Van Life Diaries: Europe 1985 – United Kingdom, Ireland and Singapore – Episode 370 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

In this final episode of the Van Life Diaries: Europe 1985, we return to England, drive through Scotland and Wales, and catch a ferry to Ireland. Then it’s back to London, a farewell to our beloved campervan, on to Singapore for a few days and finally we end up back home in Perth, Australia, after six months away. What a strange feeling!

This is the sixth part of a monthly, six-episode series celebrating the fact that exactly 40 years ago this year, my family and I spent six months in a striped motorhome travelling around Europe. I was nine years old and yes, this trip had an enormous impact on my life – I’m sure you wouldn’t be listening to this podcast today if Van Life 1985 hadn’t taken place! Throughout the series, I’ll include chats recorded with my Dad this year, extracts from my late Mum’s travel diary from 1985, and of course my own memories and thoughts. 

A big thanks to Context Travel for sponsoring this series, and an even bigger thanks to my Dad for agreeing to be part of it.

Links:

• Context Travel – use the code THOUGHTFULTRAVEL to get 15% off any online booking
• See Part 1 of Van Life Diaries: Hong Kong, England and France
• And Part 2 of Van Life Diaries: Spain, Italy and Greece
• And Part 3 of Van Life Diaries: Austria and Switzerland
• And Part 4 of Van Life Diaries: Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands
• And Part 5 of Van Life Diaries: Denmark, Sweden and Norway
• Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers
• Join our LinkedIn group for Thoughtful Travellers
• Sign up for the Thoughtful Travellers newsletter at Substack.com 

And as promised, some of the photos my Dad and I mention during the episode (and more!) …

Episode Transcript

Amanda Kendle 0:00

Hello and welcome to Episode 370 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast. This is part six, the final installment of the Van Life Diaries Europe, 1985, in which we travel to the UK, Ireland, Singapore, and finally, home to Western Australia after six months away. Oh, it’s very sad to reach the end of this series during 2025 these episodes have been traveling back in time to the most important trip of my life, the one that set me up to always be curious about the world. Because, of course, it happened 40 years ago this year, way back in the 80s, during the van life diaries Europe, 1985 series, I’m reliving this six month budget motor home trip my family took around Western Europe when I was just nine years old. I’ve interviewed my dad to help me with this while we look through our old family photo albums. And I’m also lucky to have access to my late mum’s travel diaries from the time before we begin. I want to pay my respects to the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, where I’m recording this podcast today. And I also want to say a huge thanks to the sponsor of this series, Context Travel. They’ve been operating walking tours in cities around the world since 2003 been a certified B Corp since 2011 and they find incredibly interesting and qualified subject matter experts to take you on a very special tour. More from Context Travel, during the episode.

Last episode, we were meandering through Scandinavia, and in our final weeks of the trip, we headed back to the UK with a car ferry trip from Bergen in Norway to Newcastle in northern England. Then we immediately headed further north. Then we moseyed up to Scotland. Scotland,

Barry Kendle 2:16
right, yes, where the building, the surrounds, where they have the Edinburgh Tattoo, amazed me how small it was as an area. I can’t I just couldn’t believe I could get all that activity in there. And it was such a small area, and yet they had tourist busses all over the place. It was incredible because you’d seen it on TV. Yes, was familiar with it? Yeah, when I’ve seen it in subsequent years, I still can’t imagine how they got it all in there. Yeah, a brilliant episode, exercise in tourism. Remember, with all these things, when the same people visit the same place, they take away different versions of it, and the only true version is the one you give everyone else is wrong.

Speaker 1 3:00
That is like the best description of tourist behavior ever.

Amanda Kendle 3:05
My mum’s diary gives a good summary of our first days in Scotland, when it seems we were pretty busy into Edinburgh, not as large as I had thought, old buildings interesting parked, and just as we were organizing a ticket, along came a warden and said our road tax was not current. Now, BK off to post office to fix that. 55 pounds for six months still, I guess we won’t get fined. Looked at Edinburgh Castle. More a fortress. Interesting. The Edinburgh Tattoo is held there in August. Then a look at gray friars, Bobby statue and grave of John Gray master, on to St Andrews to see the golf courses, stacks of tourists, courses right on sea, through Dundee and stopped at Farm caravan park just about 12 miles from Perth. One of my vivid memories from that trip is visiting the statue of gray friars Bobby, who was a dog who had apparently guarded the grave of his owner for some 14 years. I remember my parents bought me the book about it as well, and I just found it so intensely sad at the time. Anyway, Dad and I continued to look through the photos from our time in Scotland. Oh, St Andrews,

Barry Kendle 4:17
oh yes. I didn’t have a game of golf. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the course, either. Oh, really, can you remember what I can see the clubhouse was probably the better part of it. Yes, yes. Perhaps I’m too critical. Was a pretty good scarecrow in that paddock near Balmoral. Oh, yes, great.

