A Day of Driving Left

I'm exhausted, but if I don't get it down now, I'm afraid I'll lose it. 

 

I flew into Heathrow London at 6:51 this morning (London time), after a long, long day.  I'd left home at 3pm, arriving in Charlotte, NC about an hour before my flight to London.  I changed some money, the boarded the plane.  I probably slept about 2 hours, and when we landed, had to figure out how to get to the Enterprise Rent-a-Car place.  It did take me a couple of misguided attempts, but I finally got there.  I was quite impressed with the attentiveness and courtesy of the representatives and Jay and I had a huge laugh later when we got in the car and found a tag that said it was "American-style service."  If only Americans were into good service...

 

Jay drove.  I've never driven in England and don't know that I ever will.  I told him upfront that I was a terrible passenger.  I would mash pretend brakes and make squeaky noises when I felt endangered and possibly even yell at him to slow down or watch out.  As it turned out, I was right on all accounts.  Two near-collisions had me hyperventilating, but we came out of them without anyone hitting anyone.

 

And in spite of that, I felt pretty safe with him driving.  Enough so that I nodded off a couple of times and managed to get another two hours of sleep before arriving at our destination - Grandma's house!

 

We surprised her by turning up so early (she figured it would be dark), but she recovered nicely, introducing us to her cleaning lady and serving us tea.  We talked about Lois and her dog, Cassie, and Jay's job...

 

 

She's had cataract surgery recently and while she's got her colors back, she's still having great difficulty reading, which is a sadness to her.  All in all, she looks pretty good.  She packed us off after an hour or so because we needed to start up the mountain before it got dark.  Well, it got dark FAST and we hit the steep hill in complete darkness.  It had rained off and on all day and the road was covered in leaves, which made us lose traction a time or two.  We dodged a few sheep and finally opened the gate to the farm.  I'll show you pictures tomorrow so you can see outside AND in.

My dad's cousin Ben (my first cousin once removed?) took me and Jay to dinner down in Llanbedr at a little pub that has a restaurant attached.  We passed through the pub, which had on a sporting match of some sort, cheering beer drinkers and several dogs, one of which looked a lot like Kida.  We sat and had a lovely dinner and lovely conversation as the rain intermittently tapped on the glass overlooking the front garden. 

It's late now and Ben is going to put me to work in the morning, so I need to get a little shut-eye.  I wanted to get something down now though - just to start.  Tomorrow, I'll share pictures of the drive and the house and of course, sheep!