ENGLAND 2000
Day 1
Crow Cottage to Yorkshire, England
Wednesday - Thursday
May 3-4, 2000
This day would prove to be one of the longest days of the year...the other one being the day we came home.
As Paul and I both had to work today, we got up early as usual - Paul around 4:30 and I around 6 am. He went lobstering, and I went off to work.
At home we had just finished digging up our front lawn in order to install a portion of our water pipe which has frozen up on us from time to time in the past. So this was Crow Cottage right before we left on holiday. And here is Paul overlooking his "Big Dig" only a few days before take-off!
I worked straight through til 2 pm, with no breaks, as this really was not one of my vacation days and wouldn't you know it? We were busy at the office so I couldn't sneak out earlier than 2 o'clock.
Paul had lobstering to do and then errands, so we finally saw each other back here at Crow Cottage around 4:45 pm, only about an hour before the limo driver was due to pick us up to drive us into the airport.
Just before 6 pm, we hugged our girls goodbye, left them all inside the house, and drove away to our adventure in England.
By way of explanation, we have a dear friend, Ruth, who house-dog-cat sits for us when we go away...she arrived here a little after we left and took over the reins of this menagerie for the almost 3 weeks we were to be gone. Needless to say, Ruth is a saint!
The limo driver turned out to be British! He used to holiday in Yorkshire, and in Whitby, so we had lots to discuss on the short ride into Logan Airport. When he left us off, I asked about the particulars of his picking us up...he said he'd be there by the "B" door - where the international passengers come out of customs...holding up a card with our name on it. Good...all set.
We had to be at the airport 2 hours early (for international flights) so we checked in and found that our plane had been delayed by two hours! So rather than leaving at 8:15 pm...we were looking at 10:15 or so... and it was only 6:30 when we got there! We also found a humongous long queue in the Virgin Atlantic ticket counter area...so we went way to the back of that line and stood there, only inching up every 15 minutes or so. It was so long, my back was ready to give out after 90 minutes of that!
At long last, we made it to the ticket counter, and into the passengers only lounge, only to have to sit and wait til about 9:15 when we boarded our plane. And then we had to sit there in those tiny (for me anyway) seats, all strapped in, for another hour before takeoff.
Finally! At around 10:30 pm we took off for England.
They tried to actually give us dinner at around 11:30 at night...but Paul and I refused any food...we'd eaten a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk before we left the house, so that was enough for us for the night. Everyone else on the plane seemed delighted to dig into the gourmet menu...can't remember what it was, but we just closed our eyes and tried to sleep.
Paul can sleep on planes.
So six long hours later, by the dawn of a new day, and at about 4:30 a.m. our body-time, and at 9:30 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) we landed at London's Gatwick Airport. The weather was ok...not spectacular, but not raining either. Hey, it's England for gosh sakes! We don't come here for the warm tropical weather, now, do we? We come for the "rising damp", for the wonderful "sea fret", for the purely British atmosphere!
If we'd wanted hot we'd have flown south, not east!
We needed to scout up our car rental agency, Europcar, and after getting ourselves through customs, and claiming our luggage (which is always such fun!!!), we trudged all thru the airport looking for this place. Do you think we could find it? NOT!
Well, finally, after truding back and forth several times with all the luggage in tow, we found it...there was some construction going on outside the doorways, and this Europcar was way down at the end - and around a corner...there were no signs anywhere pointing us to it!
At this point it must have been around 10 or 10:30 (GMT) and of course around 5:30 our body time...and I'd not slept one wink all night long! Lucky for us that Paul was doing all the driving!
We stood in a small queue (that's "line" but I'm getting you into the British lingo here) for almost an eternity before we came up to the window. We had the car reserved - a mid-size automatic car. The woman at the counter smilingly told us that they'd run out of the regular mid-sized cars...so they were "up-grading" us - to a Mercedes! Well, I smiled at that prospect, and she gave us the keys and pointed us to the car park ("parking lot") where our car was sitting in berth #14.
At berth #14 all we saw was a space-alien type car...it was all jutting angles, and it was bright purple! That couldn't be it? Huh?
Yep! That was it! I've never seen a "Merc" (as they call them over there) that looked quite like this contraption before! We got in, and it took us 30 minutes to figure out where everything was, and how to work all the gadgets in it! Oh great! Now it's about 11:30 and we're just getting started on the road!
The good thing about Gatwick Airport is that it's fairly easy to navigate out of it...granted we had to drive a million miles extra just to get around the M25 to the north part of London...to pick up the M1 Motorway which heads to The North (and to Yorkshire!). But another really good thing about England is that the road signs are wonderful! All over the country, the road signs are uniform...they are very very good so there's really no excuse for getting lost.
Off we drove - Paul very tense, driving on the right side of the car, on the left side of the road...and me, the navigator, hardly able to keep my eyes open! I needed coffee!
Once we navigated the entire 30 miles or so of the M25 which encircles London, we picked up the M1 and shortly thereafter we found a Wendy's (can you believe it? our first meal in England is at a "Wendy's"?) where I could stop for a cuppa and a loo (ladies'). Whew! We also had a quick bacon and egg breakfast/lunch which tided us over til suppertime.
After that, it was on the road again, with only one or two more loo stops for me the whole way up to Yorkshire.
We arrived in the Harrogate area of Yorkshire around 4:30 pm. By this point I was a zombie, with no sleep since about 7 years ago, according to my body! And of course, it had been 3 years since we'd been to our friend Sheila's house in the Yorkshire Dales...I figured I'd know just how to get there without directions.... so I neglected to bring them with me! What a dork!
There we were, so near --- yet where the heck was her village? We drove up one road, down the next, I think we were on the A59 now, and back up the first, back down the second...til I finally figured out the map and after quite some time, we landed at Sheila's house around 5:30 or so.
My first instinct was to get myself to a bed! But after having a cup of Yorkshire tea in the back garden in the early evening sun, , and lots to talk about with Sheila and John, we were served a wonderful dinner of salmon and lots of veggies, with key lime pie for pudding. We stayed up til about 10:30 yattering on and on, before hitting the pillows for the night.
And hit the pillows we did....needless to say, I did not have to take my usual PM aspirin to sleep THAT night! I was in dreamland the second my head hit the pillow.
The birds in Yorkshire wake up and begin their Hallelujah Chorus around 3:30 am...and they woke us up about that time.
It was good to be able to just lay there in bed, soaking up all the Yorkshire atmosphere...
It's truly the BEST place on Earth!
Return to Crow Cottage Home Page
Sign Our Guestbook ~ Read Our Guestbook