Amanda Kendle 4:40
And Loch Ness. I do remember going to Loch

Barry Kendle 4:43
Ness, what a wonderful tourist promotion thing. Yeah, exactly. This is all imagination, fancy pictures and stories and searches. It’s great stuff. But again, doesn’t mean anything. No, it’s just a pond. It’s a big pond. Pound. It’s probably bringing a big dollar, or, should I say, a pound. If only I could dream up something like that that would raise some funds. Yeah,

Amanda Kendle 5:08
I don’t think you can plan it. It just happens. It just happens. And it’s just weird.

Amanda Kendle 5:14
My mum’s diary continues on a long Loch Ness, a bit Misty, but Sun trying to come out. A lot of mist here, as in Norway Loch Ness, exhibition, super tourism, just pictures, etc, around lochs, quite pretty, like gentle fjords over to Isle of Sky by ferry, three pounds for five minutes journey. Quite pretty. But all small farms and cottages looked at crofters cottage camping on wharf at Armadale. My mum didn’t like the price of that ferry trip, but Google tells me they built a bridge there in 1992 so not all that long after we were there. I also have some memories of the Isle of Skye, as I discussed with my dad, I remember going to the island. Well, I vaguely remember going to the Isle of Skye, because I remember it being very pretty. I do

Barry Kendle 6:07
remember the sheep, really shaggy sheep. The wolves look like they’d been put through a washing machine and a dryer. Yeah,

Amanda Kendle 6:15
that’s true. It’s all long and like a head of hair, rather than a sheep

Barry Kendle 6:22
like a mop. Yeah, that’s a good description.

Barry Kendle 6:27
The crofters cottage looks not entirely unlike the old shack we had at Beauvoir.

Amanda Kendle 6:33
That’s some similarities. What’s a crofter? It’s like

Barry Kendle 6:38
a shepherd, somewhat similar. He lives in pretty ordinary conditions, and like a subsistence farmer on small scale. Yeah, okay, but they get to live in it for life. Something about tenure, as I recall. Ah,

Amanda Kendle 6:55
from sky. We continued south, through Scotland, pausing at a few places along the way, as my mum’s diary reports Ben Nevis, highest mountain in Britain. Lots of people walk up it. Look at Ben Nevis and onto Killen pretty around lock area, Glencoe, very rocky, quite attractive. A lot of people take walks in hills. Hills so bare and no villages for miles Scotland, not as densely populated as I thought. And the next day, on this morning, to okintosh and distillery, a lovely lass as guide an interesting tour through Glasgow. Typical city didn’t stop a look at Gretna. Green tourists galore. My dad expanded a little more about our experience in Glasgow.

Barry Kendle 7:42
In Glasgow, we struck, and we went to go around the blockhorn, and we were looking to find somewhere, probably somewhere, to park the motor home. And we asked this policeman, well, he gave us such a torrent of words, none of which we could understand. So we set off on our home, and a few minutes later we came across this policeman again. Oh, no. We just kept going. And

Amanda Kendle 8:07
then we were back into England and the Lake District, which was significant to me now, since I returned there just last year for our friend’s wedding. Do you remember Lake Windermere

Barry Kendle 8:15
at all? There’s a lot of lakes and places where you can use ferries and things like

Amanda Kendle 8:20
that. Europe, they do have a lot more water internally than we do. Yes,

Barry Kendle 8:24
indeed, safe water to travel on too. Yeah, Beatrice Potter’s cottage.

Amanda Kendle 8:30
Yes, we didn’t go there this time either. It seemed like it was very, very, very touristy.

Barry Kendle 8:34
That’s part of the problem. Yeah, everything gets overworked.

