Angie - September 23-26

We arrived at our cottage after an eight hour flight to Gatwick, half an hour train to London, several tube rides to Marylebone station, a two hour train to Stratford-on-Avon and a fifteen minute taxi to Bidford-on-Avon, not to mention the six hour layover we heard about after arriving at the airport in Calgary. Our whole adrenaline will keep us from being tired plan failed miserably and we found ourselves stumbling blindly around our tiny cottage at 11:00 at night and falling into bed without much exploring. It wasn’t until the next morning that we discovered that we were living in the cutest house in the world for just over a week. Seriously. The view from our bedroom window is of an 800 year old church (that John will tell you all about later, you lucky ducks) and graveyard, back dropped by a sheep dotted pasture. Maybe that sounds creepy (not the sheep- they’re pretty sweet), but it’s not. It’s really very beautiful, I feel like saying to everyone passes, “Have you seen that view?! What the heck!” People here are totally unimpressed with Bidford, though. And oddly suspicious of us. I mean, we may be loud and hard to miss, but suspicious? I guess it’s all part of the un- touristy charm. (I should mention that the butcher and bell ringers have been more than friendly, but John wants to tell you about that, too. He gets all the good stories.)
We had planned on spending our first day skipping around London with our hair blowing in the wind and our backpacks swinging happily over one shoulder, but because of our stinking (grr…) layover, we decided instead to head straight from plane to train (the not so simple excursion I mentioned above). We did not skip. We stood confused and weighted down with our enormous packs, holding up lines in the ticket booths, blocking people’s way on the tube, getting lost, wondering what to do when we lost John, getting stuck in turnstiles; basically annoying those fast moving, no eye contact Londoners wherever we went. Yes, we’ll leave London for another day.
A few tips: It’s really not that expensive if you can live off yogurt and toast
You can walk anywhere, even on private property with the sheep. Really. You’re allowed
Scruffy taxi drivers with British accents can possibly make your head explode
No one’s said cheerio yet, or cheers. That’s mildly disappointing
More to come!
Ang


September 25, 2008
We went to a castle today. Maybe John mentioned it, I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’ll say too much because then this whole blog will start to be like castle, castle, church, sheep, more castles. I do want to say that we loved it and people lived there until after I was born, which is just plain crazy.
After the castle we were hungry and had an hour to wait for the bus. Most people would think, hm, an hour isn’t too long. Let’s be patient and enjoy these aluminum benches for a while. But we were really, really hungry, so we went looking for food. We decided on an Indian restaurant, which we had heard are delicious and affordable in these parts. Sigh. You know those movies where the girl goes to the prom in her homemade dress and her braces (but she wins prom queen because she’s nice)? That was us, without the crown. This place was fancy. As soon as we stepped inside we were very aware of our bad hair (no blow dryers, no hair stuff), heavy duty travellin’ clothes (hiking shoes, cargo pants) and the kids many grass stains (come on, we were just at a fun castle!) We whispered to the kids as we were seated, we’re in a fancy place so talk quietly and no wrestling. Waiters stood over us (yes, we had three) tending to our every need as we pointed to a few items on the menu that we couldn’t read. They were quite nice, and I think they knew from our laughing and our hand waving and our apologizing that we were in a little over our heads, so they explained all the food to us as they brought it out (in three shifts), and what to do with it. This is when we discovered that it wasn’t Indian at all. It was something delicious and perhaps eastern-ish, but it wasn’t Indian. The kids actually did OK and we sat back and enjoyed the service, watching the clock go by as John waved his arm and said “We’ll catch the next bus. Pass me some more of that red stuff…”

We missed the bus (bet you didn’t see that coming). The last bus. I suggested we find a different route that landed us down some old alley and face to face with a nice older gentleman who sent us about twenty minutes (and suspiciously on a whole lot of left turns) until we flagged down a lady with an armful of cookie boxes. She sent us all the way back up the world’s longest street until we talked to a man smoking a pipe, and on and on we went until it was dark and it wasn’t even close to fun anymore. John, sensing my oncoming rant about responsibility and why certain people refuse to wear the watches their wives bought them, ran ahead to figure things out. He came back with the news of a bus stop possibility and we ran for another twenty minutes until we found a little guy hunched over a computer manual under the street light and asked him if this was the bus that went to Stratford. He nodded and said it was coming in six minutes. That’s when we celebrated- Close style. Basically laughing with relief, which is often the state we’re in when we’re celebrating.

We bussed to Stratford, where we discovered that we missed the connecting bus to Bidford. I’m not kidding. That would be way too much story, though, and I’m tired.
Phew.

Ang