Moving in

The honeymoon is over, literally, and now begins the process of acquiring bookshelves and an extra wardrobe and all that sort of thing. I had actually been keeping a lot of CK's things in storage for a while, so the volume of stuff in the flat has not greatly increased; however, it does need to be rearranged so that it can be got at conveniently. There is not a lot of space on the living room floor at the moment, as a result.

Our honeymoon led to me driving a little over 900 miles in a week. It turns out that you can pull this off in a country 600 miles long, if you are forced by your relatives living inconveniently far away from each other to essentially do a lap of the nation.
It was not bad really. A couple of days loafing at home and walking the dog (with afternoons out to Cambridge and St Alban's). Two and a half days in London, doing all the usual tourist photos. Meeting up with old uni and school friends in pubs in Hitchin and London.

The only real mishap was when we tried to leave Yorkshire -- the car didn't like this. The plan was to head over the Snake Pass and spend the day in Liverpool, having stayed overnight with my aunt and uncle in Sheffield. However, as we approached the Derbyshire border, something went terribly wrong and we suddenly had the kind of engine note that does not bode well, especially in the Peak District, which has enough long climbs at the best of times.
So instead we were forced to spend the afternoon in Sheffield, which was not too bad really, while a garage in Crosspool replaced a section of the exhaust system. The most expensive section going, I would note, containing the catalytic converter.
At any rate, we were able to cross the pass in daylight, so we still got the nice scenery to look at, even if we didn't get the chance to catch up with Stephen.

CK had some trouble with the potato-heavy diet, prompting her at one point to exclaim "Don't you guys ever eat rice?" but otherwise it was all fine. As well as seeing relatives and friends, I also got the chance to visit places I'd never bothered to before (e.g. Stonehenge, Salisbury... er, Birmingham). Which was nice.
And now I'm back in Hong Kong, so I don't have to do any more driving for a long time.