The
First European House Sit
Surrey,
UK
Sorry for not
posting for a bit, it has been a very stressful and tiring time,
which allowed me to actually catch a touch of flu and get over it and
catch it again, blah, blah, blah... With the sleep clock off a bit
and all the processing going on in my head about what we have just
done… Well it took a bit to get back to “normal” but here I am
and here is the first bit of our UK house sit.
I will digress a
bit to when we landed in the UK at London Heathrow, all well and with
out any drama. We caught a coach (bus to you Norte Americanos) to
Bristol and taxied to Penny's dad's place in St. George in the east
of Bristol. They provided us with a very soft landing indeed! We
pretty much slept and ate and Penny went for walks with them as I
mostly slept myself through some flu. We had a very fun night out at
a local church, St. Aidens, where the Vicar and his troops of
thespians put on a amusing panto (pantomime: a very, very British
form of theatre) about the bishop's visit. It was cute and funny, and
hey, you got a free glass of wine in the deal, woot!
Back to the the
National Express (the UK's verions of Greyhound) station for a coach
to Leatherhead, well kinda… You see there is a great transportation
system in the UK with the Tube, public buses, trains, coachs and all.
However, not all of them come together in an easy fashion in some
places. You guessed it, Leatherhead is not one of those places that
is easy to get to without a number of transfers (on the train) or
just one on the coach. As you read from Penny's last post, we are NOT
traveling light. I imagine that we look quite comical actually to
other travelers with our big bags all linked together in a “train”
and trying to move from one place to another leapfrog style as we are
working very hard to not have any of our stuff “nicked”. Yes, we
are in the UK, land of the very high property crime rate and it is
not unusual at all to have your belonging “nicked” if you so much
as turn your head for a minute (personal family experience here).
You, yourself are mostly quite safe, your stuff not quite so (hmm…
there's that stuff thing again!) As the coach made it's way from
Victoria Coach Station in London (yes, we had to go all the way into
London on the coach then transfer to another to head south) south, we
went through central London through Clapham and Tooting (where Penny
is from) and as we got further and further from the city centre, well
the buildings and the houses started looking, well rather nice and in
good repair and kept getting more so. We get dropped at the side of
Brighton Road in Banstead about 100 metres down from a very, very
nice European sports car mart. We noticed immediately all the very,
very nice cars whizzing past us and the looks we were getting. Can
you see where I am going with this? “We're not in Kansas anymore,
Toto!” I have to admit, I felt oddly uncomfortable not being in my
usual social element, we were/are at least 2 or 3 rungs up from
“normal” (Oak Bay ain't got anything on this neighborhood!)
As I was walking
back to the “bus stop” after a futile attempt to find a
completely nonexistent pay phone, a large black SUV pulled up next to
Penny and our pile of rubble. I trotted up just in time to hear,
“Well I knew I would find the lost travelers with the pile of
bags...” We were saved! Our house sit person was right there and
recalled the description I had sent in an email from the coach (yes
they have WIFI on the buses here!!! And yes Peter, the iPad has come
in very handy indeed!) We plopped all our baggage into the back of
said black SUV and were off on a drive down country lanes, small
village high streets over a century old bridge that spans a rail
line, sharp right and down a very narrow dirt lane and turn left and
up a very nice driveway and viola! We are “home”. WOW! Did we
ever land on our feet here. Very nice! Not too many details, privacy
and all, but the cooker, WOW! It is an Everhot,
hi: this is great, love the pictures. I see lots of quaint buildings and lovely country scenery. Laura would be thrilled to know the Barton's own a bookstore and even more thrilled if it were some long lost relative that would like to leave it all in her competent book loving hands LOL Your pets look very friendly and nice and your employers sound nice. I looked it up Harry and the most expensive Everhot stove is only a "mere" £9,365. Since you want to travel light and since they are so cheap ;) you will have to gift the one you buy to me then when you visit you can continue to have the pleasure of cooking on it LOL.Glad you have had some lovely visiting and catching up. I pray there will be no more sickness to drag you down and that all your travel will be safe, appointed by God and full of fun times. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and pictures. I don't envy you the trying to pare down more yet as I still have a whole house of "STUFF" to tackle. God bless you both. Love and hugs Carol and Fred.
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