on a quality mattress with our super duper luxury goose down king size duvet.

Our lovely bath

We have a small garden to which I’ve already added some pots of flowers and tomatoes, a washing line to accompany the smashing washing machine and sometimes there is sunshine to bask in when it is occasionally warm and sunny.

Washed and ready to pack away for a while

Back when we were selling stuff and packing up I thought we were getting rid of loads but yet now, after so long with so little,  it has been almost overwhelming going through everything we did keep.

View of the garden

For the first time in almost 3 years we have regular payments to make for electricity, gas, water, council tax, car and contents insurance and broadband.   I have more than one card in my purse and more than one key to keep track of.

It has been lovely catching up with friends and family and there are more reunions to be had as there are still people we’ve not seen yet. We’ve also been reunited with one of our cats, Ringo.  He has been with us for a couple of weeks now and has settled in beautifully.

Ringo having a rest

We’ve started the mammoth job of going through all the photos we took and trying to get them all in one place. The hundreds we’ve published on this blog represent such a small fraction of those we took; we have over 120GB each to sort through.  At some point I’ll publish some photos and video of Thaipusam, the Hindu festival we went to at Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur but other than that and some more of KL there’ll be no new posts on here for the time being.

Yes, these are new warm slippers, in the summer and yes we have been cold, everyday, since we got back

I’m putting this blog into resting mode.  So there’ll be no new updates to minisuitcase.co.uk and I’m deactivating the Facebook, Twitter and Google+ profiles of the same name.  I’ve not had time to keep up with all the social media stuff since we’ve been back and now we’re actually able to be social with our friends in real life I’m not sure we need social media.  If you’d like to be alerted when I finally do put some more photos up here the only way now is to sign up for the email.  Just click the big pink button in the sidebar and you’ll get an email when something new is published.

So, that is that.  The blog is going into hibernation and we’re having a taste of normal life. You’ll still be able to contact me through here and it will remain online but we’re not having any hand luggage based adventures abroad at the current time so no new posts… if that changes I’ll let you know!

One of our bargain second hand sofas

Thanks to everyone who followed our experiences via minisuitcase.co.uk, I’m not exaggerating when I say that without the comments and feedback I would have given up after only a few weeks or months.  I’m really glad we have this now though, a modern travel journal. To everyone, thank you.