We slept in today, it was beautiful. Angela had called round all her friends with pools to see if we could use them. Everyone was more than happy to have us round so at midday we went to the Morrison's pool (Angela's niece's husband's family) in Newmarket. Their pool was lovely in a beautiful garden. It came complete with reclining chairs and a diving board! Dave (Morrison) was very friendly and made us feel welcome. We soon got down to the taxing task of sunbathing.
In the pool Gillian taught us some of her synchro swimming moves, including a really cool one called the dolphin where you form a chain with your feet around someone's neck and do a massive backwards roll with three people in, remembering to breathe at the surface. After several attempts we managed it, gasping for breath at the end. Sometimes I wonder if there can possibly be anyone cooler than us in the world.
We ate our picnic lunch with Angela, leftovers from yesterday, and after a bit more sunbathing, returned back to Angela's briefly to do some laundry (yes, we succumbed and decided clean clothes were a luxury we could afford!). Our next stop was another of Angela's friend's pools. Kelly had been working a night shift at the hospital that night and had only just woken up. Despite this, she was still very generous and bought us chips (crisps) and drinks. We played around with the lilos in the pool and with the family's dog. When the water got too cold to bear, we got out and chatted to Kelly and her daughter Taylor for a bit. We were constantly amazed by the kindness and genuine interest people showed us despite us being total strangers to them! Something you don't see everyday in the UK.
That evening Angela cooked us lasagne, then we helped set her up on Skype. We had a few attempts at talking to Andrea (her daughter), and made Angela practise so much until she knew what to do off by heart. Angela- if you need any help, please don't be afraid to email!
That evening, Stephanie and Trevor came round to say hi. Stephanie is Angela's niece and it was Trevor's parent's pool that we'd crashed that day. They asked us about our journey and we ended up re-telling our tale from start to finish. When saying it out loud, it made us realise how long a journey it's been and how much we've fitted into our time. We all appreciate how lucky we are, definitely going to treaure this experience for ever!
That night we went to bed far too late. Again. Beforehand though, we got a few replies from our hostels. (Remember how we were trying to change the dates to stay in Canada for Canada day?) Basically, we couldn't stay any longer in our hostel in Toronto and so we had to book another HI hostel. Also, we'd accidentally told New York hostel people that we'd be checking out a day before we needed to, they said they were fully booked on our last night. As of yet we haven't managed to book anything else so our last night of this grand adventure may well be on the streets of New York. Something to remember I guess. Don't worry! We'll definitely find something soon! Slightly worried about next year, trying to do a degree when we can't even book a hostel right. Hmmmm.
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