Monday, Jan 8th our things arrive!!!

After 3 days of not driving, I offered to drive from the hotel to the house today, using our new satellite navigation system. I got into the right side driver’s seat and remarked how nerve-wracking this is. While still in the hotel parking lot, going over a speed bump near a corner to turn, Paul exclaimed, “Watch out”! I literally jumped in the car and started to shake, while frantically looking all around to see what I nearly hit, or what nearly hit us. Paul burst out laughing and then spent the next 30 minutes apologizing during which time I alternately laughed and cried. Driving is stressful because I’m so unsure what is acceptable – where it’s appropriate to stop, where to pull over if needed, when to give way.

We dropped the girls at school and drove to our house. Paul has the day off – the movers have arrived!!!!! It’s so exciting to see our things arrive!!! During the unloading process, a funny thing happened. It turns out that a tarantula had found its way into our shipment (stuck in the hollow of the leg of our long ladder) and nearly gave the movers a heart attack! I came down after the tarantula had been discovered, and the youngest of the movers was still bent over, pale as a ghost, and VERY nervous about going anywhere near the truck, He said he had never seen a spider that big in his life!! Of course, it was dead. 6 weeks is too long for a tarantula to live without food and water, but they do look creepy, don’t they – I could understand how he could be scared!

At 12:30 the boys needed a nap and I was starved (still no food at the house as we’re going back and forth). I braved going into St. Ives (a bigger, more substantial village close to us) with both boys, so they would nap and also to get them out of Paul’s hair. I was hoping to find a drive through. By the way, drive throughs are important to me only because most of the time, I have a small sleeping person with me, and it’s a BIG DEAL to unload the kids, get food, keep them quiet while waiting for the food (at a sit down restaurant), entertain them and eat my food when the food arrives, clean up, and get everyone back to the car.

I did OK getting there, but there were no drive throughs at all and I got lost as usual. Once in St. Ives, I headed for the “town center” since it sounded like the most promising place to find some food. Things got progressively worse! It is indeed a lovely little village, with lots of promising shops and restaurants. The roads got smaller and smaller until I was driving on a single lane road, cars parked on both sides up and down the sidewalk and street signs that I didn’t recognize. I was terrified that I was driving the wrong way on a one way street! No one seemed very alarmed so I kept following that road and making turns onto another road frantically now trying to get OUT of the town center! Unbelievably enough, I ended up on my little single lane road, hemmed in by cars parked on either side and I was FACING a dead end. Directly ahead of me was a very picturesque humped bridge that clearly said, “Pedestrians only” – a walking bridge over the pretty little river that flowed through the town. Even worse, there was a car behind me, waiting for me to move out of the way! I really had no other choice, so inch by inch I went forward then backward slowly and VERY CAREFULLY turning the car around 180 degrees. Pride in my success was short lived. Now I was FACING the car that had been behind me. Completely out of resolve, I looked at the other driver, held up my hands and allowed the frantic look in my eye to be seen – motioning that I was a silly American and I had no idea how to proceed next. You are allowed to laugh at this since I can laugh at it NOW (not then), but lazily, with a very bored expression on his face, he motioned me to drive around him ON THE SIDEWALK!!!! That certainly worked, although I had no idea that was acceptable. Not a single person seemed to think that was a strange thing to do.

Now around the other car and facing the opposite way on that little road, with adorable cobblestone sidewalks and shops all around me, all I wanted to do was to GET OUT of the town center. I managed to find my way out; getting lost twice. I set the sat nav to “HOME”, and it was FANTASTIC. I think the sat nav is going to save me. I love my sat nav!

I did find one of the upscale grocery stores that I’d been looking for, but couldn’t go in because the boys were still sleeping. Still, I felt proud and somewhat more confident that I had accomplished something. I drove to another village, Huntingdon, and again found no drive thrus.

I was really starved now. I used the sat nav to get back HOME, then drove to the conglomerate of fast food places that we pass going to and from the hotel. Took the boys in, picked up food, and drove to the girls’ school to pick them up.
Paul had made great progress with our 437 boxes while we were out of the way. Around 5pm, we left our now disheveled house for some dinner and back to the hotel. We desperately need to get the laundry under control. I’m constantly doing little loads of badly needed items. Our American sized appliances don’t arrive until Thursday, and our little washing machine in the house can handle 6 outfits – one for each of us. There is no dryer, but there is what they call “airing cupboards” and they are very warm places – you lay out the laundry there to dry. It works very well. Each day I run through a load and leave it in the airing cupboard, then pick it up the next day and take it back to the hotel – and start another load washing. Right now several boxes are blocking access to the airing cupboard. On our way out, another neighbor introduced himself. The village seems very friendly!