Visit to My Children and Grandchildren

Friday I drove down to North Carolina to see my children and grandchildren as well as to attend the masquerade Mark and Katherine (son nd daughter-in-law were throwing. I love costume parties!

Mark and Katherine's daughter, Kelly, wasn't feeling very well, so with regret I put off seeing her and her brothers until next trip. Only got a glimpse of the twins. Ryan and Connor have decided they do not want separate beds and they both sleep in Ryan's. When some of us tiptoed in to see them, Connor had his arms around Ryan's waist and his head on Ryan's rump, for a pillow. Adorable!

Here are some pictures from the party. We only took 271 of them! Clicking any of them will make them screen-sized.

Here we are, ready to leave the house. Erin is a witch, Jeff is a gangster pimp, and I'm a nun.

It's worth clicking this one, to be able to read Jeff's "grill".

Erin with Sydney, ready for bed, very tired, and not at all sure she likes seeing her mom look this scary.

Our host and hostess, Mark and Katherine, aka Vampire and Vampire's Bride

Erin displaying her dress. It left a trail of pink and black feathers all over the house.

Mark, the Vampire, as Gracious Host

Katherine, my daughter-in-law, with me

Tasting Tequila, worst stuff I ever drank. No, I didn't take more than 2 sips!

Best Costume. This woman, in reality, is only in her late thirties. Katherine didn't recognize her when she walked in the door.

Mummy-wrapping contest. I got to wrap Gilligan, and I thought we should have won, but I was a nun, for heaven's sake, and he was married, and we never thought of adding the cardboard roller to the strategic spot.

Adventures in England, Part 11

Sunday, October 11, 2009

We spent all afternoon and evening with David and Julia and their son, James. James is very tall (6’4”) and lanky, like several members of our family, and good-looking like his parents. He’s also a very well-spoken young man, and has a lively sense of humor. When I asked which local charities were worthwhile, a twinkle came into his eyes and he said, “’Friends of Islam.’”

James administers local government benefits in a district where the textile mills have closed and immigration is high, and unemployment is 78%.

His parents hadn’t told him we were here, so when he came into their house, with us sitting in the living room, his father quickly approached him, blocking his view of the living room, and said, “We’ve something of a shock for you today, I’m afraid…”

James cried, “Uncle Theo!”

So the five of us had tea and biscuits. After a while, went to eat at a nearby farm. The farm family has converted one of its stone outbuildings to a café, and the food was quite good. Among the vegetables that came with our meals was a strange, green thing none of us had ever seen before. It was cooked and it was very good. Afterwards, looking at the fresh produce for sale, we discovered what we had eaten was a green cauliflower, very oddly formed. The farm also raises purple cauliflowers, shaped the same as the usual while ones.

I’m sorry; I never know how to describe the joy of being with people one enjoys so much. There never are words for it. We regretted so much having to end our time together to come home and pack and empty out the refrigerator and unplug things and in general, prepare for our trip home tomorrow.

One good thing is, our suitcases will be nearly empty. Most of what we brought will stay here in England.

We certainly have much to look forward to when we return to Ormskirk. For now, we are anxious about our neighbor in Richmond, Dickie, who in addition to pneumonia, has now been diagnosed with Hepatitis A. That comes from eating contaminated food. We are in a hurry to assure ourselves that he is better.

Monday, October 12, 2009

How wonderful to be back where it is still warm most days, and still sunshiny!

Our "balcony," as Demetrios calls it, was finished during our absence, too. It's a large, raised back porch, tiled in beige, with white railings around it, just off our sun room, or what the British call a conservatory. There is stonework around the raised area (hiding the cinderblock). It all looks very pretty.

Our neighbor, Dickie, is still in bed, but improving gradually, and it isn’t Hepatitis A after all, but B, which is a considerably better diagnosis. Frances has to be checked for it, too, she says.

Today, for us, is just for unpacking and resting.

Thanks be to God for a safe trip, and a successful and fun one was well, and for allowing Demetrios’ 45-year-old dream to come true.

Adventures in England, Part 10

Saturday, 10 October 2009

The big, red buttons beside the bed and the front door are part of the burglar alarm system, according to a note we received today from Kath, the estate agent. Okay. Now it’s time to read the instructions about that. Apparently it’s quite an elaborate system, complete with sirens and strobe lights.

This morning, Demetrios went into town to search for a nurse he used to know, Sister Joan Foster, while I stayed home and cleaned up the flat in preparation for our leaving. (Apparently, “Sister” is what you call a senior nurse, something like a “charge nurse” in the U.S.)

He found her, too, and enjoyed a long talk with her, catching up. She also provided him addresses of three or four other nurses they both knew, who still live nearby.

In the afternoon, we decided to try to find David and Julia Bate. (Our earlier plan, to attend the Tea Dance in the Civic Hall, had slipped our minds entirely.) Demetrios and David have been friends since 1964, during their bachelor days. Demetrios is godfather to their son, James. We tried phoning and e-mailing them, but apparently all that information is out of date. So we took a taxi to their house in Rainford, a nearby town. It was all we could do, or else miss seeing them altogether.

“Well, we’ll joost have to keep all our fingers crossed, then,” said the cabbie, “that they’re home. Because I wouldn’t want to pay this kind of fare if they’re not.” Implication: you’re crazy. Again, there was no way to dispute that, in the circs. We, however, prefer to think of ourselves as adventurous.

Great good luck: Julia answered the door! “Theo!” she cried, and bade us come in.

She’s a pretty woman, slender, with a small face and delicate features, a large smile with very white teeth, and straight, strawberry blonde hair just longer than her jaw line. “We were just talking about you last weekend,” she said. “We said that Theo disappears from time to time, but then, he always pops up again when you least expect him!”

David arrived home less than a minute later. He had been off feeding the pheasants and partridges he hunts when he isn’t feeding them. (Feeding them in the middle of the shooting range keeps them from going elsewhere to forage.)

“I can’t believe it!” he kept saying. “I saw the cab outside, but I never dreamed…” He’s tall and robust, with round, blue eyes and a long face and a fringe of hair that used to be blond. He’s humorous, and obviously fun-loving. (Very round eyes are a common feature in these parts.)

We sat in their living room, a large, approximately square room with a conservatory attached to the south side of it, surrounded by a green garden and overlooking potato fields. There’s a gas fireplace at the east end of it, and the walls are light, buttery yellow.  There are two cream colored, leather sofas making an L.  That’s all we saw of their beautiful house except for the kitchen, which is large because David is a gourmet chef. It has black appliances and is very well stocked with wine, the bottles lying atop the cabinetry all around the room, necks toward us. Demetrios says David always had a flair for design.

