Reverse Culture Shock

Hello, dear friends! I’ve been busy unpacking, but I do think of you while I do it and wonder how you and yours are getting along.  One of these days, I’ll sit for hours and read your blogs and comment. But for now, it will just have to be a hit and miss comment time.

The suitcases are all unpacked and stored in the basement. For the most part, the house is under control. What is taking a lot of time is the fact that we decided to purge the closets and put away all the winter clothes and get out the summer ones before (or while) we were unpacking.  What’s more mess, eh?  Now with seven large trash bags for give away, things feel pretty good.

We don’t seem to have any jet lag. Yeah! I just wake at a reasonable time in the morning and feel tired around 10:00 like normal people do.

Some people have asked me if I’ve had reverse culture shock. Here’s what I’ve had so far:

• The toilets are lower here in the USA. I’ve had some disconcerting moments while I’ve tried to sit down.
• My washer and dryer seem mammoth. I think I could park an SUV in them.
• Food and such has gone up so much in price! I went to the store today–good ol’ Wal-Mart–and was shocked! I kept reading on CNN that prices had gone up, but now I’ve experienced it first hand. Yikes. Double yikes.
  

What’s shocked you lately?

We are safely
home with all our luggage. Thanks for your thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes.

Oh,
it was so very wonderful to sleep in my bed last night.  It’s not been so wonderful unpacking, but it’s
a price I’ll gladly pay.

There’s no place like home!

Just
popping in quickly to say

• All
  21 suitcases, 6 backpacks, and one guitar are almost totally packed
• We
  take a bus at 8:25 to London
  where we will spend a last day
• We
  fly out on British Air flight 217 from Heathrow to Washington, D.C.
• We
  should be at our Home Sweet Home around 8:00 pm EST on Wednesday
  

Just
in case you wanted to know or to pray.

Goodbye,
England!

Stonehenge

It’s a big pile of rocks beside a major highway. 

 

And it’s really windy. 

And you have to pay to walk around it–6.50 pounds an adult and 3.30 pounds per child.

Not much else to say.

A Trip to Nowhere

We drove through the Peak District, which really didn’t look all that different from the Lake District, except the hills were higher and there weren’t lakes.  We were making good time and great conversation when we hit stand-still traffic.  For ten miles.  We kept seeing horse trailers coming the other direction.  Finally, we saw a sign at a roundabout that proclaimed there were horse trials–and they had just let out.  “Let’s go the opposite direction and then skip the horse trial town,” Navigator Teacherperson suggested. We turned off, but we missed the turn for the road we wanted.  “Oh, the map shows that the next turn will connect us with the road we missed,” NTP said.
 

We turned into a nowhere sort of small town and went down what we thought was the road. Then, we were confronted with a dirt road.  “Uh,” said I consulting the map, “There is a little white road thing which connects our highway. I can see our road down there. Maybe the white lines are dirt roads?”  So we started down the road, going slower and slower as the ruts grew deeper.

“Wouldn’t it be awful if this road just ended?” Lisa joked. “We’d never be able to turn around. I wish she weren’t such a prophetess.  Oh NOOOOO!!!

What to do?  Backing up the whole way was our only option–in a standard transmission.  Lisa bravely did an amazing job of backing up half way to where there was a gate. I opened the gate to give her room to turn around. That’s when the heart-pounding started.  She was stuck. And there were stone fences on either side of the car and behind.  AAAAAHHHH! 

     

Was this a tiny village a proper town or just a vacation home place?  I wasn’t sure. All the stone semi-detached houses had vacation-like names hanging on the fronts of them. Much more prayer went up. I knocked on the first door with visions of a little old lady or some scary man opening the door.  Neither happened, as no one came.

Have you been in any tight spots lately?

Just
got back home again from another trip. (MORE pictures!)  That’s why
I’ve not been commenting on your sites. I wrote all the Xanga entries you’ve been
reading before I left and have been using Xanga’s new Future Post feature to
pop them up from time to time. There are several more still to appear.   I
did get to read your wonderful, kind, flattering comments this evening. 

But, I probably won’t be on Xanga much this week. Tomorrow and Monday, we do
lots of laundry and pack. Tuesday early morning, we hop a bus to London and spend a final
day, and early-ish Wednesday morning, it’s BACK TO THE USA!

(But, don’t worry. I’ve had so many trips these last few weeks that I’ve got
lots and lots of pictures and stories still to tell, probably all through June.
You’ll get sick of my England
ravings.)

A Visit to Pemberley

Coming down was much easier as we went straight down the wooded part to the house.

View of the house from in front of The Lantern Tower

When you think of the A&E P&P, you probably think of the scene where Darcy jumps into the pond.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpjETmJlQEc)  I’m not sure which pond it might have been, but here are two suspects.

