When we were planning for our trip and dreaming about it,
August 31st to September 17th seemed such a long way off,
but as time does, it came and it went. I
am reminded each day of my life of the fleeting nature of the moment. We so need to be aware that it quickly comes
and just as quickly goes.
Saturday morning, the 17th of September we awoke
to a cool, drizzly Saturday in London knowing that by the time the day ended we
would be “back on the other side of the pond.”
We have stored memories, tried to share a few of our little daily
adventures, and have felt incredibly blessed to be doing this together.
We began our day be creating art inside of our two pieces of luggage. We know we
created art because at Blenheim Palace on Wednesday we had seen an art exhibit
in various rooms of soft sculptures which looked very much like piles of dirty
laundry. Before we creatively piled our
art into the bags we each removed the very last of our clean clothes to wear
home.
Our driver called at the Holiday Inn Shoreditch for us ten
minutes early. He had his device in his
hands with our destination and names which helped with the language
difficulties. We were quickly on our way
past the Westminster University buildings behind our hotel and into parts of
the neighborhood that we hadn’t seen. We
went under the river, down through the Greenwich area and onto the motorway
that would take us to Gatwick.
There are numerous ways to get to the major airports which
service London, but this is one of the luxuries that we give ourselves when we
travel. If we were twenty years younger,
we’d use the bus of the rail system, but with the
additional luggage, it is not easy in the crowds when you are not, now, as fast
as everyone else is. So, we cut back a
little in other areas. Our trip to the
air port in the hired car was equivalent to less than one dinner in an upscale
restaurant in London. It also was not
much more than two tickets on the airport bus transport would have cost.
Our driver was good.
He wove in an out of traffic, but I never saw Klep get really pale or
grip the edge of his seat the way he did in Greece. I was quite proud of him…..both the driver
and Klep!
We were checked in with Norwegian with our luggage tagged
and checked, through security (where I got pulled for special screening) and customs and in the lounge with lunch ordered
by 1:20. We enjoyed our salads and pasta
along with a lot of little snacks and sweets, accompanied by tea, coffee, or
soft drinks while we read the London papers and watched planes come in and
leave.
By three, our gate was announced
and we strolled down the twenty miles or so through all the shops to watch the
three hundred or so other people board.
Since we were in Row 1, we were in the last group to board. We were in no hurry. We were going to be sitting on that plane for
a while!
We were due to take off at four p.m. London time (11:00 a.m.
EDT). We were boarded, but we lifted off
about thirty minutes later. We had been
properly hydrated by then and were relaxing in our seats discussing our trip. We tend to choose such times to look back and
choose highpoints and low points.
My lowest point of the trip happened before I actually left when I
tripped over a curb and fell on the concrete quite thoroughly bruising myself. I finally got up, decided that I
hadn’t broken anything and went to the house and applied ice. Since that wasn’t enough to make things a
little more difficult for my mobility, that night at the Holiday Inn in
Valdosta, going in for a Gospel Music performance, the door caught a couple of
my toes in sandals and ripped a toe nail off.
Now I was in really fine shape for our trip! My girls in Sunday School were praying for
me, though, and with answered prayer, my injuries were a little uncomfortable,
but they didn’t keep us down!
Our high point of the trip was actually getting to do it together: sitting by the water in
Burton-on-the-Water watching the ducks, standing on Wicklow Mountain in the quiet
and cool gazing out at the rolling hills, the lake and feeling God’s presence
in His creation, feeling the power of the wind at Inch Strand, watching the fat
goose waddle across the grounds at Blenheim, sharing the unexpected melodious
music in the subway, the beauty of Connemara, the majestic, historic churches
in Ireland and England---the list could go on and on.
We learned a few things that we will make note of if and
when we travel again. We will pack wash
cloths. None of the hotels we were in
had them. We will not leave meds out
where they can be overturned or spilled and lost by the maid staff. I will pack a small notebook on
which to take notes instead of having to use such things as the backs of receipts,
the barf bags on the ferry, and napkins.
We will take a shirt or two extra.
Jeans and pants can be worn more than tops. If we go to the theater, we will spring for
better seats for comfort’s sake.
The weirdest experience, we decided was one that Klep did
not share with me. When we took our trip
to the Cotswolds, there was one woman that must have been French. Anyway, she spoke with a distinct French accent. Our first encounter with her was at the pay
toilet in Burford. You put your 20 pence
(it is an unusual seven sided coin.) in a slot, the door opens, you go in, lock
the door, etc. There was, of course a
queue of us to use the facilities. When
the green shows, it means it is unoccupied.
A young woman in front of me, put in her coin and opened the door to the
screams of the French woman. When she
came out she kept repeating, “I am claustrophobic! I no lock doors!” Anyway, we caught the door so that the young
lady who had lost her 20 pence could still use the bathroom.
Later that afternoon at the palace, I moved ahead of most
our group, walked through all the rooms and just as I was about to find a cool
place facing the courtyard for some quiet reflection time, I found the lady
again or rather, she found me. “You are
in my tour! “ She asserted loudly. “My tour abandoned me! I do not know where they are.”
I assured her that she had just followed the wrong group and
that if she would continue the way she was going, she would find the
group. After all, the path through the
rooms was a circular one. She followed
me outside and continued to berate me because the group had deserted her. Then she said to me, “Queen Anne was a
lesbian!” Now, quite frankly I do not
know if she was or not and I really don’t think there is any way to prove she
was or wasn’t. I told the woman politely
as I could that I really wasn’t interested in discussing the issue with her
whereupon she decided that I was English and was protecting Queen Anne’s
reputation. Queen Anne, by the way has
been dead for about three hundred years.
Then she said, “You are German, then!”
I ask you, how anyone could mistake my North Florida accent
for either English or German!
Fortunately, she decided I wasn’t worth her time and left me
to gaze out at the quiet of the yard. All I can say is, "Bless her heart!"
Most of the people we encountered in Ireland, in England,
and from other countries were quite pleasant to be around. We treasured those encounters.
Our flight across southern England, the Irish Sea, southern
Ireland, the Atlantic, and the east coast of Florida was a good one. Other than talking over our trip, we used our
individual tablets to put together puzzles, played solitaire, did trivia games,
and ate.
We landed at 7:59p.m. EDT.
A little over an hour later, we had finally cleared immigration,
customs, and retrieved our bags. I
thought I was going to get arrested when I answered Klep’s cell phone in the
baggage claim area, but they let me go with a warning!
As we exited the main terminal, Anne pulled up in front,
loaded us into her Honda and whisked us to her house where we visited for a
while and went to bed.
Today we took a driving tour up the center of the state of
Florida under a partly clouded sky with some of the most brilliant sunshine we had seen
for a while. At the half way point, Klep
skillfully
maneuvered our vehicle into a parking place in front of a quaint
restaurant with a blue roof where
we sampled the delights of a full American
breakfast.
At one p.m. we saw the sign, exited and found the house
still standing where we had left it.
Some
dear souls had piled the fallen limbs from the recent hurricane and
we were relieved to find that the fridge had held up all right during the power
outage. We had shut off the ice maker
before we left, but there were ice cubes in the freezer which still had their
shape. If we had had a serious thaw,
they would have melted.
We created an art object of great beauty by emptying the
suitcases into a pile. Now we enjoy the
quiet churning sound of the washing machine.
Home!