So we sat and had tea and biscuits (cookies), confirming my hunch that tea as I have always known it is little more than scented water by comparison. Then, because they had a dinner engagement, they drove us home, we all having first exchanged up-to-date contact information. They are to pick us up and take us somewhere for Sunday dinner tomorrow. James (“Jamie” to Demetrios) will also be along, so I’ll get to meet him as well. We have a picture in Richmond of Jamie as a toddler.

That makes 11 friends we have tracked down here so far (not counting the ones in the churchyard). We haven’t spoken to all of them yet, but we know where to find them. Not bad for a start!

Adventures in England, Part 09

Friday, October 09, 2009

It was a long, hard day for us, but loads of fun. First, we walked into the middle of Ormskirk where we accomplished several missions. We left our thank-you note to Mrs. Williams with Kath, the estate agent. We had a copy made of our one and only key to one of the doors. Now we each have a full set of keys. We bought a gift for Demetrios’ boss.

Then we caught the bus to Southport, where we paid our solicitor another 15 pounds for which he had sent us a bill. Demetrios said we should buy saucers, too, which we forgot when we bought the rest of the dishes. I said no, because we’re only going to give those things away when we come back. He said they should be given away WITH saucers. He’s right. So we bought the 4 saucers.

We then had a good time looking around in that store (Broadbent & Boothroyd’s) and at the home department of Debenham’s, and noting things we ought to acquire on our next trip, notably things for the bathroom.

I don’t know what it is with bathrooms around here, but none I’ve looked at personally or seen in pictures ever has a medicine cabinet or a shelf or rack or cupboard. The result is, you have to line up your shampoo and shower gel and deodorant and hairspray and such along the floor, or a window sill or ledge if you have one.

After we’d killed a lot of time window-shopping, we crossed the bridge to Ocean Plaza and had supper at the Premier Inn’s restaurant, because right outside of it is where the British Musical Fireworks Championship was to be held, beginning tonight, and lasting 3 nights, with 7 competitors.

I had Sticky Toffee Pudding again, this time served with custard. “Custard,” here, has the color and approximate taste an American would expect it to, but it’s served warm and in a small pitcher. You pour it over your dessert.

Afterward, we joined numerous others out on the patio to await the start of the British Musical Fireworks Competition.

It was TOO DARNED COLD! Southport, because it’s right on the ocean, is always colder than Ormskirk, 7 miles away. The wind was up, too. So we departed. The place was full of vendors selling flashing toys: light sabers and flashlights with whirling, colored lights and the like.

We were just about at the top of the arched bridge when the fireworks display opened up like a cannonade and we stood there, transfixed. These were the most beautiful fireworks we had ever seen, and the fanciest. There were explosions of color with explosions of color within still more explosions of different colors. Demetrios said, “We’ll miss our bus,” but we didn’t care. Standing there in the press of the crowd, it was somewhat warmer, so we stayed 15 minutes, until the end of that particular competitor’s first round.

Then we trudged the rest of the way across the bridge, ducking into Silcock’s Funland to warm up before continuing. The place is basically full of slot machines and other money-eating gadgets. I watched a man try that thing you’ve seen in which you try to pick up a stuffed toy with some hooks. It looks easy, but the catch is, the toy keeps falling out as you move it toward you. You put in another 50 pence and try again, with the same result.

The Victorian carousel was all lit up and going, but we didn’t stop; we were too cold.

On past the statue of Queen Victoria to Lord Street, under the glass arcades as far as Christ Church, then across the street and to our bus stop.

At the bus stop, we met a loquacious man named Billy. He was probably around 60, but possibly younger than he looked. He was badly shaven and wearing a soiled knit cap. He wasn’t waiting for any bus, he mentioned. He said he had stopped drinking 4 years ago because it had been killing him. (I sat beside him and I made a point of seeing if I could smell any alcohol on his breath; I could not.) The thing was, since he had stopped going into the pubs (except for cigarettes), life had become very lonely. The only people he had known had been drinking buddies. His wife had been married twice already since she left him; his children had long ago given up on him. So he was sitting here to pass the time, dreading to go back to Formby, he said, and his empty house. We suspect he’s actually homeless, and he was sitting here for shelter from wind and rain. It’s hard do know how to help people like that. A few pounds won’t really accomplish much.

Back in our own warm, happy home, we brushed our teeth and tumbled straight into bed, exhausted.

Adventures in England, Part 08

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

After all this time of “showering” by standing in the tub and using a clean, empty, quart-sized milk bottle to pour water over ourselves, we finally, with Kath’s help, deciphered the shower system! And yes, the mysterious pull-cord that hangs from the ceiling near the door is involved. You have to pull it first. If you don’t, nothing else works. Pulling that cord turns on the shower gadget. Then you set the dial on the shower gadget, which determines the temperature of the little mist of water comes out the showerhead. It's a bit of fuss to find a temperature between boiling and icy, but somewhere between 4 and 5 on the dial will do it, with some fine-tuning involved.

Today we went downtown, mainly just for fun and exploration. We poked around in various shops. We stopped by the estate agents to say hello to Kath. We browsed a large furniture store because Demetrios wants, one day, to put a sofa in our living room (“lounge”) in place of one of the loveseats. He did find one small enough, but we’re not ready for it yet. We walked to the train station to pick up a timetable, by which to figure out how to get to the airport in Manchester on Monday. We stopped by the town’s other taxicab company to try again to find the cabbie who rescued us in June, but were told we need to check with their main office in the town center because that’s where the computers are. Another day. And we picked up some laundry detergent and an airing rack, as it’s called here.

And I made use of the laundry detergent and the drying rack as soon as we got home. The laundry situation had been becoming urgent. So that’s another issue resolved. We’ve been moved in exactly one week now, and we seem to have most issues in hand. We even have plans for getting a reliable phone and Internet service when we return and we know where and how to rent a TV.

Thursday, October 08, 2009

When you wake up in this neighborhood, you hear various birds chirping, twittering, warbling – and quacking. Yes, we have a resident duck somewhere nearby. Must go investigate. I haven’t identified any of the other birds yet, except gulls.

Today we became members of the Ormskirk Public Library. Demetrios was hoping to find videotapes there of The Two Ronnies, a favorite pair of comedians, but there were none. We did sit down at a computer long enough to check e-mail and learn that our neighbor, Dickie, has pneumonia.