I’m partial to this one. It’s the one you see in the view from the Lantern Tower.

    

 Once you go through the entrance gate…

You are in a courtyard

With a nifty stone floor

  

Once you go inside the house, the first room you enter is the Entrance Hall. Although it’s not apparent, behind the large picture on the right of The Black Prince is a “squint.” It’s an opening from another room which lets you look down onto the room below. It would make a great balcony for home productions of Romeo and Juliet.

And here is the room you would stand in. It’s called The Drawing Room, and it was opulent and wonderful. But, it wasn’t my favorite room in the house.

My favorite room by far–I could have moved in–was the Library. It’s not so clear from this picture, but the light, white area was really a cozy alcove with window seats all around, perfect for curling up on either a sunny or rainy day with a book. To the left and behind the photographer are built-in, floor-to-ceiling, wooden book shelves. 

After we toured the house and had tea in the basement cafe (a delicious pureed veggie soup and a piece of carrot cake–YUM!), we did our outside trip. The gardens were in-between blooming flowers, but they were still gorgeous.

Even Pemberley has dandelions. These were growing out of the vertical walls!

 

Ahh…

              

And that ends my weekend adventures…almost.  Next, I’ll tell you about the trip home or How Not to Read a Map.

Hill Top Farm

After all the walking, we finally reached the village of Sawrey, and who should be there to greet us but Mr. MacGregor outside a pub! Hill Top Farm, Beatrix Potter’s home, could not be far away…

Hill Top was where she lived until she married William Heelis (when she was 46) and moved to Castle Cottage. She continued to use Hill Top as a studio and a place to entertain her American visitors.  She didn’t often entertain English ones, assuming they were mere curiosity-seekers. But, if you were an American who wanted to meet her and came all that way, in her mind, you were more than likely truly interested in her books and in children’s literature. Then, you’d get invited to tea. 

  

Inside the house, there were Beatrix Potter books in every room opened to pages which showed how she used that room in a drawing in a book.

The stair landing in The Tale of Samuel Whiskers

And the same spot from another angle in the same story

Beatrix Potter also enjoyed embroidery, and they had several examples in the house of her work. One thing she did was to embroider the green top-cover for this bed. The guide was puzzled as to why she would have done it since she embroidered it after she was no longer living there.  I think she did it so generations of visitors could say how pretty it is!

This is a china cabinet in the first room one enters. The blue plates have designs drawn by her father, Rupert.   Her brother, Bertram, was also an artist, and a room in the house is full of his paintings. There is even a painting by her mother. Quite an artistic family!

This room is to the right when you walk in. It’s the parlor, and it had a bookshelf full of intriguing, old books.

  

Hill Top Farm was a treat, but a bigger treat was to come the next day…A trip to Pemberley!

Windermere and More

We arrived at Braemount House, our bed and breakfast, around 10:45. Thankfully, we didn’t get too lost on the way. The room was nice and we were tired.  Alas for me, as usual, caffeine kept me up until 2:00 or so. Pesky soda!

The next morning, after a breakfast of eggs, sausages, and the most delicious rhubarb yogurt, we donned our big hats and walking shoes and set off for Orrest Head, a peak which overlooks Lake Windermere.  First, we posed in front of the bed and breakfast.

It was just so gosh-darn beautiful everywhere, even though it was a humid hike up the hill.

But, the views at the top of Lake Windermere and the countryside were worth every bit of bother.

Here I am, posing by a gorse bush. All day, I went around saying “Gorshe” like Goofy does.  Yup, that’s just how my pea brain works.

After a return to our room for water and other necessities, we headed toward Hilltop, Beatrix Potter’s house. We walked for a mile or so around Lake Windermere where there were swans

Piers

Boats

And children on leashes. Actually, I’ve been wanting to show you a picture of this for a while. Most little people you see are in “leading strings.” I’ve read about them many times in books, but I didn’t realize they were still so prevalent in England. 

We got to the ferry and paid our 50 pence a person for the short ride. We opted for the cheaper, non-scenic route on the car ferry as the other ferry was an hour’s wait, and it was a cool, drizzly day. (Wish we had brought our jackets with us instead of leaving them in our room.)

We weren’t sure if we should hike once we got of the ferry or try to catch the Mountain Goat bus.  The 25 minute wait for the bus decided for us, and we began a glorious hike through the countryside.  Of course, we had to pass through a sheep field or two.

Even laundry is lovely here!

Even when we came to vacation cottages, we still felt the need to whip out our cameras.

     

Finally, we were there: the town of Sawrey, home of Beatrix Potter’s Hill Top Farm.

      

What’s your favorite Beatrix Potter tale?

  

How do
I leave thee?

Let me count the days…