Are We There Yet?

The beginning of our journey to East Anglia went so smoothly that we were lulled into complacency. What’s in a little gate change at Dulles Airport? Then the announcements began coming in, followed each time with a cell phone call from Orbitz to repeat that same announcement—a 30 minute delay, an hour delay because a part is being replaced on the plane, another 30 minutes . . . We were supposed to fly out shortly after 10:00pm but we didn’t begin boarding until 2:30am, the beginning of our 7 plus hours across the Atlantic. Fortunately, once we arrived we were able to disembark rather quickly. Our wobbly legs actually rejoiced at the rather long and circuitous journey to customs. That’s where we encountered Mr. I’m-New-at-My-Job, who tried very hard to look official but who was having difficulty understanding why we had come to England. “I must speech with my supervisor,” he told us and disappeared for quite some time. Coming back with a nervous grin on his face, he conducted a rather elaborate ritual stamping our passports. More long distance walking followed to find the baggage claim and then on to the car rental desk, followed by more walking to the shuttle bus. A short debate ended with our decision to rent a car with a GPS. That turned out to be a wise move, if only to get us out of the London area, which still involved a few wrong turned until we got used to Margery’s (we named the lovely voice on the GPS after one of the mystics Meisha is researching, the one who did considerable traveling) instructional style, particularly on the roundabouts. After about 1,234 more roundabouts we found ourselves recognizing signs of the places we had come here to visit. A pit stop at a Tesco grocery store in Diss was required to use bathroom resources, to but a little food for the evening and next day’s breakfast and to tap itno cash reserves at the ATM. Before long Margery directed us to turn off onto a narrow country road, and another, and still another, until at last Meisha recognized a few landmarks from the information our landlady had given her. So here we are among a tiny cluster of homes in Hardwick.