10-11 On to our new digs

I awakened about 1.5 hours before we landed. This was probably the first time I had ever really slept on a plane. Of course, I had been up since 4:45 the morning before and by the time we took off and a had a bite on the plane it was around 1:00am. Happily, Heathrow in London is nothing like Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi, so we whisked through automated passport control, picked up our luggage, passed through the “nothing to declare” portal and were on our way. We had stashed a bag at a bag check service at the Shakespeare Hotel in London before our flight to Kenya, so went to retrieve it. It was quite close to Paddington Station which was terrifically convenient because our train from Heathrow and our train to Brighton both passed through Paddington. We stopped at a café for coffee and a bite, then went to Paddington to wait for our train.

Last year I found a website called Trainline, which is sort of a consolidator site for train and bus travel in the UK and Europe. I bought a “Two Together” railcard which saves us an average of 30% on train tickets. Sometimes, however, if you’re unfamiliar with the trains here it can get a bit confusing. Case in point this morning. We thought we were waiting for the 9:48 train to Brighton, when it turned out that we needed to take the underground to the Thameslink train, which is kind of a cross between a rail line and the underground. (Sorry to Brit readers if this is inaccurate. It was my impression on that day.) At any rate, we did manage to get on the right train eventually and had an uneventful ride of about an hour to Brighton to our cat sit. Karen and Graham, the people for whom we’re sitting, would be leaving the next morning for their holiday and I didn’t want to be in their way, so we decided to kill a bit of time in Brighton before we headed to their place. Bruce had, of course, already looked up the location of all the pubs, so a very short walk from the train station found us at the Grand Central. Bruce had a beer, and we waited for the kitchen to open. The menu featured pub grub with a twist: a couple of tofu dishes, some Thai items, nachos, American style hamburgers. We decided to play it safe and have the Welsh rarebit which is essentially an open faced toasted cheese sandwich, or at least that’s what it was at this pub. While there we witnessed some of the local color in the form of regulars. One particularly colorful character was a rather flamboyantly dressed person carrying their cat in a carrier. They enjoyed a pint and a lively conversation with the bartender. Didn’t get to meet the cat, though. Time killed, stomachs filled, we set off for Karen & Graham’s. We arrived and got a short tour of the place. I unpacked, Bruce napped and I blogged.

After a bit, we decided to venture out and explore the village. It’s not really a village. There’s a small Co-Op grocery store, a newsagent, a hardware store, a florist and a small bakery. Before we left, Graham gave us a tour of some of the things we need to know about the house, ie adjusting the heat, which things go in which bins, etc. We still hadn’t met Monty, because he was out on his afternoon rounds. He took us on a tour of the garden, which is a lovely, multi-level affair complete with what the Brits call a summer house. Graham said that they never used the summer house very much so it was recently converted into a ceramic studio for Karen, After retiring, Karen got into art. She paints, does ceramics, takes lots of art classes and generally just enjoys being creative. She doesn’t sell any of her creations because that, she said, would just be like having another career. Wise woman. Perhaps I should be a bit more like her.

Anyway, we made it back to the house & finally met Monty, who was sleeping in his little cat bed by the radiator. Karen had returned from visiting her brother, so we all settled in for a G&T while she started dinner, which was a lovely pasta dish with chicken and a lovely green salad. The four of us really hit it off, having lively and wide-ranging conversations. Much wine was consumed and although we didn’t solve the world’s problems, we had a wonderful time discussing them. As we headed off to bed, I told them that I understood they were leaving in the morning, but I rather wished they weren’t because we so enjoyed being with them. The truly are lovely, interesting people.