Across The Pond - England -Post 1

These next few posts are very exciting indeed! We are on a trip to the UK, where we are meeting my sister and nephew, who are flying from Seattle to meet us at Heathrow in London. Rowan and I have had the FLIGHTS FROM HELL............but still arrived at Heathrow in good spirits (mostly because we ARRIVED IN ONE PIECE! :o). Our first flight was delayed because of thunderstorms in Newark, NJ and then we missed our connection to London in Newark. We were fortunate enough to get a Virgin Atlantic flight later out of Newark (the last one!). Upon our relief about getting on the later flight, we got in our seats and were just finishing our emergency video and about ready to pull away from the gate.............poof! the entire plane lost power! All I can say is, thank god it didn't happen in the air! :o) It is now almost 90 degrees in the plane (the AC works only when the engines are engaged). Almost 3 hours later sitting on the tarmac, the engineer fixed the computer system, and after many glasses of water, plane gifts and apologies from the steward staff, we finally took off. With fingers crossed we took off and 6 hours later landed at Heathrow. Things could only get better from here on out. The great thing about our delay, is that we now are arriving just 30 minutes before my sister and nephew (it was going to be a 4 hour wait if we hadn't gone through the delays).

Remember to always keep looking for that silver lining......................

Here is a smiling Rowan as we got on the Heathrow airport tram to get to terminal 4 to meet my sister.

I'm not quite sure how she managed to look so fresh and happy in this photo after our crazy travel day. Must be that she actually SLEPT on the plane. I don't know how she does it, but I am hopeless at doing it (which is why you see no pictures of me here :o)

A video showing our rendevous at terminal 4, Heathrow, London. Very fun to travel so far from different places and have the meeting go so well.

We are staying with Rowan's parents in East London (Chelmsford) for the first week of our visit, so we collected our rental car and headed east. We are all pretty pooped from our nearly 15 hour travel day, so we are looking forward to some R&R in the country, some good English cheese and a pint in the nearest pub.

 Our first walk to the little village Sandon, just up the road from Rowan's parents house, my extremely cute, funny and engaging nephew Jake and I were very excited to share our first British beer together. 

 Pat & Rowan walking down the Bridleway and  happy to have their feet firmly planted on the UK ground

 Woohoo! Nothing like a pint of English beer in a small town country pub to really get one into the spirit of being in the Queen's country. The local pub folks are also EXTREMELY entertaining and love to have foreign visitors stop by. We were extremely entertained by one local chap who came out to poke fun with us.

After our local village pub experience, we walked back to the house and prepared to TRY and go to sleep at a reasonable UK hour. NOT! It will certainly take a few days for us to get our circadian rhythms in sync with the 5 hour (for Rowan and I) and 8 hour (for Pat & Jake) time difference.
After our almost 10am rising time the next morning, we decided to take it slow on our first full day here, so our major outing for the day was going to the grocery store. Not just any grocery store, but Sainsbury's. It is truly an eye-popping experience to step into a Sainsbiury's. The English way is so different and fun. Jake was totally into the scanning wand we got as we came into the store. Rowan's Mum, Paula, swipes her card as we enter and we get our very own UPC scanning wand so we can scan our own goods as we shop. Then when we are done, we just hand the wand to the check-out person and they total it and we pay. BRILLIANT! Can't wait for this idea to get to the states. Very easy and fast. Here is Mum getting her scanner.

Jake (with Mum), having a blast being our scanner boy.

 I could have taken millions of photos of our shopping spree (we had a BLAST!) watching my sis and nephew on their first visit, but come on, we are in a grocery store so I will save shooting photos for the really, really fabulous stuff. :o)
I did have to take a photo of this chunky chocolate dessert just because it is outrageous! I mean LOOK AT IT!!!!! Pudding, cream, chocolate, choc chips, chocolate cookies, chocolate moose, caramel...........good lord! These folks really do know how to do pudding (dessert). The dessert isle is something to behold.

After our shopping spree and lunch of cheese and pickle sandwiches, Mum took us off to a local RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) garden called Hyde Hall only a short 15 minute drive from the house. Go here: http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardens/Hyde-Hall?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=mv_gardens&utm_content=gardens_brand_hyde%2Dhall&utm_term=%2Brhs%20%2Bhyde%20%2Bhall  We figured it was a good idea to stay close to the house in case we were suddenly overcome by sleep anxiety and began speaking in tongues and rolling our eyes back in our heads, etc. It is really not good to scare the locals so soon after arriving :o)

The photos from the garden:

Mum, Rowan and Pat amongst the foxgloves......

 The Coi pond with water lilies.....

There are thousands of flowers throughout the gardens. I will only share a fraction of what I photographed........
 
Sis and I on the edge of the gardens looking out into the English countryside.......

Jake on top of a rock wall overlooking the wet garden.......

We found a coffee wagon in the garden. THERE IS A GOD! Something to help get us through our jet lag stupor.........

This is REALLY cool. A bug hotel made out of recycled garden and household items. This is where the working bugs for your garden can live so they can help out when needed. We will make one of these in our garden when we get home...........

Here is the hotel........

 Roses, so many roses in the gardens.........

My favorite photo of the day was taken in the dry garden. All of these plants are drought tolerant.
Something we will take from as we plant our new yard back home. Really beautiful!

Much more coming in my next post........stay tuned......