To the UK part 2 - Final

The next thing we had to do was get our luggage. Luckily our entire luggage was on the belt. John’s suitcase was destroyed. His whole left wheel mechanism was missing. He had a huge hole in the side of his luggage. They had free luggage carts and we certainly filled one up. I wanted to take a picture, but didn’t get a chance to. Once we loaded up John had to try to push a cart piled up, he had a hard time seeing where he was going and pulling his carry-on baggage. It was quite comical. I had Paul in the stroller and pulling my carry-on baggage. We had to get on a bus to go to the car rental facility. The poor bus driver helped us get our luggage on the bus. When we went back to sit down, a little British lady said, “Boy, that’s some luggage!” I just chuckled and said, “We are going to be here awhile.”

London Airport rainy and cold.

When we arrived at National, I sat outside with Paul to stay with our luggage. John went in to get the car. We had no idea what kind of car we would get. We just knew it had to be an automatic. Shifting with your left hand while concentrating on driving on the left hand side of the road while trying to figure out directions and the new signs was not a challenge we wanted to take on. It was a gloomy, rainy, and pretty cold. I noticed when I was sitting on the bench I could see my breath. We ended up getting a station wagon called a Skoda. Never heard of it, but all of our luggage fit in it (barely).

On the M3 leaving London

We typed in John’s work address where we were picking up the key to the house and were thrown immediately into London traffic and on the Motorway (Freeway). Talk about scary….it was on the spot learning and immediately into a causeway (traffic circle). We made it to Gosport in a little over an hour from London. We found the place to pick up the key and thankfully a girl let us follow her to the house…otherwise we would have never found it. Paul was great the whole time through the airport, on the drive and on to the house. We got the car unloaded and checked out the “English Cottage” called Starling. It seems that most houses have names. We have a garden in front of the house with pretty flowers, birds and the owners say there are hedgehogs in the garden. We have not seen them yet. He has food out there for them. The owner owns a restaurant around the corner called Greens. The cottage is an old cottage that has had some remodeling. Many of the cottages in this town are like this. The name of the town we are living in is Wickham. The cottage has three bedrooms, a living area with a fireplace, comfy leather couch and chair’s. I have a laundry room, but it only has a wash machine. I will post a picture of the dryer.

           

Front of cottage                                                          Garden

Flowers

It is taking me a while to figure out how to use some of the appliances. The stove has two knobs with different temperatures and you have to use both to make it work. The first night I just took a guess with dinner and I didn’t burn it. The second night we bought some chicken and it actually said what temperature to put both knobs on. I am going to attempt the washer tomorrow. John asked a girl at work about how to use it and she gave us a site with the operator’s manual. That should help. I was at the neighborhood grocery store trying to figure out which product was fabric softener and finally decided fabric conditioner was what I was looking for.

Out our back window is a great walking trail that is heavily used. It goes over a creek that runs through town. I have had different things every day to look at on this trial. I will post pictures later. The town square is only 1 block away. There are many little shops to include a butcher, a baker, tea room, gift shops, hardware shops, grocery store etc. We got Chinese takeout tonight for dinner. I love the fresh bakery. The bread is wonderful and better than any bread I have gotten in the states.

Trail 100 feet from back window

Once we got to the house on Tuesday afternoon we were starving and had to find someplace quick to eat. We decided we would just drive around and look. Well that was a mistake…we got on a little country road with traffic zooming by and us trying to stay off the curbs. I finally figured out how to find a McDonald’s on the GPS and we ate there. After a late lunch we wanted to find a large grocery store to get some food for the house and we just stumbled on a place called Marks & Spence. It was kind of like an upscale Wal-Mart. They had everything, but we only looked at the food because we were exhausted and wanted to get back to the house. Grocery shopping is always an experience here. I have to learn the money because I am never sure what to give them when it comes to change.

We got home, cooked pizza for dinner and got Paul ready for bed. We were in bed by 8:30pm Britain time. I was up for 28 hours straight and I slept like a log in between Paul’s feeding.

Dryer