It was market day again in Ormskirk, but we didn't see anything we were in any hurry to buy today.  It was fun just to wander among the vendors and street musicians in this quaint little town.

Adventures in England, Part 07

Monday, October 05, 2009

Today we received our very first piece of Royal Mail. (Doesn’t that sound grand?) It was a tax bill from the local council office.

That constituted the proof of residency the bank needs to set up a checking account for us. (Our existing account is a savings account only.)  So we went to Southport to do that. It took us a full hour at the bank to accomplish this. And it still isn’t completely finished; we won’t even know our new account number until the final paperwork is sent to us in Richmond. It’s all because we’re still not British residents, since we won’t be living here at least 6 months of the year. (Or will we?)

The terrorists have already won, in so many ways.

While we were awaiting various faxes, approvals, and investigations, the banker, Vicky, told us a hilarious story about how her 3-year-old nephew discovered how to flood the bathroom, using toilet paper rolls and turning on all the taps. Now he thinks it’s a wonderful game, and has repeated it in nursery school. Her boyfriend’s comment was, “What a genius! I didn’t learn that until I was six!”

The only other thing we managed to do was buy some crockery. We wanted something really pretty, but we could only find one store that had pretty things, and each place setting there cost about $100. There doesn’t seem to be anything between cheap and very expensive. So we skipped that and for now just bought four place settings of the cheapest stuff we could find. At least, this way, we have some sort of china for the tea we’re having tomorrow. And we’ll use it the next several days, too, as we’re running out of paper plates.

Of course, we still don’t have a tablecloth or a butter dish. We haven’t yet found a tablecloth that fits our table, although we looked in three stores. We shall try, tomorrow morning, to remedy at least the butter dish problem.

OH – today we got to see the rising bollards in action. A car drove up to Southport’s Town Hall while we were sitting on a bench outside it; the driver waved a card in front of a device, and the bollards sank into the ground. When he had passed through, the bollards rose again. “Pedestrians beware rising bollards.”

And another news flash: The keys with the orange labels unlock the BACK door into the communal hallway. Different lock from the front door. Still don’t know what the pull-cord in the bathroom does.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009
In Which We Attempt a High Tea

Demetrios has discovered another item in the house we cannot identify. It’s a large, red button on the wall beside the bed in the smaller bedroom. There’s one identical to it beside the front door, too. We’re assuming these are emergency call devices, given that a very old lady (Mrs. Williams’ mother) lived here before us. However, we aren’t going to push that button to find out.

We met some of our neighbors today in the common hallway. Young woman’s name is Carrie or Keri, and the woman with her, Pat, was “my partner Graham’s mother.” No time to chat; their arms were full of groceries and we were getting ready for tea. I’m hoping Graham is a man.

And how did today’s tea with Jacqui go? Well…

We never did find a butter dish or a tablecloth, so we ate on the bare table and put the butter on a dessert plate. We had an extra dessert plate only because Ray didn’t come, Jacqui’s husband.

Another glitch was that somehow we came home yesterday without the saucers we had intended to buy. In the store, they were the first items we set aside, but apparently we never even got them as far as the checkout counter, because they do not appear on our receipt.

Hints from Jane:

Make tea much stronger than Americans usually do when you plan to serve it English style, with milk and sugar. Otherwise, although it looks fine in the pot, when poured into a teacup containing milk, it will turn a nauseating color of greenish gray.

Never put the crumpets in the oven to warm until after your guests arrive. This is because you want to time the warming so as to serve them piping hot, but not overcooked and crunchy.

If you send your husband to the supermarket, make your shopping list very explicit. Do not simply write “bread” but instead, write what sort of bread. That way you don’t end up trying to make tea sandwiches from baguettes.

Sharp kitchen knives are best washed individually, rather than put in the sink or dishpan with everything else.

Sharp knives are best stored separately from other implements, too.

Always test an unfamiliar oven a time or two before using it to bake for company.

Notes to Self:

Need one of those triangular thingies on a handle. Cake/pie server.

Also need one of those serving plates with two or preferably three tiers.  But be sure you have a place big enough to put it before buying one!

It’s easy to find a 4’ by 6’ oval tablecloth in the States.

Buy a set of sharp knives for your kitchen in Richmond! You seem to have forgotten what one is.

The main thing is, we enjoyed Jacqui’s company very much, and hope she had a good time, too. We got to know one another better, and Demetrios was especially delighted that she had known some of the people he used to work with, in particular, Mr. Burgess, a doctor who actually hired Demetrios for his first job. Demetrios has looked up to him as a great physician, mentor, and father figure all these many years.

Jacqui’s husband, we learned without asking, supports Manchester United (soccer team). So does her son. They’re rebels, she added, nonconformists here, where most people apparently are for Liverpool.

We had tea and crumpets, cucumber sandwiches, tomato ham sandwiches, egg salad with watercress sandwiches, crunchy scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam, an apple pie, and some of what the Azerbijani man at the outdoor market called baklava, but the Greeks call it finikia, that cylindrical shaped sweet that looks like it's coated with shredded wheat.

In spite of the blunders, we passed a perfectly delightful afternoon with Jacqui, and once the washing up was done, an equally delightful evening, just the two of us, still unable to comprehend our great good fortune/blessing in having a little home here. And the even greater wonder of getting to share it with each other.

Adventures in England, Part 06

Sunday, October 04, 2009
Sunday in Ormskirk

There was no way, today, to get to an Orthodox Church. We’re thinking we’ll probably rent a car next time we come. At least one of the Orthodox Churches is accessible by bus, but I stupidly stored the address on my computer, which I cannot normally access.

So we went to services at Sts. Peter and Paul (Church of England), otherwise known simply as “Ormskirk Parish Church.” It’s THE landmark in town, visible from almost everywhere and sitting near the center of town. It’s large, made of cut stone, and it has both a spire and a tower, both at the same end of the church, giving it quite an odd look.

