We had been in living in Malaysia for almost 2 years, travelled the length and breadth of the country, made many amazing friends, started a business, rode out a pandemic and finally called it home, when the prime minister announced that the current strict and already prolonged lock down due to Covid19 would be indefinite.

That same day we booked flights back to the UK!

Not to return for good, but as a holiday from the drudgery that had become Malaysian lockdowns.

For the first 6 months of 2021 all shops and services not classed as essential were closed in Malaysia. Outdoor activities such as play parks, hiking, the beach and even cycling were prohibited. Restaurants were only takeaway and signing in to all premises you entered was mandatory. Masks were not only compulsory in all public places, but the government encouraged wearing not just one but two.

With the UK almost back to normal by July 2021 and no change in sight for us in Malaysia, it was a no brainer.

We had always toyed with the idea of surprising our families by just arriving on their doorsteps so decided why not.

Leaving Malaysia: No Easy Feat

However, escaping Malaysia was no piece of cake either, and in fact the last time we tried, they wouldn’t let us - but that's another story.

With the current restrictions, in order to exit the country we required police permits, but these were even needed to hire a driver to move our belongings, then again to put it into storage, then again still to travel to the airport, and to stay in a hotel in KL - in fact the owner of the hotel kindly picked us up from the airport as there were no taxis, but it seemed more like being smuggled as by the current rules he should have made 2 trips!

Flights out were also no certainty with the first flight we booked needing to be cancelled after we realised, we would transit through a red list country and the second flight being cancelled by the airline due to low bookings.

Even once we were on our way, we found ourselves having to judge the right level of rule breaking required to make the journey practical, such as choosing to leave the airport for a hotel rather than spend the night there as our police permit only covered the airports themselves.

Returning to the UK: A Housing Dilemma

What we hadn't appreciated was that at the time of booking our flights back to the UK, was that no one in the UK was travelling out, and instead were all enjoying domestic holidays.

With no home in the UK anymore, and with all the holiday rentals booked up, our options were limited to say the least; in fact the nearest accommodation we could get to my hometown was 60km away!

With the intension of surprising family and with a two-week quarantine to complete first we were struggling. So once again, as we have done before, we turned to our fellow travelling community for help.

We were given the advice to take a look at trustedhousesitters.com

This is a website devised to connect homeowners looking for someone trustworthy to look after their home or pets whilst they are away, and travellers like us looking for potential places to stay. The exchange of homes for sitting is a straightforward swap and being a member of the site requires a yearly fee of £99 (25% off with our link). Which at the time was less than any single night’s accommodation that we could find.

There are no guarantees of course that you will be "picked" by a host, but you can check at least before signing up what house sits are available in any given area. Within a day of joining we already had a one week sit booked in and were in talks with other hosts with the intent to fill our time exclusively through the new website.

Best Quarantine Ever!

This of course was no help with our quarantine.

It was a travelling friend we first met in Vietnam that came to the rescue, the same friend in fact that recovered our lost luggage and brought it to Malaysia for us. This time she was kindly helping us the use of a tent in her back garden in Essex for our quarantine.

So with a plan for at least the first few weeks back in the UK sorted, we boarded our flight from KL, Malaysia to Heathrow, UK.

A 14-hour flight for some families may seem like hell, but for us and even our 5- and 7-year-old it's a good stint of downtime. We love flying Malaysia Airways too who, never stop feeding you. The plane was almost empty which meant we could stretch out.

Once we reached England, We chose to stay in an airport hotel for the night to catch some much-needed Z's before heading across to our friend in Essex, so we jumped to the nearest Premiere Inn (we love a Premiere Inn)

Next day we arrived in Essex to a warm welcome and just as warm weather. The sun had appeared for the summer, and we spent the next two weeks enjoying great hospitality. Our kids were happy to be reunited with their friends and played happily whilst we tried to keep busy.

Our friend’s home is somewhat a mini small holding, with chickens, a litter of puppies, cats and a huge back garden with fire pit, which we put to great use.

Our two weeks flew by in a blur of beautiful weather, cider, roasted marshmallows and plenty of fun. We were so lucky with the weather the entirety of the time, with almost every meal cooked on the BBQ.

We were even joined in our camping by more friends met originally in Vietnam also, and all this time still our families had no idea we were back.

Heading Home For The Suprises

After leaving quarantine we bought a car and headed to Southend On Sea, to clean ourselves up (we had been camping for 2 weeks) and also why not fit in a theme park!