Amanda Kendle 8:38
Mum’s diary gives us some more detail about this time, dull morning, though fine, into Keswick, millions of people shopped. Also got parking ticket and on to see Wordsworth’s cottage at Grasmere, lovely old stone houses at Grasmere. On to see Beatrix Potter’s House, very well kept and nice on ferry 80 5p to go across Lake Windermere instead of the drive along the very, very narrow roads, camped at lovely park. Caravan Club at Sedgwick washing facilities too, decided to stay another day. Best Park yet. I enjoyed looking these places up on the map and seeing how close we were to retracing these steps on our stay there last year was fun. My mum then describes what we got up to in Wales, where, unfortunately, our timing coincided with the local school holidays. Rain still a nuisance, despite numbers of people we will go on to Anglesey, visited Caernarvon Castle, more a fort than a castle. Interesting town, quite neat. More rock walls, a long road. Rain eased off. It came down in buckets and continuously before a real pain. Camped at Holyhead, met John Hooper from Sydney, Methodist minister at Sheffield for two years, transferred to Brisbane. As hotel chaplain, I love we were always meeting new people, and my mum always kept the details of them. A couple of days later, we were still in Wales near the Bodnant gardens. Bodnant Park, lovely gardens and very nice park. Stay today, Amanda and I walked into village a little rain, sunny afternoon, which was lovely, dinner and a walk into village again for beer at pub. Amanda and Zoe played cards with publican Mike. It cracks me up that my sister and I were apparently playing cards with the pub owner. I don’t remember that part. My dad and I then got to the photographs of our time in Wales and then England again, and we included some added reminiscing when we got to meet up with our friends, Pookie and Gene again. You might remember them from the Greece episode, the most loveliest English couple who we traveled with for quite some time. So we’re in Wales.

Barry Kendle 10:58
This photo says, a house on an island. Oh, like that,

Amanda Kendle 11:03
yeah. Well, imagine living there.

Barry Kendle 11:06
How we have to row row across each morning to go go to school or something.

Amanda Kendle 11:13
I’m disappointed there’s no photos of Welsh town names that no one can pronounce. Oxford,

Barry Kendle 11:19
original town hall. That’s not big in my memory bank, Amanda. No, mine, neither, I must say, Oxford. Do remember that they had beautifully grasped lawns around

Amanda Kendle 11:30
the place like in, perfect, perfect,

Barry Kendle 11:33
yeah, beautifully maintained, yeah. And I did expect a great, big single university. I was surprised to find bits and pieces of it all around the place.

Amanda Kendle 11:45
Now this I like we got back to catch up with Gene and Pookie in Norwich, friends from Greece.

Barry Kendle 11:53
He was an interesting character. He looks much

Amanda Kendle 11:55
younger than I remembered him. That

Barry Kendle 11:58
was my impression. Clearly, he wouldn’t have been that old anyway, were they retired or not? Now, he was a dabbler. He’d buy some fruit and from somewhere and then sell it somewhere else. He did a bit of that, journeyman, wholesaler, middleman, everything, wherever he could see a shilling to be made. Yeah, he was there. That’s my understanding. Yeah, right. Remember, they were visitors to Europe every year, so I understand it. That’s my memory of it. Too amazing. Hey, I taught him how to make a toaster. Well, this is with going back to Crystal Palace. I tried to buy a toaster there for the van, for the van, for the motor home, a simple piece of virtually fly wire on which you hold the toast, the bread, and hold it over a flame, and it becomes toast. Easy when I tried to buy one of those that are already made and very often around hardware stores in Australia, the fellow said, No, we don’t have those. He says, we get a lot of inquiries for them. But so I bought another toaster. This was described as a French toaster. It was like a square a tower and solid sheets on the four sides with holes punched in it. And it was the most stupid thing I ever bought. It was crazy. It didn’t work. No, it didn’t work. So with Pookie, seeing Pookie, they reminded me that in gigamanita, I bought some material from the hardware store and made

Amanda Kendle 13:48
one which it was like normal, like a quote, unquote for us, normal

Barry Kendle 13:52
kind of a bit, it was a bit rough around the edges, but it did make just the

Amanda Kendle 13:56
flat and it keeps the bread on top of the yes, on top of the heat. Yeah, flip it over. You’ve got toast,

Barry Kendle 14:02
and it did what we wanted. I showed showed Pookie how to do that, and we made one for him. Oh, away we went. He probably

Amanda Kendle 14:09
made toast on it, or they probably made toast on it for decades to come. I hope so.

Barry Kendle 14:14
Norwich, that’s where we were, and that’s where Pookie came from.

Amanda Kendle 14:17
We look like we’re having a good time.

Barry Kendle 14:20
Well, they were great. They were really good.