It’s Harvest Sunday for this parish. The nave was decorated with Fall flowers and fruits and vegetables in colorful arrangements. I was touched because it seems to me people here must live very close to the land, so harvest really is an important time for them. The local geography reminds me of Germany, where there is a lot of farmland dotted with little villages. In a big city, one feels quite remote from harvest, it being pretty much an abstraction and celebrating it is just a gimmick. Not here. For the occasion, the parish combined their 9:45 contemporary service with their 11:15 traditional service, resulting in a sort of compromise service using organ for the hymns we knew and guitar cum flute for the ones we didn’t. And of course, the time of the service had been compromised too, so we arrived at 11:15 for a service that had begun at 10:30. We missed the following:

Greetings, Notices, and Introduction – Chris

Processional Hymn – 133, ‘Come ye thankful people come’

(People with Harvest gifts please follow choir to the front)

Choir: “Praise we the Lord”

Reading: Exodus 16:1-3 and illustrations – Chelsea

A time of open grumbling – Chris

Reading: Exodus 16:4-16 and illustrations – Daniel

Confession [repenting of the grumbling]

Absolution

Music Praise Time – Music Group

Reading: Exodus 16:17-33 and illustrations – Rhoda

Greed Activity – Ann and Chris

Talk: Ann

We came in during Ann’s talk, very sorry to have missed the Greed Activity. After Ann’s talk came the Mother’s Union Enrolment and prayer. Then there were more prayers, led by Arthur, and another traditional hymn. Then, the final blessing, then another praise song. Then the people just sort of straggled up and out the door to shake the hands of two people in vestments, a woman and a man. We didn’t get either of their names, although we chatted a few moments.

We then met Mary, who kindly provided us a booklet about the church. (Nobody in this parish seems to have a surname.)

How old is the church? So old nobody knows. A church, says the booklet, “may have stood here for a thousand years or more.” The oldest surviving feature of this church is a crude carving on the outside wall, probably depicting St. Peter in chains, with a jailor. This carving “is probably the work of a Saxon craftsman who lived over a thousand years ago.” The church first enters the historical records in 1189, as a gift from the local lord to a nearby monastery. (Does that mean this church is prehistoric?)

Why does the church have both a tower and a steeple?

“Legend has it that two sisters – daughters of Orm – wanted to give something to the church but could not agree whether it should be a tower or a spire. So they ended up giving both. The truth is more prosaic.”

Yes, to put it euphemistically.

The tower was apparently built to house four Bells which came to the church from that nearby monastery, called Burscough Priory, after its dissolution in 1536. Ah, yes, you remember: the Reformer, King Henry VIII, dissolved all the monasteries. So here were four perfectly good bells coming to Ormskirk, and where to put them? “The steeple already standing…was … inadequate for them.” So, build a tower.

One of those Priory bells is now standing beside the pulpit, it having been retired from service (“pensioned off”).” It was cast in 1497 and recast in 1576, and bears a Latin inscription and the Tudor rose.

The tower now has a full complement (“peal”) of 8 bells. They ring every 15 minutes, Westminster chimes. The clock, formerly mechanical, has been electrified.

The Derby Chapel is also very interesting. It was constructed by the third Earl of Derby and served as his family’s burial place until 1851. (You pronounce that “DAH-bee”, of course.) “The third Earl died in 1572. His body was embalmed, perhaps with the idea of postponing the funeral until the vault was ready. However, after six weeks, he was buried in the high chancel after the most magnificently impressive funeral ever seen in Ormskirk. After all, his court in Lathom had rivaled in splendour that of the King himself.”

Here also lies buried, among all the other Derbys, the seventh Earl, “who was beheaded in the Civil War and his heroic wife, Charlotte de la Tremouille, who with a scanty force…repelled a three month siege of Lathom House.”

You can still see here carved stone effigies of four of the Derbys. The Earl of Derby is this church’s patron to this day.

“The chapel incorporates the site of an earlier Lady chapel. In 1366, this was endowed by public appeal and a list of 476 subscribers forms the earliest directory of Ormskirk and its neighbourhood. Many names of families are those of families living here today.”

Wait, there’s still more interesting history. I mean there’s tons of it, but I’m only telling you the most interesting points, in my opinion. King Henry VII once worshipped in this church.

The first Earl of Derby, Thomas, was King Henry VII’s stepfather. That is, the Earl’s wife, Lady Margaret Beaufort, by an earlier marriage, had mothered the man who became King Henry VII. “It was in fact the decisive intervention of Thomas…on behalf of his stepson at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 that established Henry on the throne and earned for Thomas the earldom of Derby.”

Ten years later, we are told,

King Henrie did take his progesse into Lancashire the 25th daie of June, there to make merrie With his mother the Countesse of Derbie Which then laie at Lathom in the countrie.

It is said that during his visit he worshipped in Ormskirk Church and the part of the church set aside for the King’s company is still known as the King’s Chancel.

In 1922, the Derby Chapel became the War Memorial Chapel. Now you can see in it stained glass windows depicting the colors of each of the allied forces, among them, the USA and Greece.

The church was refurbished in the late 1800’s, during which time the “rough pavings over bare earth” were replaced by a concrete floor. But the catch is that 7,000 burials had already been recorded beneath that old floor. So before the concrete was poured, these were excavated, and the bones reburied in a common grave in the churchyard. Seven thousand!

Oh, and here’s the cherry on the top of it all: “Inside the doors is the dog whipper’s bench, fitted with a drawer for gloves, whip and tongs, to separate and remove fighting dogs that had followed their masters into church.”

(If your dog wasn’t fighting, did he get to stay?  And would you attend a church where your dog might be whipped?)

Demetrios and I made our way, eventually, to the coffee hour in the church house (parish hall), where we met Jim, who generously spent a long time socializing with us. He learned more about us than we did about him, I’m afraid, but we hope to meet him again. He’s a tax official from Liverpool. We also met Peter and his wife, Pat, who know Demetrios’ old colleague, Dr. Underwood. They inform us that Dr. and Mrs. Underwood both are alive and well, and live on Greetby Hill Road. In fact, Pat said, “I’ll just pop in there on my way home and tell them ‘Dr. Theo’ was inquiring after them.” We thanked them very much for that kindness, and look forward to seeing the Underwoods sometime. Demetrios, though, says Dr. Underwood was always a little distant.

For me, there is a great pathos in thinking how poor Demetrios came here, feeling rejected and alone, and passionately and permanently gave to this town and her people his whole heart and soul, made them his surrogate family – and they never realized it, nor had any way of understanding how desperately attached to them he was, and with a few exceptions, they rarely seem to have thought of him as much more than an amusing foreign oddity. The foreigner came and they were kind to him, but then he left, as foreigners do (and should) and, for them, that was that.

Anyway, people at the coffee hour were very kind to us, as everyone here seems unfailingly to be, and we were glad we had come.