The attractions are pretty awesome, and it was great to see such a thriving busy high street after months of only seeing local shops struggle to even open their doors. It was however a little strange to be around so many people, the majority of which not wearing masks ("freedom day" on the 19th of July had happened whilst we were in quarantine) especially when the last theme park we were at was Legoland Malaysia - which is empty at the best of times.

Soon we were heading to our first surprise, Emma’s brother. She had used a friend of his to arrange a dinner date, however it was us who turned up at the door instead.

Her brother's house is difficult to park anywhere near and so we did a few laps in which we all tried to look as little like us as possible. Once we had snuck up to the door, Emma's brother was literally speechless for a good minute, which if you know him happens very seldom, whist he tried to comprehend who was at the door, his fiancé was a little more vocal who seemed to think they now had actually double booked!

I loved seeing Emma reunited with her brother after so long and we were lucky that our first pet sit happened to be directly behind his place of work, so we had plenty more opportunities to hang out.

The next day we made our way down to my hometown, where I had managed to persuade my parents, sister's, nephews, nieces, uncles and aunties that we would be video calling them to share a traditional Malay meal, which I had organised to be delivered to my parents’ home.

Of course it was really us bringing the food, but I was fortunate to have found a real Malay chef locally to prepare it all.

We decided to leave the food in the car and try our best to "sneak" down my parents driveway - a futile exercise partly because unbeknown to us they had removed a whole hedgerow from the front garden and as it happened my mum was waiting at the front window for the food to arrive.

The first we knew that we had been spotted, was the sound of screaming from inside the house. One screaming voice became two, two became three before we had even reached the door. By the time it was opened my whole family stood in the reception ready to greet us - it had played out perfectly!

New Adventures Across the UK

We spent our first house sit in Maidstone, meeting up with local friends and family.

We found time to introduce some family to indoor rock climbing (a very popular sport in Malaysia) and made use of the convenience of having a car (hadn't driven for 2 years previous) to travel out to all our friends that wanted to meet up.

Our next house sit was looking after an elderly Golden Labrador down in Arundel, West Sussex, in a lovely family home in a quiet close, overlooking a great kids playpark.

With the summer we were experiencing I was glad to have packed my SUP board, so I did one day decide to take it up the river Arun (the longest river in Sussex). Emma dropped me at the river’s mouth at the beach and arranged to pick me back up when I reached the end. For me personally this ended up being one of my favourite experiences back in the UK.

The river Arun could be a quintessential cruise of the English landscape. I started at the beach among fishing boats and docks, paddle my way through fields pebbled with cattle and sheep, woodland and marsh.

I passed by quant little riverside pubs, ornate boat houses, and private jetties. Under chaulk cliffs, busy bridges, towering cathedrals and castle walls. 60km and 6 hours later I reached the end, very tired, where Emma was waiting. The day and time I chose meant I arrived at the start almost spot on slack tide and spent the entirety with the river retreating to the sea and me paddling against the flow - I'm sure with the stream it could take just half the time.

We spent a little over a week doing not much but dog walks at this house sit, we did explore Arundel which is a picture postcard town and home to the cathedral and castle I had passed by on my jaunt.

Cadbury's World Chocolate Experience

For our next stop we were heading north to the lake District to visit some good friend and fellow travelling family.

It's a good 6-hour journey from A to B so we decided to break this up with a stop in Birmingham, a familiar city for me and Emma. We have made a few trips in the past on business in Birmingham but had never yet managed to get to Cadbury's world. As a kid I had always longed to visit, and at 32 the want was no less powerful.

We didn't tell the kids; we often surprise them. Usually we tell them we have to go to the bank, although they are starting to get wise to this, and actual trips to the bank are starting to get very disappointing! This time however they had no idea and we're ecstatic when we pulled past the big Cadbury world sign.

Cadbury is the UK biggest chocolate manufacturer and Cadbury's World is the home of their original factory, which is now a sort of Museum, theme park, tourist attraction. You have a timed ticket, as the whole thing is a walk-through attraction, so you have to wait your allotted time, however there is a big outdoor play area with shows and food and drink stalls where you can wait.

When it's you time to enter you hand your ticket to the lady at the entrance counter and in return she hands you a ridiculous amount of chocolate.

The first part of the walkthrough is the history and production process of chocolate. We have visited a surprising number of chocolate factories around the world and had a much more hands on experience of this in the Dominican Republic, but this was still fun for the kids with interactive videos. Not even 10 min deep, we were already scoffing the welcome chocolate, and it added to the experience when watching the making process.

