Girls on the Road

 

 

 

 

It is 10:15 am and I am sitting in the Birmingham airport waiting for my flight that leaves at 2:15 pm. I have a cold, frothy coffee drink from Costa, an e-book, the internet, and this blog post to keep me amused. 

 

Katrina, Leah and Carol are on their way back to Scotland, and we should all be arriving at our destinations tonight about the same time.

 

 

 

This has been a fun week. But a week ago, and even 5 days ago, there was no way to know how it would go. Four women, all used to running their own households, together in a car for hours and hours and hours day after day after day and even sharing rooms.  Would we all get along? Would it be fun? And most importantly, would my roommate snore long and loud throughout the night, keeping me awake so that I was tired and dragging and cranky? (my own personal concern)

 

 These were things that remained to be seen.

 

I think about 4 men making this same trip.

 

 I don't know, I could be wrong, but my understanding about men is that they have a limited number of words they can/need to speak in a day (I know- this is a generalization about men) and many men seem to reach that limit about mid-morning on a regular day.

 

So, I am picturing 4 men traveling a long distance together in a car. I think conversation would fly back and forth for a while - maybe even as far as to Edinburgh (about 6 hours).  But surely by then, they would have exhausted their word limit - and maybe even borrowed from the next day - and would all be living happily in their 'nothing' box for the rest of the drive.

Women, on the other hand, as a general rule, tend to have a need for a lot more words. But I think we outdid ourselves on this trip.

 

Let me impress you. It took 14 hours (with driving and stops) to get from Thurso to Swindon.   And not only was there no lag in the conversation (!!), we still did not run out of things to talk about over the next 4 days as we drove back and forth, sometimes hours, to and from a castle and just meandering around the country, sharing dinners and rooms.

 

 

I do not think the other 3 had ever taken such a trip together before.

Yes, we have spent all day Tuesdays playing Mahjong together, but that is not the same. It took a little bit for us to settle in together, but it was not long before each of us had sort of established our roles. 

 

Leah, Carol, Katrina, Jodi

  

Katrina was The Driver. Confident because of her extensive travels across the country and abroad. She navigated the routes and planned the timing to avoid long delays caused by possible traffic backups. She whipped along on dual lane roads that had high hedges on either side, pulled in and out of the lane of travel in small villages where there really was only a single lane because one lane was used for parked cars. And she maneuvered so smoothly that there was no car anxiety in the least.

 

 

Leah sat shotgun and we decided to call her The Wingman. She helped navigate for Katrina. She kept her eyes open and helped check the GPS in the car to make sure we were on the right route. . And she was efficient. She was the right woman for the job. Because when we needed more information about where we were going, Leah would just whip out her phone and look it up and provide us with what was needed. She was also in charge of keeping track of Katrina's sunglasses and purse.

 

Now, Carol and I were the bairns in the backseat, which was a great place to be. We felt like the children who were along for the ride, going wherever the grownups took us, just having a grand time on our own.  We were accused of having our own little "backseat condos" back there, where we had all the comforts - leg space, water access, pillows and blankets. And we did not have to pay any attention at all to the details of getting to our next location.

 

Carol quickly became The Hostess/Negotiator. Carol came prepared to make us all feel like we were on a proper holiday. She had a knack for collecting things (like wine glasses and fresh fruit and ice buckets) and putting things together in a lovely way. But her real gift came through when we discovered that she is bold. I don't think Carol pays full price for anything - a woman after my own heart!   Even on a blouse that was not on sale at all, Carol asked, "Is that the best you can do?" and then got 50% off!  We experienced that several times over the week, ending with this morning when the hotel took 100 pounds off her bill because the light in the room blinked on and off the whole week, even after she reminded the staff about it every day.

 

after facetiming all day, we all needed some wifi time!

I quickly became The Photographer. It was harder to get road sign pictures from the back seat, but I managed a few more. So, the only picture I did not get - sadly, because we made this decision after we saw them - was of the red phone boxes being used as lending libraries.

 

Take a book, leave a book.

