England Day 1: We Set Off. And Arrive in The England Chronicles - June 2013

We had an overnight flight from Charlotte to Heathrow on Saturday the 15th, which I said last time I wasn't sure I'd do again... but it's actually the only way that makes any sense. You fly all night and arrive bright and early in London! And this time I must have slept more on the plane than I did last time. I took one Advil PM, and although I didn't really feel like I was sleeping at the time, I do recall the plane shaking from turbulence, and I remember thinking, "I wish to fuck those damned people would sit down and quit shaking the plane like that!!!" SO obviously I wasn't quite awake at the time. Last time Kim and I pretty much crashed at 8 in the evening after we arrived and slept till 8 the next morning and both felt fine - this time I don't think we went to bed till maybe one in the morning. Due partly to.... draaaammmmaaaaa!!! Oh, yes, there was drama! Keeping us up quite late. But we slept in next day since the days are so nice and long, and didn't feel jet lagged at all.

I'll just note right here that apparently aliens abducted anxious neurotic nervous Baker B before we left and switched him with a... normal person, because he was ..... calm. He was not a bit stressed out during the long day of driving (an hour and a half for us to go from here to Asheville, meet Kim and leave our car, and then two more hours to drive to Charlotte to the airport) or, even more astonishingly, during the long wait for our 7:05 PM flight that got delayed till 8 or maybe 8:30, and then the eight hours of flying time. He didn't even take any drugs! (We'd long halfway-joked that he would have to have valium before a trip like this. And during.) We had a beer in the airport bar while waiting, and a glass of wine on the plane, but that was it. He did have a clever white-noise set up--- a little shortwave radio tuned to static, and headphones. He used that on the plane, and slept with it on his poor little neurotic head at night. And it worked pretty darned well.

OH and Baker B even got to have the first of our series of disasters and near-disasters! Before we even made it inside the airport!

We parked in the long-term parking lot, got the shuttle to the airport, were the last ones off the shuttle, and.... realized the one suitcase left on the shuttle as we were disembarking and grabbing our luggage was not Baker B's. And Baker B's suitcase was NOT THERE.

OMG. Someone had TAKEN BAKER B'S SUITCASE.

Kim and I freaked out and panicked and shrieked OMG OMG OMG WHAT DO WE DO!!!!!, as Baker B calmly dashed inside the airport and started trying to spot his suitcase. He had a large slate-blue suitcase; the one that got switched was the same size but much more of a purple hue. I also dashed inside and headed the other direction, while Kim stayed with our stuff. I thought to ask an information person to make an announcement (and was delayed by much quizzing about how that happened and did we leave our suitcase unattended and did we think it had been STOLEN and I'm trying to get him to just make an announcement PLEASE, it was obviously a mistake!!!) AND long story short, the guy who took Baker B's suitcase did in fact show back up, very embarrassed and apologetic after realizing he had the wrong bag, and, yippie!!! Disaster averted!!

Oh, that's it! We said. That's our one disaster and we'll have smooth sailing the rest of the trip!!

Hahahahaha. Never say that. Seriously. NEVER SAY THAT.

Here's the bizarrely calm and collected Baker B, waiting calmly and patiently for the plane to board. Yes, he is sitting in the airport window:

OK. Fast forward to our arrival at Heathrow, around 9 AM I think, since we were late leaving. Baker B and I are practically dancing off the plane with glee!! We're here, we're here!!! We're in LONDON!!!! Yippiee!!!!!!!!!! We're breathing England Air!!! Everyone has British accents!!!!

Kim, however, is not dancing off the plane. Kim is doing more of a staggering off the plane thing. Because poor Kim is... SICK.

Kim had to throw up before we disembarked. Very inconspicuously into a blanket, because, bizarrely, our plane had no barf bags. I don't think anyone knew it but us, but poor Kim sure knew it. She actually had to go change her clothes... and unfortunately throwing up did not make her feel better. She kept feeling worse and worse. Meanwhile we had to go through customs, and then we had to take the shuttle to the Hertz rental place beside Heathrow, get the car settled, and I had to drive around the lot numerous times with Baker B who had never driven in England but was about to drive himself to Devizes, the teeny town where he was staying the first week. Alone. An hour and 15 or so minutes away. We took forEVER trying to get him used to the car- which unfortunately was not the car we really should have picked. We got him an automatic thinking that would be easier to manage, but... the automatic was a Ford Focus, and was quite a bit bigger than the car Kim and I had last time (an Ibeza, about the size of a Honda Fit- which is what we have and what we're used to driving). It was weirdly wide and hard to steer in tight circumstances. And was the smallest automatic they had. This would figure prominently in future.... disasters. Well, near disasters. I will say that Baker B did NOT wreck the car. Not quite.

