Kate Bartishel: \u00a0Ok \u2013 so neither Tony, John or Steve are actually my uncle but it makes Steve feel uncomfortable when I say it so I\u2019ll continue. The amount of time we\u2019re all spending together though, it\u2019s only a matter of time before we start calling each other as Mum and Dad.<\/p>\n
After receiving the 360 baton from Lou and Shelly at Cardiff Station on Wednesday night and having a rather late but lovely Turkish meal in Cardiff Bay we had a full day to look forward to on Day 11. With new socks for everyone (things had started to get a little stinky) we left Cardiff fire station and made our way to an early morning meeting at Velindre Hospital. We met some lovely Macmillan nurses\u2026and even managed to convince them to hop up on to the roof for a few snaps. These ladies do such a wonderful job and meeting the charities we\u2019re working for is such a big motivator. Did you know that since recession has gripped the UK, public donations have actually gone UP? Incredible.<\/p>\n
From Velindre we hopped back to Cardiff Fire Station to meet some of the fire fighters, pose for some more snaps (Uncle T and Uncle J are loving the photo opportunities!) it was then time to hit the M4 where the boys assured me Martha would stop being grumpy and really start to enjoy herself\u2026.<\/p>\n
Our second \u2018Watch\u2019 of the day was in Bristol, and although health and safety denied us a go on the poles (the tallest in the UK by the way) we had a lovely cuppa and got the guys \u2018fired\u2019 up about our trip. Sadly we had a date in Exeter so we said our goodbyes and hit the open road\u2026.after negotiating the same ring road three times Uncle T finally got his act together\u2026honestly if he\u2019d only listened to Uncle J in the first place\u2026we were on our way to Exeter.<\/p>\n
The drive down to Exeter is a beauty. I was slightly un-nerved by Steve being nice to me – this never happens \u2013 but still, it was a comfy drive. Uncle T had charge of the wheel today and he was absolutely loving the support from the white van men on the M5. I thought we\u2019d lost Uncle John at one point\u2026stopping for a wee in a lay-by he suddenly started running off to the hills\u2026it turns out he just needed a bit more privacy. Phew.<\/p>\n
Trying to find the Fire Fighters recuperation centre in the hills of Exeter was interesting. Sat nav seemed to be playing silly beggers and saw us driving down tiny pothole filled lanes barely wide enough for a car let alone Big M. We we\u2019re on a tight scheduled as we knew Steph had put on a huge welcome crowd for us at Harcombe House but we seemed to be getting deeper and deeper into worzel gummidge land! Finally a very kind man told us we were way off track and escorted us to our destination!<\/p>\n
Steph has clearly been working her socks off for us and we were all overwhelmed on our arrival to see people dressed up representing all the countries we were visiting, guys on unicycles, reps from the local fire station and all the staff at the centre waiting for us! We couldn\u2019t have felt more welcome. Steph you are a legend! It shouldn\u2019t be a surprise but we\u2019re meeting so many generous, kind and dedicated individuals who all work everyday to make the lives of others that bit easier, that bit more comfortable and ensure people have all the information they need to cope with the sometimes difficult cards they are dealt.<\/p>\n
We had a guided tour of Harcombe house from the lovely Nicky and it\u2019s refreshing to see people really enjoying their jobs and putting everything they can in to it (to be honest if you didn\u2019t love your job when you\u2019re surrounded by this glorious countryside there would be something wrong with you!).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been such a good day\u2026and it\u2019s hard to believe the 360 tour is nearing the finale, if the support we receive around the world is half as good as it\u2019s been over the last 11 days then we\u2019re in for a hell of a trip. Circumnavigation\u2026BRING IT DOWN!<\/p>\n
Bartishel<\/p>\n
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Kate Bartishel: \u00a0Ok \u2013 so neither Tony, John or Steve are actually my uncle but it makes Steve feel uncomfortable when I say it so I\u2019ll continue. The amount of time we\u2019re all spending together though, it\u2019s only a matter of time before we start calling each other as Mum and Dad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expedition-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1640"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1642,"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions\/1642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}