Laid Back in England

Laid back in England, Day 8, 9-20-08

Saturday’s I believe must be very laid back in this country – actually everything runs at a slower pace around…except the driving – that never stops. It goes round and round, through the town, and then round and round again. I think everyone should go to England just ONCE in their life time and drive for a week, or just ride with someone, it’s something you’ll never forget.

Today, we had to take the car we rented back to the place we rented it from because they were to expensive. Then we rented a car from another place because we can’t get our car yet. There’s a lot of paperwork that has to be done first, gotta have all your I’s dotted and your T’s crossed. The first place was charging like 150 lbs a week = about $300! That’s a little much. The place we are now getting a car from is like 50 lbs a week, much better and hopefully we will get our car before the week is up. It’s here, it made it…just gotta go through the hassle of paperwork to pick it up. Who knew importing a car would be a headache!

Speaking of cars, the first car we rented the doors were very hard to open and close. The car we now have they are very easy to open and close and today when we stopped at a “Service Station” aka Gas Station, to go to the “Toilet” aka Bathroom, only to learn that particular “Service Station” didn’t have a customer toilet – the car door and I had a run in, I guess you could say. I opened it to get back in and the darn thing attempted to shut on me as I was getting in, causing the top corner of the door to connect with my left cheek bone! So I have a nice little red spot that I’m sure will be colored in the morning! I was not pleased – and talk about a headache, but I had one! I think I took like a 2 hour nap after that adventure. Thankfully, it at least didn’t break the skin.

We drove down to the Village in which will we most likely live, just to check it out and see what was in the Village other than our soon to be home. Guess what is there? Got any idea? No, well let me tell you – our home, haha. The Pub – and a few other houses. I was serious when I said it was small, but I didn’t realize just how small till today. I wish I knew the population count. You know how in the states you have the “city or town name” and then below it you have the population count? Well, here you have the Village name and “drive carefully” and that’s about it. So you have no clue how big or small a Village is – until you drive through it.

I’ve come to a conclusion though, yes go ahead and laugh. You see for this small country there are an awful lot of wide open spaces, it’s beautiful. You see fields and pastures for miles and miles and miles…then suddenly out of no where appears a speed limit sign saying 30mph and a Welcome to such Village and Drive Carefully sign. You drive through and there are houses and businesses and such and when you reach the end of the Village there is a sign telling you to resume the normal speed of 60mph and more wide open spaces! It’s like; oh we didn’t plant anything here or have any livestock right here, so in this particular radius let’s build a village. You go from Village to wide open spaces, to Village, to wide open spaces – every where you go.

London of course is the capitol and by far the biggest I’ve seen and that was on a very quick drive through it! Apparently they do have cities and I’m not yet sure what distinguishes a city from a Village – I guess I’ll figure that out later. The thing is for such a small country, you’d think there wouldn’t be a lot of open land – and you’d be wrong. It’s very open, very green, and very beautiful. There are flowers, trees, fruit trees, and more every where. I can’t wait till we get settled and I can start uploading photos for you.
We haven’t had to really deal with a lot of rain yet, actually today the kids wore shorts – it was that warm! Amazing uh?

Tomorrow, we are going to go to Church – with Lydia and her family. I’m hoping that we enjoy the church. I know it won’t be anything like Ginghamsburg…but we still need Church. Then Lydia invited us over for lunch! She is so nice. Today we met her and her boys at the park for lunch and she showed me where the Church is. Before we left she handed me a gift bag and inside it was a 2-liter of Pepsi (we share the same addiction), a book of England, some little fun books, pencils, stickers, and cookies (oh I mean “biscuits”) Don’t ask me what they actually call a “biscuit” cause I don’t know yet…maybe a roll – but I could be way off. Anyway, once again Thank you Darlene for putting me in touch with Lydia, she’s a sweetheart.

Tonight we were able to talk to our family for a little while; it’s so good to call them. I can’t wait until we get settled; have our own phone and internet. Although, Lydia warned me it could take up to a month and a half to get internet service…so I could be coming to the community center once a week or something I guess. Oh well, what did I do before there was internet? I’ll have a home to get arranged soon anyway – so the blogs may come all at once, once a week once we get moved in, but pray that we just get everything connected as quickly as possible. I can’t wait to show you pictures!

Well, it’s 11 p.m. and I am getting up in the morning for Church so I’d better hit the hay. I’ll talk to you all again soon. Please continue to keep this “home” process and our “car” process in your prayers. We love you and we miss you. God Bless.

~T~

P.S. Mom asked me tonight if I could see the ocean – no, I can’t. However, I don’t think I’m too horribly far from it. Maybe once we’re settled we will drive it and see it. Who knows…but no I can’t see the ocean from where I am.