Day 24 - Wednesday 23rd July - Our last day!

No photos today. Our last day and we packed our stuff early. It was emotional farewells all round. We then went around to Mum's. As Wen said Mum was the first person we would see and Mum would be the last. We had some lunch with Mum and said our goodbyes. Mum gave Wen the Irish blessing which always makes her cry.

We left at about 2:30 and Manchester was about 1 1/2 hours away. As our flight did not leave until 9pm and car did not have to be back til 6 pm we thought we had heaps of time. It was a pleasant trip until we stopped for a break at a service centre. We noticed the front passenger tyre had quite a large bleb on it. After calls to the rental company, we finally got AA to come around and change the tyre. The trouble was the tyre was a spacesaver tyre and we could not travel fast than the equivalent of 80 ks an hour on the motorway!

Anyway we set off. Wen found it quite stressful to have trucks sitting up our bum and pulling out at the last minute. I suggested we put the hazard warning on. This made it better as they had plenty of time to pull out, however, quite a few drivers were flashing their hazard warning at us thinking we had them on by mistake!

Anyway we limped into Manchester. When we started out the rental company told us just to set the navigator on to bring us back. They neglected to tell us that there were major roadworks and the route had changed! We were stuck in traffic and travelled about 1 mile in an hour! We finally made it back at 6:05! It was stressful at the end as we did not know whether we were going to be able to turn around. They looked at the tyre and said we would have to pay for it and we were protesting so he said we probably won't have to pay for it and we were in a rush anyway as we had to get to the airport ... more about this below.

We got to the airport only to find the queue was a mile long. When we made it to the counter she said our tickets were unconfirmed!!! They weren't as I had the seat number on our confirmation travel papers. Anyway after much ado they finally got us seats together. By the time we got up there they were boarding. It was full on from 2:30 in the afternoon. Anyway, as everyone knows flying is awful, but we finally made it back to Brisbane where Anna picked us up.

A week or so after we got back we discovered Hertz had debited Wendy's credit card for $360. There was not explaination etc, but that is a mighty expensive tyre. We think as well because we filled up about 30 miles away they also charged us for a full tank of fuel! I was really bugged because we had a new Volvo that had only travelled about 2000 miles. The tyres looked liked that had travelled 50,000 ks. There is some rort going on here. We had not hit anything at speed that had caused that bleb. We have learnt a lesson and we will be wary next time.

We had a lovely holiday and I would like to thank all of Wendy's family for making me seem so welcome. A big thank you to Graham and Mandy who provided us with almost 2 weeks hospitality, to Linda for her company and laughs and also to Mum who was just a delight and so enjoyed the outings with us. To Terry also who amazed me with his dogs and his sticks! To Gemma and Kelvin with new bub, Mackenzie. It was lovely meeting them and Wen enjoyed a long stimulating conversation with in their company. And last, but certainly not least to James and Amy who we shared the house with for the 2 weeks with Mandy and Graham - you are delightful young people.

A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL - BIGS HUGS AND KISSES AND HOPE WE WILL BE BACK SOON! LOTS OF LOVE WEN and YVES XXX

ps extra thank you Graham for helping me get my weasel back to Australia in one piece... it is very precious.