David Winter Cottages Below

As we were preparing to land in London at a few minutes before 7:00am local time (2:00am US time), I looked down on the countryside around London and could have been excused for believing I was looking down on a scene made up of David Winter cottages.  It was charming and soon I would be a part of it!

We left DC the evening before on Virgin Atlantic.  Although they don't give you any more space in economy class, they do try to make the flight more comfortable for you by supplying ear plugs, eye shades, pillows, blankets, wine and decent food.  All in all, I recommend them, especially since they gave us a wonderful deal.

Once on the ground and through passport and customs control, we headed to the car rental desk.  Mike had rented a car to take us to the flat we rented to house us until we buy and move onto the boat. 

But, before driving there, we had to first find the store suggested by the nice lady at the Enterprise car rental desk  as the place to buy our GPS to be used in the UK and Europe.  That took a few passes  and a couple of additional requests for directions before we could locate the store.

Driving on the left as we headed to the store resulted in only one close call caused by instinctively going to the right instead of the left side when turning the corner onto a new road.  Really, not too bad, although my heart did pound for a few minutes after it occurred. :)

GPS leading, we then set out for our temporary home located about one hour outside of London.  Mike did quite well driving for a man who had been awake as long as he had.  My job was to remind him at necessary points (turns and roundabouts) to keep left.

The scenery along the was beautiful.  Quickly out of the urban area, we passed trees still full of leaves, green fields, woolly sheep, and contented cows. It was amazing how quickly the trappings of the city disappeared to be replaced bu centuries old buildings and fields surrounded by hedge rows instead of fences. Wonderful.

Arriving at our destination, we had lunch (and a celebratory pint) at a local pub, unloaded our luggage into our flat, and headed out to buy some groceries to see us through the next 24 hours or so.  We found a local Aldi and bought 25 pounds of groceries.  Dinner that night consisted of roasted potatoes, Irish sausages, carrots and homemade shortbread for dessert.  Cheese had been our appetizer to go with Mike's whiskey and my hard cider.

By 10:00 pm local time  we were on our way to bed.  I did not blog since I might  have been awake but my mind definitely was not functioning at peak performance after so many hours without sleep and who knows what I might have written (although it might have been fun to see).

Our adventure has started!