12 Days, 4 Countries, 2 Women, 1 Car (and 1 drivers licence) - Mum Diaries #1

Our destinations were; England, Scotland, France and the Netherlands. We had hired a car to get us everywhere we wanted to go, I was 22 and my mother 55. I had been living in Sheffield, UK for the past 2 years with my (now) husband and my mother was flying over from Australia to embark on – what became – the biggest (but most fun) test of patience of our lives, so far.

I will be re-posting my logs from our trip during this week here on steemit! :-D There will be 7 logs to share the comedic events that became our trip, I hope you enjoy and learn a lesson - or two - from us!

I would just like to mention that during my time in the UK my Australian drivers licence had expired and I was requested by the transport department in the UK to renew my licence via post, having to send my passport with the paper work. I organised this maybe 3 months before my Mum’s arrival, my parcel was lost and it took nearly 5 weeks to retrieve my passport - making it too late to try again. I was without a valid drivers licence, leaving all the driving in the foreign countries to my (easily confused, stressed) Mother.

Log One, May 10: Seeing Mum for the 1st time in 2 years was certainly an emotional experience! Her flight was delayed by nearly 2 hours so my initial excitement and butterflies fizzled to an incredible boredom. Once in my sight the tears of happiness flowed, we cried and laughed for a good while but were eager to get out of the airport to start our adventure. Our 1st day in London was interesting. Once we picked up the hire car we endured a 5 hour driving tour/search for a hotel to crash in (my genius idea to book on the day because I thought it would be fun to search and explore). Along the way we did stop in at the Westminister Arms for fish, chips and mushy peas before driving past the House of Parliament and Big Ben - we were too tired to stop so I tried snapping some photos as we drove towards them. 

 

As for our last minute hotel hunt in central London, all were either fully booked or had a double bed available for no less than 120 pounds!! ... So in the end we opted for the drive back to Sheffield, which I had to drive - with an expired Licence - because poor Mum was beginning to fall asleep. It would have taken any normal person a little over 3 hours to get to Sheffield but because I couldn’t see any speed signs (or even convert miles into kilometres) I was driving amazingly slow! Luckily, I didn’t see any police cars on the motorway and we made it to our house safe and sound by 11:30pm. Tomorrow will be better!