Across the street from the church is a knitting shop, so we stopped to let me peer through the window. Yes, it has all kinds of yummy yarn, and I shall very much enjoy shopping there. Fortunately, it’s in the very easiest spot in town to find.

There's a knitting group here, too, called Knit 'n' Natter. It meets in the Church House on Monday afternoons. I'll try to join it, if it's still going when we return.

Just as we were getting ready to cross the street, a friendly voice hailed us, and it was the man with whom we had shaken hands after the service. He’s a tall, stout man, with very round, blue eyes in a very round face, under wavy white hair.

I said, “I’m sorry; I didn’t get your name.”

“It’s Chris,” he said. Ah, yes, the Chris mentioned on the program, co-leader of the Time of Open Grumbling, as well as the Greed Activity.

“Chris Jones,” he added; first last name we’d heard. “I’m the Vicar.”

So we chatted a few moments. He has been to Richmond, Virginia, and says he loved it there.

How does one address a vicar?  I seem to recall (from English novels) that it’s “Vicar” but maybe it's “Father” or “Reverend” or  something else. I’m not sure, but never mind.  In this particular case, it’s almost certainly, “Chris.”

When Chris had said goodbye, we spotted the cab company, so we stopped in there, as well, to see if the lady there could help us find the cabbie who came to our rescue on our last trip. We want to invite him to tea some day. However, she couldn’t find a record of any fare to Southport from the railway station on that date, and suggested he might have worked for the other taxi company in town. We shall check that out later.

Then we meandered over to the Hayfield Inn for Sunday dinner. Jim, at the church, had discouraged us from going to the Queen’s Head, which advertises Sunday roasts, so we took his advice.

On our way home, passing the playing fields, we noticed a game of Rugby just getting underway. I’ve never seen Rugby, so we stopped for about 15 minutes to cheer the Ormskirk team. Then, as it was chilly out, we came home.

"Auntie Mame" Recieves Nation's Highest Civilian Honor

She's really my great-aunt Dorothy Jean, youngest sister of my maternal grandmother, and she's 91 years young. Some years ago, she was standing next to a furnace when it exploded and burned off her face. When her brand new skin grew in, it was soft as a baby's and wrinkle-free, so she looked REALLY YOUNG!

She's a "character"; she's what one person on the Internet called "a Renaissance woman," if that's not an oxymoron.  I suppose her own family, back in the days, would have regarded her as a black sheep; she's an atheist and, it used to be whispered, a "Pinko," which meant a Communist sympathizer. She also married Uncle Sam, a Jew.  Others in her contemporary family might consider her a herione, for doing all sorts of things ladies were not supposed to do, such as fly airplanes and earn several postgraduate degrees in college and get divorced. She worked a long time as a chemist and then went into counselling and wrote a book called, Is Living Killing You? about self-defeating behaviors and how to overcome them.  She protested the Vietnam war; I remember her riding to the Pentagon to do this, with Dad, in his car.  He went in to work there and she, to protest.  Afterward, they both rode home together.  She once rafted down the Colorado River with Dad, too. 

She and her husband, Sam Eppstein, built their Frank Lloyd Wright house with their own four hands and I remember staying in it, and how different it seemed from any house I'd ever been in...

In World War II, she was a WASP (Women's Airforce Service Pilot).

I've just learned that on July 4, the President awarded all the WASPs the Congressional Gold Medal.

Here's part the NPR story:

July 4, 2009
President Obama signed a bill Wednesday granting the Congressional Gold Medal to a group of women most Americans have never heard of: the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP.

These were the first women to fly military aircraft. During World War II, they volunteered for noncombat duty, as test pilots and trainers. They freed up their male counterparts to go to Europe and fight in the war.

But even though they wore uniforms and worked on bases, they were never considered members of the military. Their contribution to the war effort was so controversial, in fact, that all records pertaining to their service were sealed and deemed classified in 1944. That pretty much consigned the WASP to the dustbin of history for decades...

Somebody apparently has made a 45-minute video of my great-aunt's life; here is a trailer lasting a minute and a half.


The Life of Dorothy Jean Dodd Eppstein from mel halbach on Vimeo.

CONGRATULATIONS, AUNT DOROTHY JEAN! 

Adventures in England, Part 05

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Today we woke up to a warm flat. With hot water. I decided to take a shower— something I missed yesterday – and to wash my hair.

It was not to be. There’s a gadget on the shower wall that heats up the water and we know about that type of thing because we have it in Greece. However, on this model we could find no on/off switch.

Neither could we find any control to cause the water to come out the shower head instead of the two spigots at the bottom. The only lever in sight, when flipped, loosened the shower head so it slid down the pole. We pulled it back up and flipped the lever the other way to clamp the shower head in place.

And guess what? There are no instructions!

There is a long cord hanging from some alien gadget on the bathroom ceiling on the other side from the tub and shower. Well, when you don’t know how to do “A”, and you see an unknown gizmo “B”, you figure there’s a fair chance thingamabob “B” is the thing you need for accomplishing task “A”, right? Well, maybe. We looked at that long cord with some trepidation, as there is a large, red indicator light that goes on if you pull the cord. “I hope this won’t bring the police or an ambulance,” I said, as I pulled it.

If that’s what it is supposed to do, we’re in trouble, because no police or ambulance came. In fact, we couldn’t tell what had happened. Something must have, but it was indiscernible to us. So I pulled the cord again, turning off the red light and causing a green “OFF” tab to appear.

Flashback: Mr. Ram Bashal, from Nepal, arrived in Minneapolis to help found a Montessori School there and checked into a big hotel. He observed someone drinking from a water fountain, but didn’t observe all that closely, so when he wanted some water himself, he was completely baffled as to how you got the stuff to come out. Finally, he had to ask, as we shall probably have to ask some neighbor. He felt quite foolish, as we no doubt also shall.

This was the same fellow who told us his father was very rich; he owned a whole herd of elephants. I was amazed. I asked, “How do you acquire enough hay and peanuts, day after day, to feed a whole herd of elephants?”

“Hay and peanuts?”

“That’s what elephants eat, don’t they? I’ve seen them eat that in the zoo.”

“Ah, in the zoo! Perhaps there, but in Nepal, the elephants are turned out into the forest in the mornings, where they spend the day grazing on plants full of laxative. Then we bring them home in the evening.”

I couldn’t say a word, picturing a whole herd of elephants brought home after gorging on laxatives all day long.

No doubt Mr. Bashal meant to say, “lactose,” as in some sort of milkweed…

Anyway, like him, we shall have to ask how to get the water to come out where we want it to.