Amanda Kendle 14:23
I have a photo of these toasters, so you will have to check the show notes to see what we’re talking about. My mum’s diary gave more details about how we actually caught up with Gene and Pookie, which we began planning once we reached Oxford, looked for Jean and pookie’s telephone number at library and met Chinese student from Brisbane, camped at Oxford next day, decided to go to Norwich and see if gene and Pookie are home. So all up early and off by 8:30am passed through Cambridge and on to Norwich. Wow, Pookie and Jean home, and we arrived about. 4pm all very excited. Talk, talk, talk. Met Tim Jean’s son, who may go to Australia late night, but super to see them the next day. Sleep in, but off to Norwich and look through Museum. Very interesting lunch in a pub with Pookie and Jean. Lovely and home. Son just out, a lovely evening with Jean and Pookie and then the sad last day. Nice morning. All went for a walk, then coffee and time to go. We didn’t really want to leave. Zoe and Amanda, tearful. Amanda, especially me, sad too, Jean and Pookie, people, we will not forget. Now, if you’re paying close geographical attention, you might think we’re criss crossing the country a bit randomly, and you’d not really be wrong. My mom’s diary explained that we had hoped to get over to Ireland earlier, but with the school holidays, we couldn’t get a ferry booking for Around the time we’d hoped so, we ended up traveling east again before going west and back over to Ireland. So we also this is confusing. This meant we actually next headed south. We spent time in Portsmouth, and then on to Plymouth, which my dad and I discussed. But a quick fact check ahead of this, we mentioned the French Armada, but we definitely mean the Spanish. The Plymouth swimming beach is concrete steps, which, to an Australian, is kind of

Barry Kendle 16:27
wrong, absolutely. Yeah, this is where Sir Francis Drake had time to play his game of bowls before the French Armada. That’s right, that’s the story. We’ve got time to finish this game before we knock over the fridge.

Unknown Speaker 16:49
Somewhat arrogant, isn’t it?

Amanda Kendle 16:50
Although maybe keeping calm, maybe not, a terrible strategy.

Barry Kendle 16:54
This is a situation Amanda, that’s great. There’s so little space around here, this fellow has got his vehicle, and he’s taken his boat off the trailer, and then he’s managed to get the trailer up on top of the vehicle. It’s incredible.

Amanda Kendle 17:12
That is quite clever, isn’t it amazing?

Amanda Kendle 17:18
Yeah, here where we have all this space, and so we just have these very long car parks at those kind of, yeah, boat launching ramps and down to Land’s End. It now costs money to have this photo taken, does it really that was quite a while ago. I was there 2004 or five, so 20 years ago already. If you wanted to take that photo, you had to pay money.

Barry Kendle 17:37
Well, there’s a wharf here somewhere, and we stayed there overnight in the motor home, and in the middle of night, a foghorn started up. We got no rest. Damn fog kept young because a fog had come in. So the responsibility for the lighthouse people, let’s keep this fog on going. And man, did they ever do that?

Amanda Kendle 18:04
Were we just staying? Were in a camera park or just free camping? Yes, that’s what you get for free camping.

Amanda Kendle 18:13
My mom’s version confirms some of this and adds a tale of an interesting side business on to Land’s End. Bit bare and Rocky, few attractions, not much. Lucky to have fine afternoon to see free camped parking area. Met chap from Manchester at Land’s End. Friend of his goes to Ireland two to three times a week to buy Scotch duty free and bring home. Six of them were going three times a week buying six bottles, taxi to Dublin and sell to publican, going half in profit back to ship and buy theirs to take home, pay six pounds a bottle, sell in Dublin for 14 pounds. The next night, fog came in overnight, and from about 1am the fog horn sounded every 30 seconds, a real pain. From here. We spent a little more time in Cornwall, including a high tea in St Ives, that popular seaside town I actually returned to many years later and really enjoyed but then it was finally time to catch our ferry over to Ireland. Context, travel offers walking tours across Ireland and the UK and in Singapore too. You may recall a couple of years ago, I chose my hike in Japan based on following a poet’s footsteps. So it should be no surprise that my pick in Ireland is the Dublin literature tour, visiting key sites connected to greats like James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde. Up in Scotland, I’d like to try another lesser known neighborhood walk with the dean village tour in Edinburgh, guided by enthusiastic historians. And in Singapore, since one of my favorite things to do is eat, I’m keen to try the Singapore food tour centered on Hawker center culture, I’m totally sold, because the walk begins with a Kaya Toast snack, which is my go to treat in Singapore, even when I’m only passing through the airport. Don’t forget, you can get a 15. Discount on any context travel tour using the code thoughtful travel at context travel.com

Barry Kendle 20:08
fish guard, Ferry to Ireland, duty free comes to mind, not that we were interested in doing that, but that was one of the reasons why. And I’m not sure which was which way the stuff was going. But it was part of the trip. If you’re going to go to England or to Ireland, one way or the other, it was cheap. Make sure you got some duty free product to take. Yeah, may have been cigarettes or end Grog, I don’t remember. Yeah. So oh, the bloody castle. My goodness, what a tank.

