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September 4, 2015
IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!
Well, here we are, home at last! After traveling for 7 weeks by plane, boat, bus and car, we are glad to be home after a 10-hour flight. I can imagine that we will have jet lag for a week!
The last week of our vacation was spent in Exeter, England, visiting with my sister, Jeanne and her husband Bob. We had turned in our rental car in London and took the two-hour train ride to their house in Exeter which is Southwest of London. Jeanne and I hit the ground running by doing some shopping and visiting with another close friend of hers, Barb. Barb and her husband Steve live nearby in a small town called Ivy Bridge and have been in England for about two years. She rode the bus into Exeter and met us for "tea". It was fun to see her again and after our visit she took the bus back to Ivy Bridge. This is common for everyone to either walk or take the bus when they don't have a car.
We had scheduled a Round Robin Tour on Friday. This is where we started in Paignton by taking the steam train to Dartmouth then we hopped a boat up the River Dart for Totnes. There we got on the bus to go back to Paignton. This was an all day tour and we got back to Exeter late in the afternoon. Dartmouth was extremely crowded because they were having a regatta and an air show that day. The Dartmouth area is a beautiful part of Southwest England that we had never been to before.
The next day, Bob and Jeanne had arranged for us to visit with another friend of theirs, Andy and Angel who live nearby. Actually it wasn't that close by and after driving out in the countryside, and driving down very narrow roads, we arrived at their place. They had some other friends staying with them for the weekend. One of them - Ed - is an expert who entertains and educates people by teaching them how to play the native drums. He grew up in South Africa and knew a lot about the tribes and customs in the area. He brought his African drums along and he gathered us around the deck and gave everyone a drum. We all learned how to beat and play the drums! It was really a lot of fun and something that I would have never thought I would like. This trip has been amazing with all of the things that we did that we didn't expect to do!
The rest of our stay with Bob and Jeanne was quite relaxing and it gave us a chance to unwind before we left on Tuesday. While staying with them, I helped Jeanne with her abundant apple crop. Her tree was loaded and we had fresh applesauce for breakfast every morning. I also filled bags for all her friends and neighbors.
Our last day with Bob and Jeanne, they drove us to Plymouth over the Moors of Dartmouth. This was a beautiful place which is very remote. We stopped to feed the wild Dartmoor ponies that roam the area with some of our apples that we brought. We also stopped in Wotter where Bob and Jeanne had started a Calvary Chapel Church a couple of years ago. Our trip to Plymouth was great; the city is noted for the pilgrims that had left for America in the 1600. Bob actually has ancestors who were on the Mayflower and he pointed out the plaque where their names were listed among the people who were on the Mayflower and had sailed for America. We ate a lunch of pasties at a curbside table at the oldest bakery in Plymouth. A pastie is a small wedge shaped flaky pie filled with meat and vegetables that is crimped on one side. The wives of the tin miners in this area made these for their men who worked in the tin mines. Because they had arsenic on their hands, they held the pies by the crimped edged while them ate and then threw away the crimped edges. They were very delicious and look easy to make. I think I'll give them a try. After lunch, we headed back to Exeter and packed our bags.
It was early to rise the next morning as we hopped on the train and made our way back to London. There we connected to Heathrow Airport where we flew to Amsterdam. Since the airport in Amsterdam is very large, we decided to get our boarding passes for our next day's flight back to Portland before we went to our hotel. Since we were flying out at 10:30 in the morning, we wanted to be sure we had plenty of time. So with that in mind, we spent the night in Amsterdam and on Wednesday, we again were up early to catch our flight back to Portland. When we arrived at the airport it was packed with people and we had to stand in line just to check our baggage. The line was so long and it took almost an hour to get through this process. The next step was to find the assistance station so that we could get a wheelchair for Dave. He could probably get by without one, but by using a wheelchair, we found that we could get through the line at security a lot faster. As it was, our gate was the farthest away and by the time we got down to our gate they were already loading passengers onto the plane. We thought we were doing good to get there 2 1/2 hours early and we barely made it! We did make it aboard and found our seats and then had a smooth flight home. It's a ten hour flight from Amsterdam to Portland. That's a long time to sit in an airplane, but we watched movies, read and played games to kill the time. We were met at the airport by Lara and Leslie and our two oldest granddaughters, Ashtin and Paige. It was so good to see everyone. Unfortunately, neither Dave nor I can sleep on airplanes, so by the time we got to Lara's house, we were ready for a nap and it was only 2:30 in the afternoon. We managed to keep our eyes open until 6:00 and then went to bed. Of course, both of us were wide awake at 2:00 in the morning!
We drove home on Thursday and have been going nonstop since. We managed to get our bags unpacked, washed three loads of clothes, go through the mail. My yard looked a mess as they had a high wind storm before we got home. The house sitter managed to pick up a lot of the debris but there was still a lot of pruning that hadn't been done so the place looked like a jungle. I keep telling myself I have lots of time to get everything back in its place. Our feral cat, Jerry was in the driveway when we arrived and it was good to see him again.
Oh yeah - that jet lag thing? We were both up at 2:30 this morning!
