Hi,

Well we arrived back in Beijing in the early hours of 4th of December the plane from London to Warsaw left on time and we only had a 40 minute stopover there which was just enough time to get off go through security and board the next one which was a brand new Boeing Dreamliner. It was very comfortable with loads of leg room as i was by the exit door so could really stretch out and Jun had all 3 seats to herself so she made a bed and had a good sleep ha-ha,but it still took me about 10 days to recover from the journey and readjust to the time difference.

We had a very busy but productive time back in the UK we viewed over 30 properties and drove over 2,000 miles covering all the North and the East of England as well as South West Scotland. We looked around some beautiful homes and it was quite difficult making choices,we ended up with four favourites out of which we eventually went for the one in Gainford Village set in Teesdale in County Durham a really lovely little 100 year old house with a nice homely feel to it . Our offer was accepted so it is all in the hands of our solicitors at the moment with a completion date of April,so we will be going back in June both to furnish and decorate our new home and go to our nieces wedding in Liverpool in July.

Connie our campervan served us really well and gave us no trouble at all, we even stayed overnight in a camping site outside Glasgow on our way up to Dunoon it was very cosy.The Dunoon area was very  picturesque,with a nice ferry ride across and with stunning views across the Clyde and Holy Loch with some beautiful houses to look at, but we decided it was just to far from friends,family and our Buddhist Monastery.One amusing incident occured as we arrived at the ferry landing as i drove in there were three full lanes of parked vehicles so i just stopped behind the last vehicle in the third lane ( should have moved in to the next lane).After a little while one of the crew came up to me and said "congratulations you have single handly blocked the whole entrance into the ferry landing". When i looked behind me i had blocked the whole road in to the terminal and the traffic was backed up right back to the main road ha-ha.Another one was when we were driving through a town and Jun turned to me and said while pointing at an old victorian type house " look they have  free swimming baths there".When i looked it was a big old pub with a sign in the window saying "free pool" I had to explain what pool was and snooker/billiards,Jun had never heard of pool,we both had a great laugh about that one.

We are settled back at home now poor Jun had to return to work the following day which must have been hard for her I only started teaching again last week,and now Christmas has passed as just another day here so we have not celebrated it at all which will also be the case for New Year.Then we will be preparing to box up some of our belongings that are going to be shipped back to the UK,as well as ordering some goods to be delivered for when we get back.Jun has created a great online 3D effect plan of our house and we can decorate it and place various pieces of furniture in it to see how it looks...Amazing!

OK I will finish this short blog and wish all of you a very Peaceful Christmas and hope you all have a great New Year.