Amanda Kendle 20:43
Please explain the Blarney castle. Well,

Barry Kendle 20:47
the rock is down behind you there, I think, and they they lower you by your ankles down and so you can kiss the Blarney Stone. They make a fortune, I think, out of all the stuff that falls out of people’s pockets, have they had tipped upside down? Another of those little tourist things that draws people from everywhere, and it is all Blarney, exactly,

Amanda Kendle 21:08
and also, I don’t know, just seems very unhygienic to be kissing this rock same paper that everyone or

Amanda Kendle 21:16
1000s of people have been kissing. It’s no wonder I’m not a big bucket list traveler. I was clearly schooled from a young age not to be taken in by any tourist trap. Not only did my dad scoff at the Blarney Stone when we chatted more recently, but my mum wrote this way back then. Inter cork, big place, not very interesting, drove to Blarney and climbed the stairs of the castle to see the Blarney Stone at one pound 50 per person, the Irish are not stupid. A real take. It’s so interesting that both my mum’s diary from the time and my dad’s recollections 40 years later often overlap and focus on what’s similar or different between our home and the places we visited. Clearly, I was also taught to tune into these matters. When we reached the Ring of Kerry, my mum wrote, hurrah, son, nice day off to the Ring of Kerry. Amazing. The number of new homes and up to say, 10 years old, being built or just finished modern as ours, fixed windows, apart from small windows for ventilation, usually nice lawns and gardens, quite pretty. You can see the real estate agent in my mom and in discussions with my dad. Ring of Kerry.

Barry Kendle 22:26
Ring of Kerry. Yeah, that’s the only place around that area in where the housing is sort of spread out. It’s not all on top of one another, sort of like Australia, where there’s a farm here and a house, and little further on, there’s another house and a farm, not all in a six or seven story building.

Amanda Kendle 22:47
Interesting. And then we headed north along the east coast of Ireland, farms right over Coast hills, no trees, cliffs of more impressive drive through to Galway, interesting, different scenery more enjoyable than Kerry, in fact, more pleasant than any scenery for a while. Galway, not a large town. Rain again into camp, not bad, very windy. So after about 10 days or so in Ireland, we took the ferry back west, and before long, we were seeing some of the last important sites for us in England, including Stonehenge, though we also spoke about the Western Australian replica Stonehenge.

Barry Kendle 23:28
Which brings me to a question, have you been to the Stonehenge in Albany? Yet?

Amanda Kendle 23:32
Esperance?

Barry Kendle 23:34
Esperance, no, I

Amanda Kendle 23:36
haven’t. I really wanted to go, but when I went to Esperance for work, I didn’t have my own car, so I had to rely on my colleagues who didn’t have time So,

Barry Kendle 23:43
but, you know, it is a wonderful gimmick. They’ve got this enormous car park over the road here, oh, not in essence at the real one, yeah, with an underpass, big park. But can

Speaker 1 23:55
you still go up as close like that? Okay, but there’s big car park. Probably have to pay a fee. Yeah?

Amanda Kendle 23:59
Probably exactly. I went past Stonehenge in like, or 20 years ago or so when Donna lived not far from there, and we just drove past, it was after the closing time or whatever. So we did. We just like, Okay, hi Stonehenge, because we’d been to bath for the day.

Barry Kendle 24:14
All right, I think we had to look at the bath, see in the public bath somewhere there, and it looked like a muddy old water tank.

Amanda Kendle 24:23
Yes, that’s also my more recent experience. My mum also mentioned bath, but more positively, on to bath and hard to find Park, nice one with free hot water and a laundromat and only four pounds, 75 so clean clothes, and us clean as well, all tired after the ferry bath. Nice town, rather graceful, and this marked the end of an era, because we returned to London then, and after a few days back in the Crystal Palace caravan park, we gave up our camper van home. Fine. And so off to clean the van. Yes, Van cleaned and vacuumed into Derek Turner and Roland. They were pleased to see us, and very helpful. Derek had a flat vacant and offered it to US East Dulwich phone, and all paid for 16 days, 170 pounds. So with no campsites, etc, it works out well, and we can sell the van at our convenience, back to Crystal Palace for the night, our last night in van. So from our new base, a little flat near the Elephant and Castle tube station, we got to see much more of London, the Tower of London, up to Greenwich, lots of typical sites. And we even got to see a musical, also lucky to book in for Starlight Express at only seven pounds 50. I believe we’ll be in it, but sounds okay. Normal tickets to shows were 22 pounds to cats as well. Look forward to it. Tubes do get you around. Well, nice to have the flat to come home to.

