02 January 2014

Days 11 - 19: Merry Christmas & Happy New Year | Around the World in 40 Days

Wow I don't know where the days went but suddenly we are in 2014! The last week or so has been such a whirlwind, I can't believe we will be leaving England in 5 days' time.

Our Christmas day was spent with DH's brother and family, they'd put on such a feast - it was a traditional English Christmas dinner of roast turkey with all the trimmings, followed by Christmas pudding and brandy butter (you can't get this easily in Oz!). We all had too much to eat, drank a lot (adults only), and enjoyed playing games which ranged from board games, quizzes to Heads Up.
After Christmas we travelled up to my FIL's house in Beccles, which is a small town in Suffolk county in the East of England, in the area that is known as East Anglia. My in-laws fell in love with Beccles many years ago and they bought a holiday home here and later moved into a larger house that can accommodate all the family. When we lived in England we used to come up for weekends and summer holidays, it has a very relaxed atmosphere compared to all the hustle and bustle of London. The top half of the collage below shows the Beccles town sign, some frosty leaves by the roadside when we took the dog for a walk, and a couple of photos of Great Yarmouth - a seaside tourist destination since the 18th century and one shows the signs that has seen better days.
Of course no visit to Beccles is complete without a trip to Southwold, a seaside town on the coast of the North Sea. Southwold is particularly special to us because it was my mother-in-law's favourite, sadly she passed away fourteen years ago just before her 60th birthday. The family put a plaque in her honour on the Southwold Pier where it faced her favourite spot. In the photo above you can see J polishing his grandma's plaque. The day of our visit was a typical wintry day with chilling wind and rain, but I can assure you on a sunny day the scenery really is quite stunning. 

All the family congregated in Beccles to see the New Year, there were 21 of us all together. It was an evening filled with laughter, food, games, and more food (and plenty of drinks too of course) - occasions like this really make us homesick for England, we miss the family the most.

Today is the New Year's Day, in a few days time we shall continue our journey to America. Next stop: New York City. I've always wanted to visit NYC, still can't believe we are actually going to be there!

In the meantime, Happy New Year!


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