In a phone booth. On the road. In the middle of a village. What a hoot. And a good idea.

 

We saw two such phone booths on Tuesday and then never another one. That was when it was decided that if I wanted a picture of something, Katrina would stop. The deal was that I would share my pictures with them. Done. 

So, the castles were great fun. Here is a quick run down of our impressions.

 

No pictures of the house. No cameras/pictures allowed. This was at the gate, where security cameras followed me!

We saw Highgrove Gardens on Tuesday. Highgrove is where Prince Charles lives. He loves to garden and actually is gardening organically, planting particular plants in particular places to facilitate sustainability. In the gardens were about 10 different garden areas. My particular favorite was the Stumps garden. But a fun one was the wild flowers that grew in a large field. (they were finished blooming by the time we got there) When the flowers are done blooming, they bring in a particular type of sheep that does what it is asked to do, which is to eat the grass and fertilize it at the same time. The gardens were lovely and we had a guide who walked us all about and explained the different types of gardens and different gifts that were given to Prince Charles that were worked into the gardens.

 

On Wednesday, we went to Althorpe Castle, which is the Spencer family home. Charles, Princess Diana's brother, runs the place. It was interesting and the expansive rolling hills surrounding it were lovely and peaceful. But the tour was self-guided and we felt like we didn't really learn much about it.  It was filled with old pictures and furniture, of course, but interestingly, Charles had put up 2 large modern pictures of his own.

 

I do think that he has a right to update and put in things of his own that he likes, but I found it interesting that what he chose to put up and where he chose to place them was making some sort of statement. And it was not a complimentary one.  Just my impression. 

We left there sort of wanting.

 

Thursday we went to Highclere Castle, which is where Downton Abbey was filmed. And that was very nice. In rooms where filming had occurred, they had large photos of the actors as they were filming in that room. So it was very cool to see that they actually used all the existing furniture and decorations. They only changed some minor things, like some lamps and such, for the filming.

 

 The house itself was lovely, and even though it was also self-guided, it somehow was much more satisfying than Althorpe. I was disappointed to learn that we would not see the servants' quarters because they had not been filmed on location. The lower level now housed an Egyptian exhibition.

 

 

 

After the castles, we drove along narrow, windy roads, high with hedges. (That made it difficult to get pictures of the countryside.) But we drove through some really great small villages and passed many pubs with fun names. We stopped at these for supper each night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A special joy for me was to see on the map that we would pass by Oxford on our way to Althorpe. Oxford was only about 20 miles from where I lived when I was a child. So, Katrina asked that morning if I would like to find the town where I lived. Woohoo!  That turned into a fun adventure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We first went through Bicester, which I did not recognize at all. But then we drove on to Marsh Gibbon, which was a small village not far away from Bicester. And once we entered the village, I actually recognized a few places. We found the house where I had lived for a short time, across the road from the old church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interestingly, the rock wall along the outside of the church that was so clear in my memory was not nearly as high as I remembered it. 

 

Somewhere in my mom's pictures from England is a picture of my brother and I standing against that wall while waiting for the school bus. You know, that obligatory first-day-of-school picture. I would love to see that picture now.

 

So, I took a picture of me as a grown up against that wall. It will be fun to compare them some day.

 

 

 

While in the village, we ate at the pub at the end of the road, which apparently was there when I lived there, but I have no memory of it.  Afterwards, we walked down the street and stopped to talk to an older man who was getting ready to go fishing. 

 

 

my new friend, John

The gals wanted to know about thatched roofs, which his house had, and he was happy to tell us all he knew. Turns out, we made a friend. When he found out that we lived in the US, he said he would love to go there, so we suggested we do a house swap!!  And he said that would be grand!!

 I have his contact information, so we shall see!

 

 

 

 

So, from here, I go on to meet Bonnie in Munich. I am sure there will be another post and lots of pictures to share from there. (I'm taking her some Curly Wurlys for her to take home to share. Be sure to ask her for one).

 

I hope they survive the heat - it's in the mid to high 80's in Munich!! Aggghh!