Tuesday, August 21, 2012

And We're Off!



The bags are finally packed after many shuffles and un-doings/re-doings.  We 3 wil be gone for 5 weeks but are allowing ourselves only one carry on suitcase and a back pack.  Along the way as we buy, mostly souvenirs for the grandkids, we fill smaller carry on bags.


After the long flight with 2 undisciplined children behind us, yes, you can imagine the wonderful 7.5 hours without sleep, we landed and picked up our rental car without incident at 7:00 AM  Now, all of you mentalpausers can understand the absolute delight in trying to retrain a half functioning brain to drive on the wrong side of the road.  It is pure chaos!  So, between the 3 of us, we possibly have one complete brain, I control the steering wheel, Sue navigates beautifully and repeats the mantra "Stay left, stay left" and Suze's job is to watch for incoming missles such as bikers, walkers, runners or very small cars.  Our first stop was a small farmers' market in Newbury on our way to Bath.  Don't you love this company's sign "The Complete Pig"?





Next door we found some wonderful fresh baked bread and these super cute little hedgehog rolls with raisin eyes.  Love their little spikey fur.


The vendor told us that the only place open for breakfast was the local pub,  We were starved after eating just a bit of our airplane food.  This was our traditional English breakfast that all 3 of us ordered.  Usually don't have this much to eat, nor do any of us have baked beans straight from the can for breakfast, but we ate it all!!

 
After breakfast, we attempted to find our cottage/townhouse.  Lots of traffic going into and coming out of Bath.  "Keep left, keep left", but don't hit the parked cars and trucks on the left.  It's a challenge.  We made a few wrong turns, but are still so very thankful for Brenda, our handy GPS system brought from home.  Sometimes we end up in strange places, but she is usually right on.  We finally found our little, narrow street and this was the door across the street.  Isn't it sweet?





This is our front door!  We did take over 5 minutes to get in, the keys were a major problem.  Very old.  Upon entry, we decided on rooms and then planned on a quick nap for 90 minutes or so and then time for exploration in Bath.  Well, it did turn out to be a short 5 hour nap for 2 of us, up at 6:00 pm, just in time for another meal.  Until tomorrow!! 

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