Anyhow, he finally felt semi-comfortable enough to take to the highways, and I even got to watch him drive through his very first roundabout, by standing at the exit gate and waving goodbye as he headed off onto the access road towards the M4. He zipped around the roundabout like a pro and I returned to Kim, who was waiting with our luggage in the Hertz office, feeling MUCH better about his chances of survival on the roads of England.

Kim, sadly, was feeling no better at all, and she continued to feel increasingly horrible as we rode the tube for an hour from Heathrow to Leyton, on the east side of London. In fact, at one point I practically drug her off at one station because she was obviously going to throw up again. And did, luckily after we were off the tube. We finally, FINALLY got to Leyton, where we got a taxi to the house we were staying in (Stratford was our usual station but Leyton was best for luggage as there was a handy taxi stand right there and Stratford is a couple miles walk).

Kim went pretty much directly to bed, and I rested a few minutes then HAD to go out and walk around the neighborhood. I looooove where we were staying - it's the same place we stayed last time, a terrace house in Walthamstow, which is kind of beside Stratford if not actually in Stratford (I remain confused about the breakdowns of the neighborhoods) and our host's partner, who was there when we arrived, told me how to get to a big wildlife area quite close by. I'd seen it on maps and been really surprised at how large it was, but didn't visit it last time - it was in the opposite direction of the way we always went to get to the tube station. I was actually more interested in seeing LONDON!! LONDON!! than the wildlife area and meant to walk more around the little neighborhood, but ended up taking a really long walk through the wildlife area and close by which was also quite nice. By the time I got back, Kim was awake and feeling a whole lot better. We decided to go get dinner, and walked to our old hangout, the not-a-real-pub-but-a-Weatherspoons-chain-pub that's about halfway between our lodgings and the Stratford tube station. And isn't a real authentic London pub but IS cheap and has good food and excellent beer and a fun atmosphere and free wireless. We stopped there every night last trip, and did the same this trip. We had jacket potatoes (baked potatoes in the US) and a beer and Kim was greatly improved.

We think she actually got food poisoning from the weird pasta on the plane. It was strangely oily and didn't taste very good. I ate a little of it, and my stomach was a bit upset although I didn't feel sick at all and thought it was just stress. Baker B ate half of mine and was fine, but he has an iron stomach. Kim has a very sensitive stomach and everything makes her sick. Happily, though, she recovered very quickly. I was very concerned that she'd be bedridden for a few days after that, but she bounced right back.

And having gone on so long, I will save the remainder of this evening for the next entry, as it contains... draaaaaaaaaama!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the draaaaaaaaaama spilled over into the next day.

I will note that Baker B called me upon his arrival in Marlborough (where he stopped off en route to Devizes, and where we all stayed the next week) and had done fine on the M4. He then survived getting off the M4 and getting on the teeny narrow roads. He also called later that evening after he got settled in at Devizes, and things were fine. For the moment.

Pictures!

The first thing I took a picture of in our neighborhood:

Hahahhahahahaha!!

Wamstead Flats and the Jubilee Pond Area:

The pond is being redone and was not very impressive:

But the flats were quite pretty:

The street we were on:

"Our" front door - on the left:

The view out our window:

Our room - we shared the one this time since it was way cheaper- and last time she didn't have a double, just two singles. She's moved her rooms around a bit this time. It worked fine for us. There were actually THREE beds. We used the third to throw all our junk on.

We look awfully messy. Oh well - we are.

One of three cats! I think this is Poppy-- she and Rosie are sisters and look very much alike. Rosie is a little redder. In the interest of time I'll post more cat and house pictures later.

Stratford at night:

Our Weatherspoons; The Golden Grove.