“Oh, well, I’ll just take a bath then,” I said, cheerfully.

It was while I was shampooing my head I realized the implications of two spigots. One was for hot water and the other for cold. How to rinse your hair? We don’t own a pitcher. So I had Demetrios bring me the square plastic washbasin Mrs. Williams had kindly put under the kitchen sink for us, and I used that.

Later, we ventured out into the gray and very blowy day to find some groceries. We came upon Morrison’s, a huge supermarket, and they were in the final day of a big sale, so in we went. And there I found what I was looking for: clotted cream! I was beginning to think people here didn’t eat it. I also found scones and crumpets (English Muffins, we call them). I’ll freeze them until Tuesday, and then warm them in the oven and serve them piping hot. Okay, so my first tea won’t feature anything homemade. It’ll be quite untraditional, I’m afraid, but no matter. We’ll do a better job another time, and meanwhile, we shall all enjoy one another’s company, which is the object of the exercise anyway.

Home for lunch and a nap.

Demetrios went out again later; I elected to stay home because it was such an uninviting evening, dark, wet, cold, and windy. He came home with two bottles of wine and a toaster, raising the comfort level in our flat two more notches.

We took out the trash together and deciphered (we trust) how the trash works.

Things we still haven’t deciphered include what the keys with the orange dots on them are for. (Mrs. Williams kindly color-coded all the keys for us.)

Adventures in England, Part 04

Friday, October 02, 2009
Getting Settled

We woke up to a very cold apartment, turned on a space heater to warm it up some, and slept until past 10:00. For breakfast, we had hot tea (brought from Richmond) and coffee and chunks of bread ripped off the loaf, spread with butter. We don’t even have a butter dish; the slab of butter sits on a paper place. We don’t have any jam or jelly or honey, either. We do have some spoons and forks and dinner knives, brought from Richmond. But breakfast was delicious because it was the first meal in our new home.

I’m happy to report that both mattresses are very comfortable, nice and firm.

Our major accomplishment today was to furnish our kitchen with various needed gadgets. We had to go all the way to Southport to do it, but we found there a home store called Dunelm, which is something like Bed, Bath and Beyond. So we bought things such as: a potato masher, garlic press, spatula, sharp knives (including a bread knife!), skillet, covered saucepan, set of 4 tumblers, set of 4 wine glasses, vegetable peeler, a slotted serving spoon and a solid one, canisters for: tea, coffee, sugar, flour, and rice; and a kitchen dustbin.

That, combined with the things Mrs. Williams gave us, plus the things I brought from Richmond, leaves only about 6 items (plus groceries) on our shopping list.

“Pack the bags about evenly as to weight,” Demetrios told the young lady at the check-out, “because we have no car and we must carry these all the way to the bus stop on the other side of Lord Street.” That’s a distance of about three quarters of a mile.

She laughed, glancing out the door at the rain and said, “I think yer crazy.”

There was no plausible way, just then, to dispute that.

We toted our heavy loads to the bus stop in a misty rain, the kind that umbrellas don’t help, because the drops float up or blow up under them anyway. Met a pair of jolly drunks at the stop, who talked merrily with us for a few minutes, we understanding little of what they said. People in this country do speak English, but with a foreign accent.

We came home with our treasures and were greeted by two fat, calico cats, running up to us, asking to be petted. Demetrios thinks that’s marvelous, for a cat to run up to greet you. He laughed and said, “So our new home comes complete with cats!”

“But not cat litter boxes!”

“Right. Someone else takes the responsibility, we get the fun.”

“A little like grandchildren…”

We left our purchases in their bags and went out to get a bite at Five Ways, a large restaurant very near us. They have a so-called Diamond Club for people older than 50; if you join it, you get discounts on meals. So we did and we did.

I had my first Yorkshire Pudding. Do you know what this famous thing is? Again, not pudding at all, as Americans think of it. It’s a large dollop of dough that appears to have been deep-fried. And it’s perfectly tasteless. So why has Yorkshire Pudding been a British favorite for centuries? My guess is, because it’s a perfect sponge for sopping up gravy and other sauces. 

[14 Oct. 09 - I've just read in the Wikipedia that Yorkshire Pudding is supposed to be cooked either underneath your roast, so it catches all the drippings, or in the same pan as the roast, after the meat has been removed to a serving platter.  Now that does sound tasty.  What we ate, however, was not.]

When Demetrios asked our waiter where he was from, the young man smiled and said, “Liverpool. Been in Ormskirk 15 years now, though. Feel like a born-and-bred.” Then he added, “Support Everton.” He nodded and disappeared.

Demetrios was laughing.

“What’s Everton?” I asked.

“A soccer team. For years and years, the best soccer team in the UK always used to be Liverpool or Everton.”

Telling which team you support is evidently an important piece of an introduction around here.

I teased the fellow later and told him the tip would’ve been a pound more had he not supported Everton.

Back home, we had a great time unpacking our purchases and putting them away. Of course that added to our trash situation… in the morning, in the morning we shall figure out the acceptable method of disposing of things.

Tonight we pulled out the notebook Mrs. Williams left us, containing instructions for almost every gadget in the house. Time to learn to use the heaters. Like the water heater, the radiators only store electricity during the night, when the rates are lower, and then radiate heat all day (and night) long. But you have to know how to set the knobs or dials or whatever.

In the process of reading up, we found several pages of printout Mrs. Williams had left us about various brands of combination washer-dryer machines. She even listed the technical specs and prices and pictures. Yes, some day we will replace the washer with a washer-dryer. But not soon.

Hint from Jane: Read the instructions!

Adventures in England, Part 03

Thursday, October 01, 2009
Birthday and Moving-in Day

Today is Ryan’s and Connor’s fifth birthday, and I can’t even telephone them. Rats! Five years old! It seems impossible that the wonderful day of their birth was so long ago. Ryan only weighed 3 pounds and a few ounces. Connor was five pounds something.

It’s also moving day for us. We checked out of the Premier Inn and took the bus to Ormskirk with our remaining two suitcases. This time, we got off at the stop very near our flat. It was a short walk to the front door.

We left the unloading of the rest of our stuff for later because today is market day in Ormskirk. There have been markets here Thursdays ever since the year 1286. That’s when the town received a royal charter to have a market. (Talk about government interference!) So, as it was a pretty, sunny day, we hurried downtown.