A little further in we boarded a short ride with music and Cadbury characters, throughout which we were still eating chocolate. There is a history walk-through of the factory, nostalgic Cadbury advertising, and the chocolate making process through time. All a little interesting but made exponentially better whilst eating chocolate!

There were also some hands-on experiences, such as chocolate writing and more tasting, by the time we finished it's safe to say we had had our fill of chocolate and where all now feeling a little sick....so we bought more in the gift shop of course.

We all loved spending the day here, it was fun and delicious for the littles and very nostalgic for the bigs.

Back On The Roadtrip

From Birmingham we had a 3-hour drive to the Kendal in the lake District. Our friends that we first met in Johor, Malaysia had, after traveling the world returned to the UK and bought a bed and breakfast which they were in the middle of refurbishing.

Kendal is a beautiful little town, with the most tranquil shallow river running through its centre the sound of which is just gorgeous, and home to the namesake Kendal Mint Cake. It was great seeing our friends for the first time in 3 years and of course is always ideal to have local tour guides in a new area.

The lake District is the furthest north that we had ever been in England and on the drive in we wondered why we had never made it here. The rolling hills and sparkling freshwater lakes we wound are way through were breathtaking.

Our Kendal friends our some of the most easy-going people we know, and they were happy to simply give advice on where to go or join us on a tour of the area. We of course wanted to spend time with them, so with just a few days planned to go exploring.

Kendal is around 30 - 40 min from some of the big lakes. With that travel time being heavily impacted by traffic as the roads that join the lake District are mostly narrow and winding. We wanted to visit the major sightseeing town of Windermere so made our way there on day one. The drive in was short in distance but long in time, as the road leading there seemed to crawl continuously for no good reason, but you are at least able to gaze at the view.

Our day started with a shared hobby for both families in rock climbing then we were off to do all the touristy things, from crazy golf, to ice cream and toffee tasting and hanging out with a picnic at the park. There were plenty of families with teenage kids heading up the rolling hills on hikes but it a few more years for our family until then. It's a perfect place to just hang out for the day and do just about nothing.

We returned to Kendal that evening around 7pm hungry since our midday picnic, only to find that no restaurants could fit us in. It wasn't that they were full but rather that half of every eatery was sectioned off. At first, we thought this was the first signs we had come across of the aftermath of COVID however in actual fact this was the result of Brexit; a total lack of work force, leading to restaurants halving their capacity. So dinner that night came in the form of convenience food from the supermarket.

Next day we headed to Ullswater lake. This huge lake is ideal for open water swimming and water sports, and we of course had the paddle board with us. When we arrived, we noticed the many wetsuits that others were donning, which we of course did not have. On entering the water, we immediately noticed why.

It was seriously cold, take your breath away cold, but luckily it was a beautifully warm sunny day, and the experience was so refreshing. Everyone swam freely, played on the paddle board and picnicked of the bank side, on another perfect day.

On our last day in Kendal having met in Southeast Asia we went for a luscious Thai breakfast and made the most of the park in Kendal. The 3 days came and went so fast, and we were back on our way down south again far too soon.

We were heading across England to Canterbury this time to meet my best friend’s new baby. One of the downsides of surprising everyone after a few years away is not being able to really plan properly. In the 3 month we were due to be home, this was the only weekend we had to see our Canterbury fam, so although not the most logical trip, that where we headed. We did however spend a fantastic day out in Canterbury, visiting the weekend market, going on a punting history tour, playing in the park and of course meeting their gorgeous baby girl.

Chessington World Of Adventure

One place we have always taken the kids in the UK and only a short skip and a jump from Canterbury is Chessington world of adventure. Avery in fact visited this theme park at 2 weeks old. She couldn’t do anything then of course but it gave Dex a sense that this new little sister wasn't going to be hogging mummy and daddy all the time, plus I was working 9 - 5, 5 days a week back then so it was a good use of paternity time.

We love staying at the safari hotel, which is modelled on Disney's Animal Kingdom lodge (another of our favourites) The hotel itself has an indoor pool, buffet restaurant very similar to the rainforest cafe and an a la carte restaurant which overlooks the savannah full of Zebras, giraffes, Rino and more.

The theme park has direct access from the hotel, and exclusive access to one of our favourite experiences the outdoor play park which goes through the monkey enclosure, with glass tunnels and cages which the kids climb through whilst the monkeys climb over.

