Saturday - Coming home

It was before dawn when we left our little cottage, our suitcase wheels rattling along the cobblestones and echoing in the narrow lane. We’d had a fine week in this ancient market town, well off the beaten track. Many American guide books don’t even mention this part of England, and a number of our friends from nearby Cheltenham had never been there as well. Interestingly, Robert Frost and his family lived just four miles away for several years in about 1910. While there, he wrote The Road Not Taken. We were glad we took the road to Ledbury.

We tried to compute a reasonable amount of gas to put in the car so that it would be almost empty but still driveable by the time we reached the airport in Manchester, a bit over 200 driving miles to the north. Our estimate turned out to be much too timid, as we ended up donating over a quarter tank to the rental car company, at a bit over a pound a liter (about $7/gal!). It’s so much easier when they have you bring it back full. Maybe that’s why they do this.

We had allowed plenty of time for contingencies, and going through all the various procedures at the airport went quite smoothly. Until we got to security. Steve aroused their suspicions and got the shakedown. There was apparently a metal spine in his shoes that looked quite menacing on the x-ray—they even took him over to the machine to see it for himself—and they were also quite fascinated by the package of sardines and tube of Smarties (like M&Ms) in his backpack. Sue Anne and Bruce ate all their Smarties before we got to the airport!

After the authorities came to conclude that Steve was indeed one of the good guys, we ate lunch, sat around for a bit, read the paper, and finally went over to our poorly marked departure gate. People were packed in rather tightly there, the acoustics were bad, and the announcer had a local accent that was really tough to tune into. But Sue Anne and Bruce did manage to pick out our last name in the middle of one announcement. Upon investigation we found that we had been chosen for an upgrade to Economy Plus, this apparently because Economy had been overbooked. By then we had gotten separated from Aimée and Steve, so we weren’t able to advise them of this news. We spotted them getting the full shakedown at the random inspection table just before boarding, a procedure that was mercifully done away with in the US and Canada many years ago. And as Murphy’s Law (Sod’s Law in the UK) would have it, their inspection was completed just as we arrived at the front of the line, and we became the next victims.

It was nice to finally settle down in our front row, wider than normal, more foot room than normal, Economy Plus seats. Sue Anne’s feet couldn’t even touch the wall in front of us. And we were soon to discover that the seats came with unlimited free wine, something no longer offered to those in the back of the plane.

Considering our brief and fitful sleep of the night before, it wasn’t at all difficult to doze off for much of the flight. We arrived on time in Chicago, easy trip through customs, good byes all around. Aimée and Steve took off toward the bus stop for the ride back to Madison, and Sue Anne and Bruce waited a few hours till our plane left for Manchester—the one in New Hampshire this time! We ransomed the Forester out of the parking lot, easy drive back to New London, and found the house in fine order. Simon the cat was asleep on the upstairs bed. He’s not much of a watchcat any more as he’s pretty much lost his hearing.

Home! And this time the New Hampshire house, which we had just moved into for real after years of a back and forth existence with our house in Maryland, really did feel like it was home.

Thus wraps up our journey. But stay tuned. We’ve got lots of drawings, pictures, and videos to put up here over the next few days, and we also plan to summarize the major impressions we took from this trip.

Saturday - October 18

Friday - Cheltenham

It's our last day before the flight home. Time was running out on us, so we all started the day with a final run to places in Ledbury that we needed to see more of—library, Internet café, and various shops and other attractions.

Across the lane from our cottage and one building up the hill was a small but well done city museum. The building was once a school house, last used in about 1830. It was very old with Tudor timbers. There were several activities and learning areas for school children, appropriately enough. A lot of work in restoration was done by the people of Ledbury. We felt a lot of civic pride in the town, as they appreciated what they had and knew that work was required to maintain its ambiance and quality of life.