There, along the cobbled streets to the south and the east of the Clock Tower, scores of vendors had set up their white tent-awnings. Before visiting them, we paused to admire the compass built into the brickwork near the Clock Tower. It shows North, East, South, and West, but also the names of the nearest sizeable town or city in each direction.

The first vendor we came to was selling typical English lunch stuff, shepherd’s pie and cottage pie and the like. We bought two Cornish pasties and sat down on a bench to eat them.  I think they are meant to be eaten warm, but they were still good.

The next vendor was from Azerbijan, and he was selling a lot of things Greeks eat, such as feta cheese, kalamata olives, Turkish Delight (those jellied cubes, coated with confectioners’ sugar, of which Demetrios is so fond), and baklava. We bought some of each. I’m going to freeze the baklava for tea with Jacqui on Tuesday. That won’t make it a typical English tea, will it?

You can get all sorts of things at the market, principally food and clothes, but many other things as well, just as in a Greek market. We just bought some strawberries and tangerines and small tomatoes. We have no bowl to put them in, no knife to cut them with, no plate to serve them on (except paper plates we brought with us). But we shall manage! We bought a loaf of bread, too, and a pound of butter. The bread is unsliced, and we have no knife for slicing it. Oh, well. Demetrios also bought some instant coffee. Coffee mugs we have, thanks to Mrs. Williams.

We didn’t find any shops in Ormskirk that sell dishes or pretty drinking glasses or knives or kitchen gadgets or dustbins (wastebaskets).

We are accumulating quite a bit of trash – a whole large kitchen bag full – and don’t yet know what to do with it. There are dumpsters in a corner of the property, and there are numbered bins. We just do not know what to put where. Paper here, plastics there?? Must figure out the system.

We went to the Hayfield Inn, a pub near here, for supper. Demetrios remembered it from his stay here all those long years ago, so it was nostalgic for him. It has a cozy atmosphere, with timbered ceiling and a lot of reds in the décor, and that warmth is very welcome in this cold, dark, drizzly weather.

Back home, I tried out my new USB modem. Highly frustrating! Couldn ‘t get any Internet connection with it; the flat is a very weak zone for Internet, just as it is for cell phones. At least the instructions were entertaining to read:

“All the clever little bits and bobs (drivers if we are to be technical) have already been added to your dongle.” Dongle is what they call this USB thing.

“You will then need to wait for a little while, about as long as it takes a kettle to boil.”

“This may take some time, about as long as it takes to drink a cup of tea.”

I finally got online for a precious few minutes, but then the connection blinked out again.

Demetrios took it upon himself tonight to figure out how to procure hot water. Read the instructions. The hot water heater uses electricity all day long, but stores it during the night, when the electricity rates are lower, and you have to set the mechanism to do that. Tomorrow we shall have hot water.

We still haven’t deciphered the heating systems. Read the instructions. Yes, but we are mostly too tired to do that or to care; it’s very warm under the duvets (comforters) and that’s all that has mattered so far.

Hint from Jane: It’s true. When in the UK, always, always, always carry an umbrella. Not just one, either, but one per person. Do this no matter how pretty a day it appears to be.

Adventures in England, Part 02

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Jacqui Saves Us Again and We Take Possession of Our Flat

The shopping bag from the telephone store never made it back to our hotel room. It contained the recharger plugs for our phones, the usage instructions because we do finally intend to learn how to text, and the USB modem for the laptop.

Back at the phone store, the nice man told us we could buy recharger plugs down the block a ways, and he pointed to the store. As for the instructions, he didn’t have an extra copy for us, but we could print them out from the Internet; just Google it. Fine. OH, except that the USB modem was also in that bag, so we have no Internet.

Demetrios was all apologies. I told him the really cool thing about it was, it almost made up for the time I left my purse on the train, with my passport in it.

We checked at the bank, we checked at the solicitors’; nobody had seen a red plastic shopping bag. We asked Jacqui, at the hotel’s front desk, and she said, “Let me go in the back and see…” and brought it out to us. Jacqui saves us again! (She is the one, you may recall, who saved us on our first trip here, at the end of June; see here for that story.)

We checked with the solicitor and he said yes, every legal matter had been completed and the keys were at the estate agent’s office in Ormskirk, waiting for us.

So we boarded a bus with half our luggage (the rest to be brought tomorrow) and off we went to Ormskirk, getting off the bus only a block from Kath’s office, the estate agent. She handed us the envelope containing the keys.  She also let us use the phone in the back to call the electricity company and the water company and arrange for these utilities to be turned on.

So, because Demetrios says my ears seem more attuned to the local accent than his (How strange is that?), I left him in the front office, to hear from Kath all about her holiday in Greece, while I did the telephoning.

What I heard was so surprising that I forgot to ask half the questions I was supposed to, and now we shall have to call them again sometime. I wandered back into the front, my eyes glazed over, and reported what I’d found out: “Mrs. Williams did all this for us yesterday.” Yes, the seller of the property had phoned the companies and switched the accounts to our names, and both the electricity and the water were already on.

We exclaimed repeatedly what a very nice lady she was, and told Kath we hoped we had not seen the last of her, and we hoped to meet her husband, too, a clinical pathologist, I think.

Kath just smiled, a huge smile, her eyes sparkling, and said, “Mrs. Williams has left you – well, a ‘package’ that I think will please you very much.”

That must be typical British understatement. I literally burst into tears when I saw how thoughtful the previous owner had been; see the previous post entitled, “Kindness, kindness, kindness!”
We lugged our two suitcases from Kath’s office up the street about a mile (but that wasn’t so very bad, as the bags were on wheels) and tried all the keys we’d been given until we found the right ones to open the outside and inside doors. And then we stepped into our new English home!

We saw the candles, the silk flowers, and the glass dolphins statuette immediately. The rest we kept discovering gradually, as we opened drawers and closets and cupboards to put things away. It was like an Easter-egg hunt and Christmas combined. There are even sheets and pillowcases for the beds, and thick, luxurious bath towels, and bubble bath and facial scrub and all sorts of such items, appreciated for themselves and for the implicit recommendations as to brands, but most of all, for the kindness of heart that overwhelms us yet again. I just cried.

Cell phones, shmell phones. Turns out we can’t use them to call Greece or the U.S. and they also do not work with toll-free numbers. All the calls we need to make fall into one of those categories! Even worse, the cell phones do not work at all from inside our flat. We’ll have to step outside, rain or shine, to use them. (Shine?)