Chessington world of Adventure was originally a zoo but gets bigger and bigger every time we visit. It's fun to look back on photos of the kids on the same rides through the years. From Chessington we headed to our next housesit and another long drive. We were really testing this £900 car!

The Easiest Pet Sit Ever

A few hours later we pulled up to an awesome country home in Hascombe. Here we would be looking after the owners’ chickens for 10 days, which even if it were difficult would have been totally worth it (in actually fact it was nothing more than feeding them once a day and cleaning once a week)

The house was enormous, and better still had a huge garden with toys for the littles and entertaining space for bigs. It was in the sticks but had a woodland walk to a nearby pub and short drive to the river and town centre.

The family were lovely and left us with instructions to help ourselves to anything in the kitchen and not worry too much about the chickens. We found out when we arrived that the reason we had got so lucky to be picked for this sit was the rowing link, since they used to live on the banks of Henley river; the location of a very prestigious race I have been lucky enough to compete in quite a few times.

With a spare bedroom and great entertainment space we decided to hold a get together for some friends. It was ideal for a garden BBQ so our friends from Vietnam came to stay, as did Emma's old school friends.

West End Birthday Treat

Again we didn't venture far for most of our 10 days as the house was the perfect place for a glorious British summer. We did however (with the housesit owners’ encouragement) head to central London for a night, as the train journey was under an hour. Avery's birthday was coming up at the end of the month, so we had promised her a West End show to celebrate.

A friend of ours was staring in Mary Poppins, so we devoted the day to that theme. Avery received and gladly wore a Poppins costume that morning, and we headed to London as tourists for the day. We love trips to central London. My family are all from London, but I grew up on the coast, the energy change when you get off at Victoria and stroll around, is palpable. I love the Victorian architecture and hodge podge of ethnicities and cultures.

Our first stop was at the Thames, where we boarded the Horrible History Cruise. Anyone with kids should know horrible histories, which we love to listen to on audiobook and podcast due to A) our love of history and B) our love of rude jokes.

The Terrible Thames tour is an alternative history tour of London’s riverside attraction. Once you set off you are introduced to your hosts in the form of a student and school teacher (who look suspiciously close in age) – these two lead your tour with the teacher giving the general myths of London history whilst the student is forever correcting him with the actual and often stranger facts.

It's very silly, funny and a little rude which we absolutely loved.

Once of the cruise we headed to another icon of central London with a double decker bus tour with a difference, because this one included an afternoon tea and champagne (well something fizzy at least) Followed shortly afterwards by the Mary Poppins stage show, for which Emma’s bother and sister joined us and Avery absolutely loved.

Once we had finished our pet sit in Hascombe, we were fortunate again to find equally beautiful accommodation through another traveling friend, who mum had a holiday home in Battle, England.

Our Home Was Our Castle

Battle is the last place we lived in the UK and is the name’s sake of one of the most famous altercations to happen on English soil – The Great Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the home we would be staying at shared its garden wall with the historic Monks Abbey.

We love Castles, and their equivalents around the world, whether it’s the Tombs of Egypt or Pagodas of Vietnam, the Ruins of Greece or the temples of Malaysia.

When we lived in England, we always had a national trust or English heritage pass and visited one most week. Battle Abbey however is a great example with frequent events like enactments, interactive exhibits and a great mix of fully intact awe-inspiring ancient building to totally climbable ruins.

Battle itself is another quant little town with a single street running through it and a thriving community, our home here for the rest of our stay was a cute little affair with exposed wooden beam, low ceiling for me to hit my head on and a big garden for the kids to play in.

Fortunately whilst back we were able to celebrate not one but two birthdays, with a superhero themed dance party for Dex.

We had arrived in the UK with no set plans of how long to stay, only to avoid the rest of the lock downs in Malaysia. However by the time we reached mid-October it had gotten too cold for our now tropical skin to cope with.

With restrictions still in place in Malaysia we started to look around the world to where we could head to “wait it out” at first, we had a vision of backpacking around Europe, but the temperature in England soon put a stop to that – Costa Rica was highly recommended, warm and one of the countries with no travel restrictions.

So we made the plan and did all our tearful farewells. When we first left the UK, we told everyone we were going for a year and obviously somewhere along the line that changed, however this time, we all knew that it would be longer in between visits and that those visits would now be holidays, rather than returning home.

Leaving was a little harder, but we couldn’t have asked for a more enjoyable summer, spent with the people we love whilst the sun shone on all of us -now onward to Central America, ¡vamos!