We had earlier been told about a sale at St. Katharine’s Hall, so we marked our calendars. It didn't disappoint, with a large selection of plants, crafts, and baked goods. Aimée and Sue Anne both bought soap, and Sue Anne purchased a few regional baked specialities. The selection of goods and general atmosphere was similar to a W.I. (Women's Institute) sale. Except that men were on the scene, and were involved in selling too, and it was called a country market. W.I. is a national women's club, founded in 1915. They have 6,800 branches currently. They achieved fame and notoriety with their groundbreaking nude calendar, which became the basis for the 2003 movie Calendar Girls with Helen Mirren and Julie Walters. We all wished we could have bought plants, and we all enjoyed our chats with the sellers.

Then we were off on a drive down the now familiar M50 to the M5 to the northern approaches to Cheltenham.

We spent a bit of time wandering through the Blooms Garden Center, part of a West Country chain run by the appropriately named Bloom family. It’s always fun to visit garden centers in foreign countries, or other regions of your own country. You learn so much and expand your horizons.

There was a fascinating mix of absolutely everything pertaining to gardens and landscaping there, plus lots more. Love those golden conifers that pick up the British sunlight so nicely. And so cheap they were. But it’s highly illegal to bring back live plants, so all we could do is take notes of the varieties and vow to see what we could find when we got back home. Steve did discover a big bin of soon to expire seed packets on sale at 10p apiece, so we pawed through it and succeeded in digging out some novelty seeds to give to our grandkids, along with some other varieties to try out ourselves.

Then we continued down into Cheltenham to Peter and Rosemarie Shortell’s (see blog for Tuesday). A delightful lunch of cheese, paté, salmon and leek quiche, green salad, crunchy British bread, ale, perry (alcoholic pear juice), chocolate cake, and coffee. Easily enough to keep us going for quite a while.

We left the car there and walked down to the London Road, turning right and following it as it morphed into the Upper High Street, which ultimately became a pedestrian zone. Engaged in a bit of people watching as we continued down High Street and turned left onto The Prom, or more formally The Promenade. Cheltenham is well known for its broad tree lined streets. This is where the elegant shops begin.

Outdoor market stalls from France and Germany were lined up along the side of the kerb (curb) in what we learned was a monthly event. Sue Anne helped Aimée purchase a tablecloth from a seller who spoke only French. And looked like she wondered how she ever got this job, coming to the UK once a month.

We continued our walk up the gentle hill to the Montpellier section of town. Grabbed an outdoor table at the upmarket, spacious, and modern restaurant and bar named Ha Ha (chosen to contrast with tiny old pubs, thereby expanding the experience) and waited for our friend Sheila Taylor to arrive. We hadn’t seen her for quite a few years, and this was our first meeting since the death a few years ago of her husband Alick, who had also been a great friend and neighbor of ours. Sheila had just gotten back from holiday in Crete. She really gets around, always in a southerly direction it seems. Weather in Crete had been atrocious, however, quite a contrast to the situation in England while she had been gone.

We quickly settled in to a discussion of old times, children, grandchildren, and the like. And a report of what the neighborhood looked like in the summer 2007 flood. It took a while to get the attention of the wait staff, but we finally succeeded in ordering our drinks. Steve queried the waitress about the advertised special £3 price for the normally £5 drinks, but she said it was only valid after 5 PM. The computerized till (cash register) wouldn’t let her ring up anything but the official price until then. But she earned her tip when she waited till after 5 to enter our check into the system. The mojitos were great.

We walked part way back with Sheila, saying farewell when we got to the fork in the road. Recovered our car and headed back up the M5 to Ledbury. Just as we got off onto the M50 we encountered a brief traffic jam that gave us the opportunity to grab our cameras and take a few quick shots of the magnificent and extremely short lived sunset.


While had initially planned to eat our last meal at the Prince of Wales, the accumulation of a rich lunch, a late afternoon drink, and the effects of being on the go for two weeks seemed to have caught up with us, and we were content with a light supper in our cottage. Final packing (it all fit!), set the alarm for 5AM, and we were off to bed. We didn’t sleep well, and regularly we heard the hours, and our insomnia, counted out by the church bells.

Friday - October 17