Before you start reading the journal, please bear the
following in mind. First, I don’t
proofread much, if at all, so please read what I meant to type and not what I
actually did type. Second, I write this
mainly so that in years to come, I will be able to read it and remember our
trip better than without it. So, it’s almost all from my point of view and my
point of view is sometimes a little strange, or that’s what people have told
me. Third, I generally write this after a long day of driving and sightseeing,
so I do sometimes forget things which I’ll try to add the next day, if
possible. I’ll try to include as much of
what we did as possible and I hope you will enjoy it.
I will not be adding photos to this journal, but we will be
uploading photos, hopefully everyday, to the following site. If you can’t access the photos, send me an
email and I’ll try to make it more accessible.
Frank, my son, has coached me in how to do this but I am not nearly as
technologically advanced as he would like me to be. With Sue being our On Site Tech Advisor,
things may just work correctly. We can
only hope.
This is the page where the photos should end up, I
think: https://picasaweb.google.com/106852791226155119104/EnglishTeaTime#
This is the page where our itinerary and other trip info is
located. We will also post the journal
there every time I email it out. If
you’d rather read it here, please do. http://greattravelers.blogspot.com/
I hope these are right.
Tuesday, Sept 17, 2013
Day 1 – Atlanta
airport
Finally, I was all ready to go. Sue and I talked and decided we would leave a
few minutes early because we just couldn’t wait any longer. Sue, Ann and I got to the LaQuinta and we met
Kim (Sue’s sister) there. In a couple of
minutes, the other car with Paula, Sarah and Phyllis arrived. We weighed luggage and moved our suitcases
around and read texts from Linda telling us where the Groome’s shuttle was at
the time. Elaine, Wanda and my mother
showed up a few minutes before the shuttle and then we all had a nice picture
taking session while Richard, the driver from Groome’s, loaded all of our
luggage on the shuttle. Once we were in
the shuttle, we had to take more photos.
Looks like our photo-holic tendencies are alive and well.
The drive to the airport was nice and stress-free. We went to the new international concourse
and we all agree it is much easier and much less walking than at the old
terminal. Everyone but Paula was able to
leave the big luggage at the curbside checkin.
Paula had to wait a little while to get a boarding pass for Extra Seat
that we have, but it was a short line and didn’t take long. We got through security easily and we all
went through the new x-ray type machine and everything was good. An Atlanta
policeman even let some of us stand on his motorized seque-motorcycle type of
thing and get our photos taken.
We then walked just a little way and arrived at the food
court. I had a Varsity chili dog and it
was good. We all had a variety of food,
some better than others. Several of us
had gelato and it was wonderful. After
that, we went on to our waiting area for our gate where we sat and charged
computers and phones and ipads and so forth.
We also met a really neat dog who was evidently sniffing for drugs. The handler said he could tell I had dogs
since the dog sniffed my luggage for a little while.
I figured since we had an hour or so before we can get on
the plane, I should start the journal while it was all fresh in my mind. We are
all excited and ready to go.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013 Flying and Arriving
The plane ride was good but long. The flight was full but everything went
according to plan. We sure are glad we
paid extra to have seats in economy comfort so that we had more leg room. Some of us watched movies, some played games,
some read and some even slept for a little while. There was some turbulence but it wasn’t too
bad. The 7 hours and 44 minutes seemed
to take a lot longer, but it did get us to Heathrow Airport
so it was worth it.
The security, customs and luggage pick up all went well and
we easily found Trevor and Andrew holding up the signs for us. They were very helpful in loading the luggage
and getting us to Welcome Cottage in Bourton on the Water. Trevor took one taxi deep into Oxford and finally found
the Avis car park. We were able to get
our car but it doesn’t look like seven people will be comfortable in it. We shall see.
After picking up the rental car, a diesel Peugot, we followed Trevor out
of Oxford and
through the countryside to Bourton. It
was wonderful having someone to follow especially on the turns because it’s
difficult to remember to drive on the left side of the road. The many
roundabouts also look like they will be interesting to drive – there are
certainly enough of them. Hopefully I will quickly adapt to this. We made arrangements with both drivers to
return the car in two weeks to Oxford and then
they will take us to our London
hotel the next day.
Our cottage is made of Cotswold Stone, like all the
buildings in town. This is a golden
stone and is beautiful. Most, if not
all, of the roofs are made of stone and covered in moss. The stone fences are also covered in moss and
plants. There are many flowers and
butterfly bushes and lavender and lots of things. There are little walking
bridges over the little river and many ducks were in the water. Everything is beautiful.
Our cottage is about two short blocks from downtown so we
walked to Kingsbridge Inn for lunch. It
was such a nice old building right on the little river that runs through town.
Some of us had Beef and Guinness Pie (which was very good), jackets (baked
potatoes with toppings which were good), eggs and ham (again good), and lasagna
(which was also good). After lunch we
walked around the town and got a few groceries to tide us over for a few days
and then returned to the house to get settled in. We are getting ready to have a meeting to
discuss our activities for the next day or so and then we will rest some before
we go to bed early. We are all tired
since we had very little if any sleep on the plane.
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