Oh, well, we mustn’t let anything spoil this wonderful day, when Demetrios’ long-cherished dream of returning to Ormskirk is realized.

Back to Southport for one last night at the hotel. We ate at the restaurant there. Their Sticky Toffee Pudding is one of the best desserts I ever ate.

"Pudding,"in England, is not what it is in America. In America, it’s something sweet and creamy. In England, it can be just about anything. This is from Demetrios’ Oxford Dictionary of Current English:

1 a any of various sweet cooked dishes (rice pudding) b savoury dish containing flour, suet, etc. (steak and kidney pudding) c sweet course of a meal d any of various sausages stuffed with oatmeal, spices, blood, etc. (black pudding)

This Sticky Toffee Pudding was a chocolate cupcake heavily drizzled with toffee sauce and served with vanilla ice cream.

Demetrios went to bed and was asleep within 2 minutes. I went downstairs to write in my day planner and organize for tomorrow and chat with Jacqui. We’ve tentatively agreed on Tuesday afternoon for her to come to tea, and we hope she will be able to bring her husband, Ray. As I said to her, “That will double our acquaintance here!”

Back upstairs, I found the TV still on. An average British family was reliving the 1970’s. The program producers had redecorated their home the way it would have looked in England in 1970, and the house only had the technology available to the average British family then. Meaning, no cell phones, no home computer, no microwave oven, no color television, a tiny refrigerator with no freezer, a phonograph player with vinyl records, and no central heating.

The kids were bored; the mother declared she didn’t know how anybody ever cooked back then. The father had to drive a car with no power steering or power brakes. The family learned to play board games together.

I said to Demetrios, later, when he woke up, “You and I are SO ‘Seventies!!” What a shock to realize. Yes, we really must learn how to send text messages and do all the other things a cell phone can do other than just place and receive calls – such as picking up messages, storing phone numbers in its address book, etc. Texting didn’t look hard when the man in the store showed us. Just, we can’t remember what he did. Read the instructions.

Adventures in England, Part 01

At last we are back in Richmond, have Internet access, and can share with you our doings in England.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009
We Arrive in Southport

We arrived early at Manchester and caught a very, very slow train to Southport, arriving there around 11:30 in the morning.  That was just about enough time, we calculated, to transact our business at the bank before our contact people would leave for lunch.

First we had to ditch our luggage. We caught a cab from the train station to the Premier Inn, Ocean Plaza. It was well before check-in time, 2:30, but the receptionist was happy to put our bags in the back room meanwhile. Then we took the same cab to the bank.

“Ah, there’s a band ta welcome ya!” said the cabbie as we approached the corner where the band always sits.

I laughed and said, “I believe they welcome people all day, every day.”

“That’s so. Wear us out playin’ the same things all day. Bunch of damned foreigners, ya know.”

We – foreigners – didn’t say anything, but smiled to ourselves.

The bank business went very smoothly, at long last, now that we were there in person, and within 45 minutes, we walked out of there quite the poorer, having transferred the full purchase amount for the flat to our solicitors’ escrow account.

Elated, we walked across the street, past the World War Memorial, to the Tudor-style row houses which hold the offices of our solicitors, where we had a 1:00 appointment. On our way, we passed the rising bollards that had so perplexed us on the last trip.  We read in the Manchester Guardian (local newspaper) that somebody is suing somebody because some bollards that were supposed to retract didn’t, preventing an ambulance getting to the patient, who died as a result.

Our solicitor couldn’t see us until our appointment time at 1:00, but then again everything was quick and easy. Sign here, we’ll exchange contracts this afternoon on your behalf, and complete the entire process tomorrow. Give us a ring in the late morning to confirm that the keys are available for you to pick up. Oh, and by the way, here’s my bill for the remaining legal fees.

MacDonald’s was nearby, so we decided to MacDo it for lunch, and said afterward we liked the Big Mac there better than we like the ones in the States.  We don't know why.

Then, behind Lord Street in the pedestrians-only shopping area, we found a telephone store. We stopped there and got ourselves a pair of cell phones. We also bought a USB modem for the laptop. Now we should be all set up.

Then, back to Lord Street, under the glass arcades to the bank, to take out the cashier’s check for the legal fees, then back to the law office to pay them.

And finally, we straggled, exhausted, back over the modern bridge over the lake to Ocean Plaza.  We checked into our hotel and retrieved our baggage. We took a 3-hour nap before forcing ourselves to get up and walk to the Bella Italia Ristorante on the other side of the parking lot. We had wine with our meal and drank several toasts:

“To our new flat!”

“To England!”

“To Ormskirk!”

“To us, my beloved.”

Back in our room, we watched an hour of the BBC and then fell asleep early, saying grateful prayers.

Kindness, kindness, kindness!

Mrs. Williams, from whom we bought this flat, left us some gifts. 

First thing we noticed when we walked into our new home-in-England was silk flowers on the dining table.  The next thing was brand new, fluffy, white towels in the bathroom, and a matching white bath rug.  Then we noticed the four candles and candle holders, and the glass dolphins statuette.  But you won't believe what else this dear woman thought of!  Just about everything on my list!  An iron and ironing board, a Hoover (vacuum cleaner) with extra bags, ladder, 5 rolls of toilet tissue along with a brand new toilet plunger, (everything on this list being brand new, in fact), paper towels in holder, mugs on a mug tree that match the decor of the flat, a dish drainboard, a drawer divider thingy (caddy) for cutlery, a dish brush, a plastic washtub, all kinds of toiletries (shampoo, conditioner, soap, dish soap, household spray cleaner), two bowls of potpourri, a small space heater, an electric tea kettle, a broom, a hand broom with dustpan, several hand-crocheted doilies, probably made by her mother, sheets and pillow cases for the beds... I can't think of what all else right now.  I burst into tears. 

On the practical level, this makes things so very much easier, but that's a temporary effect.  The permanent, eternal effect, is to touch our hearts so deeply.  W cannot get over the kindness of the people here.  Our hearts are profoundly grateful.

I'm keeping a travel diary, as always, and will post it if and when I ever get Internet connection again around here...

Can't Believe I'm Connected!

We've successfully completed the purchase of the flat in Ormskirk.  That was done on Wednesday.  It's only Friday and we're fairly well settled in already. 

Only trouble is, our flat is a DEAD ZONE when it comes to cell phones and a very weak zone for wireless internet.

Margaret, I followed your advice and bought a USB modem.  Works fine except at home.  Right now, however, I am connected, and I'd better post this quickly before my connection blinks out.