Let’s catch up: 2010 - 2016

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Written By Ewan Hamilton

Ewan and Bev met in 2009, becoming a couple in 2010. Though Ewan had a motorbike, it was another 4 years before they both took and passed their car driving tests, and longer before they were brave enough to cross the channel or rent a car following a flight. As a result, our initial travels were restricted to family holidays or generous lift offers.

Here we both obtain smartphones and began storing our photos so our travels are now fully documented. In these “catch up” summaries we’re only going to focus on first trips to places and attempt to exclude what we would class as regular travel - for example, visits to extended family. Also bear in mind that some of these places were really visited prior - Wales and Scotland for Bev for example - however we didn’t have any real information on these.

2011

2011 saw us attend a family celebration day at Ewan’s place of work at the time - Mercedes F1 team in Brackley - during the British Grand Prix in early July. We met Nico Rosberg, Michael Schumacher and Ross Brawn (then team principal). At the end of July we travelled up to the Newcastle area to visit some of Bev’s extended family, staying with Grandma Pat and Stewart (ENM10) (ENM11).

In August we attended Greenbelt for the first time, a Christian music festival that was held at Cheltenham Racecourse at the time (ENM12). Ewan wishes he still had those shades. Thanks to a generous lift into London (ENM13) from Bev’s dad, we saw Les Mis in theatre which was fantastic, even if the traffic in central London was a bit crazy on the way there.

2012

2012 saw us return to Greenbelt and Ewan visit Winchester for work training, but we visited no new regions or countries.

2013

In 2013 we visited London again to see ‘Burn the Floor’ in theatre and met the dancers “backstage” prior to the show.

In August we took our first trip abroad together, with Ewan’s siblings, to Spain (EC4) (EUNP6). We flew into Malaga and stayed in a villa in the hills overlooking La Herradura - The Horseshoe (BNM15) (ENM14).

2014

January 2014 saw us both pass our car driving tests an hour apart. With the new-found freedom, in August we visited the Forest of Dean camping with Bev’s family, falling off Segways and riding a tour boat down the River Wye - forming part of the border between England and Wales (BUNP5) (BNM16).

We visited our first Haven Holiday Park in Lakeland before again visiting family near Newcastle and re-experiencing Beamish Museum.

2015

With Ewan’s AS-level French fading fast, we drove our car onto the EuroTunnel tunnel in Folkstone after staying in a hotel overnight for an early crossing (BNM17) (ENM15). A couple of hours later we were parking up at a gîte in Tortefontaine, France (BNM18) (ENM16) with Ewan’s parents. We visited the local “big town” Hesdin for market day, Le Touquet and Berck for beach walks and Abbeville (BNM19) (ENM17) for shopping. We took our first trip together to Paris (ENM18) including a loop around the Arc de Triomphe roundabout in Ewan’s new car which was a little scary.

In August we stayed in Suffolk (ENM19) with Bev’s family, visiting Sutton Hoo and the surrounding towns.

In November Bev visited Glasgow, Scotland (BUNP5) (BNM20) as part of her Queen’s Guide award, her first solo flight.

2016

For my 24th birthday we visited Cadbury World in Birmingham, though we definitely needed more samples… Bev visited Disneyland Paris, again.

We stayed at Haven Wild Duck in Norfolk - worth mentioning because we’ve returned twice since then. We visited Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft (eastern most point of mainland GB) and Norwich.

A campground near Barnard Castle was our base in August, with a memorable walk around Fountain’s Abbey, Ripon and a visit to High Force waterfall.

Our first Airbnb, with a legend called Joel, in Mesnil Val Plage, France (BNM21), was our home base for our trip to France this year. We explored Le Treport with 777 steps down to the beach (Ewan almost died…), Rouen (cathedral with armed guards was impressive) and Le Havre. It also allowed us our second drive into Paris where a picnic and beautiful view over Paris from Parc des Buttes-Chaumont (hill-hill for some reason) saw us finally engaged.

Aside from the standard visits to Family, McFly concert, running in the Great North Run in Newcastle and Gateshead for the first time, and Manchester Christmas Market, the rest of the year for Bev was spent wedding planning.

At the end of November we found out that we had a leak under the kitchen floor in our house (in Banbury at the time) that lead to us moving out of our house for almost 9 months. We were in a hotel for 6 weeks over Christmas and New Years before moving into a rented house in Brackley - where we wanted to move eventually anyway - for 7 months. You’ll see why we end at 2016 in the next catch up post.

Ewan Hamilton
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Let’s catch up: to 2010