Barry Kendle 26:01
You remember anything of that show? Yeah, I really do. What about the roller skates, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just

Amanda Kendle 26:06
remember like, I remember like it was surrounding, like they come

Barry Kendle 26:10
from, yeah, right next to us,

Amanda Kendle 26:12
yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. I remember it well. It

Barry Kendle 26:16
was a good show, probably better than we were looking at trying to get into cats. I think it was, yeah. And the fellow said, No, you can’t get in there because it’s all sold out, right? And you had to chat to your mum about how old we were and so on. So he said, this would be the best thing you could do.

Amanda Kendle 26:31
So that’s how we was probably right, because if I remember it 40 years on,

Barry Kendle 26:38
I remember the rattling of those skates and I zoomed fast, that’s I remember, yeah, fast.

Amanda Kendle 26:45
We spent another week or so in London. We caught up with our London friends from the bank, and we were trying to sell our camper van. We almost did, but ended up having to leave it on consignment with Derek and Roland, the original car yard, who sold it to us. But it all worked out well, and then it was time to leave Europe, cleaned flat, etc, dropped off van and off to airport. Leave 10pm good flight. Not much sleep, and landed Singapore. 6:15pm, Friday. Weather, 29 degrees. A real change to hotel, Changi Airport. Very smart and really good. Two double rooms with connecting door. Bought fried rice back to room, and all enjoyed that. And the next day, walked up Orchard Road, looked at shops very different from Hong Kong, a lot of department stores. In afternoon, went to Sentosa Island, looked at Coral and Wax Museum. Coral. Lovely ride on monorail around Ireland, tropical plants and very green. And Singapore on the way home,

Barry Kendle 27:46
on the way home, cable car, yes, the monorail. I like Singapore, pretty clean as I remember it last time I was there, yes. Agreed

Amanda Kendle 27:54
that Sentosa Island is expensive, yeah. And then it was time to return to Australia after six months away, off to plane, 5pm good trip home and about 2am through customs and really home about 4am Wow. What a fabulous house. Really looks delightful. Lorraine and Helen made it look fabulous. And flowers from Uncle and Terry quiche from Lorraine, which will be terrific tomorrow. We are so lucky to have Super Friends, a lovely home, peaceful area, no traffic after England, super trip, but lovely to be back. And the last photo in our album is a picture of the four of us in our living room at 4:30am with huge grins on our faces home,

Barry Kendle 28:42
430 in the morning. God, we’re probably a bit beat by then. I bet we were,

Amanda Kendle 28:47
oh, at least we’d only come from Singapore, though. Yeah, nice curtains.

Barry Kendle 28:53
Who chose them. Times go by and tastes change. Yes, that’s absolutely grace.

Amanda Kendle 29:02
I know, I know that’s the thing, isn’t it? I’m sure, in the 70s, they were great, but like, how could they How could anyone ever think they were great? You’ll have to check the show notes for this photo, for your own opinion on the curtains. But you’ll also see we were obviously so happy to be home again, also happy to have had such a brilliant experience. As I have said numerous times, this was just an utterly life changing experience for me. I actually feel quite emotional finishing off this series, because it’s been so special to celebrate it, I am full of gratitude to my parents for making it happen. It wasn’t something that was common in the 80s at all, and we certainly weren’t filthy rich or anything. It was a sacrifice to do it, but also just a huge privilege, of course, that we could and it shaped so many of my views about the world, and of course, lit that travel bug flame in me, and that will never go out big thanks to Context Travel, the series sponsor for their support in creating these special podcast episodes. You can find out more about their [email protected] or. Find them under Context Travel on your social media platform of choice. If you want to try context tour yourself, remember you can get a 15% discount by using the code thoughtful travel when you book online. So thank you so much for listening to Episode 370 of the thoughtful travel podcast. Huge, huge. Thanks to my dad for sitting down with me to chat about our long ago trip, lots of photos in the show notes for this episode.