Wimpole Estate

On Wednesday Feb 25, Mom, Charlotte, & I headed to Wimpole Estate in the afternoon. It's not too far from the Old Dairy, so I drove us past there so she could see where we stayed for our first 5 weeks. Our GPS then tried to route us down a back drive to the estate, but we were able to easily follow signage to find the appropriate way to the parking lot! 

Once we arrived, we paid to park and made our way to the "Stables" to purchase membership in the National Trust. Most of our friends here recommended we do so, as there are many sites (similar to the US National Parks System) including houses and gardens and other historic spots that you can get into free once you have membership. The cost of visits is fairly high, so you can make up the cost of membership in just a few visits even with a 2-person membership. Charlotte's free until she's 5, at which point we likely will be back in the States. Yay for free! 

There is a large manor house there, which we elected not to go in for this visit. We did go through the gardens and to the working farm that is on the premises. Normally you have to pay to go into the working farm, but the man who was working the new members table let us in for free. It was a fairly nice day, still a little chilly but not too windy. I didn't get any pictures of the farm, but Mom did -- maybe she'll send me a few more to put in this post! They have cows & calves, horses, Shetland ponies, goats, sheep & lambs, geese, and pigs & piglets at the farm. Charlotte liked watching the cows from afar, but the first animal we got close to was Murphy the horse. He was chomping on some oats in the base of his stall at first, so I took her out of the stroller to look down at him. She was fine watching him, but then he lifted his head and he was tall! Charlotte reared back and got quite frightened :( We reassured her a lot, but she was whimpering and didn't want anything to do with the horse! She was then pretty fragile for a while, especially nervous near the big pigs. She started to chill out when we saw the sheep, and then got excited to see the geese & ducks. Poor little one! Next time we'll start with the smaller animals... lesson learned. 

We walked around the gardens, which were still fairly barren of foliage, but there were snowdrops and crocus starting to bloom on the ground! We had to get a few pictures to prove to Dad that spring is thinking about arriving in other parts of the planet... just not anywhere in the Midwest or Northeast of the US. Hope all are staying warm enough!

Blooming snowdrops & crocus!

Charlotte with her visitor's sticker on her hat, where she wouldn't find it and pull it off :) 

Mom's Visit to the UK

We had our first US visitor this past week! My mom had a week off from school for their winter break, and she was kind enough to come over to visit us! My dad couldn't come because of his teaching schedule, and we missed him but got to FaceTime with him several times. She arrived early on Sunday Feb 22nd into Heathrow. It was our first trip down toward London, and it went well! It takes about an hour and a half -- a little longer when the highway is closed (!) as it was when we took her back this morning... luckily Paul's phone was able to re-route us. 

Charlotte waiting for Grandmom at the arrivals area... still in PJ's

While she was here, we spent quite a bit of time at home due to the Household Goods arrival on Monday and the subsequent unpacking/organizing. Mom was a huge help with watching/entertaining Charlotte all week -- especially with the countless readings of the book "Quiet LOUD," asking to do the "Ladies' Ride" poem on Grandmom's lap, PattyCake, and Peek-a-boo. She was also a good sport about sleeping on the single twin cot from the air force base the first night... luckily she upgraded to the double bed after the household goods arrived! We also took a trip up to Alconbury for lunch/library visit, dinner at Brampton Mill, walks into town (once to buy yarn for a knitting project for me, where we got SERIOUSLY hailed on with tiny hailstones!, and once to play at the park), and outings to Wimpole Estate and to Anglesey Abbey. I'll write more about those visits in another post or two. We had a great time relaxing the rest of the time! Come back soon, and we'll see you Stateside in April!

Riding the "Ladies' Ride" on Grandmom's lap

Dinner at Brampton Mill -- she was a ham! Really enjoyed sharing Eton Mess with the table for "pudding" [dessert].

Playing with her ball, wearing her new track suit from Grandmom & Granddad.

Enjoying breakfast with Grandmom (yes it's February... yes her Halloween pjs still fit! Don't judge.)

Swinging at the park

Why Dad was jealous of Mom's trip to England... nice and warm, comparatively!

Shipment arrivals!

Paul found out a couple of weeks ago that our CR-V had arrived in country! We were very surprised that it arrived so soon -- the estimated delivery date wasn't until the first week of March, and the person at Scott AFB in Illinois (who helped us schedule our move) had been very negative about the process. He told us that a new company had the government contract for shipping cars, and that there had been nothing but bad reports. He even gave us a complaint form about the company when he gave us the information about car shipment! ("You may need this.") Talk about lowering our expectations! The car had travelled from St Louis to Houston to Southampton, England to Mildenhall AFB here. And it took less time than our "expedited" baggage shipment!! 

We drove up to Mildenhall to pick the car up on Feb 13th. It looked great! Only a couple of scratches that we noticed. I was nervous to drive it on the "wrong" side of the road, but actually it felt MUCH more comfortable to me than driving our right-hand drive Accord. I felt really good, especially with highway driving -- I think because I know my car's dimensions, it hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. The toughest part is parking lots, especially reversing out of spaces as there is rarely enough room. It typically turns into a 5 or 7 point turn and is a bit stressful. I am also feeling more comfortable navigating roundabouts and the "give-way" points (yielding spots) in towns. I've been very happy to have a car to get around with -- no more feeling stranded. Now we just need to get the adjustments done to it -- headlights tilted, fog lights and turn signals adjusted -- and get it registered to get British license plates. 

The car pick-up center was within a Mini dealership (?) -- Charlotte enjoyed sitting on the mini Mini.

When it rains, it pours! [This time, in a good way.] We also found out, after Paul had to contact the Transportation Management Office a few times, that our Unaccompanied Baggage (the "expedited" shipment) was essentially lost for awhile at a base back in the States. I really don't know how this happens. Theoretically, they were supposed to place the shipment on an airplane to send it over around the same time we flew over to England back on January 4th. Next it takes a couple of weeks to clear customs, and then it's available for delivery. So whenever it got to New Jersey (?), it sounds like it sat in a warehouse until we asked for its whereabouts 6 weeks later. Oh! Oops! Now it's coming! 

Grr. So it ended up being delivered on Feb 18th -- the best part was having new toys for Charlotte to play with! We had also packed some towels, pillows, clothing, and kitchen supplies (bare minimum) which would have been helpful if we'd received it earlier. As it were, we had already borrowed the same things from friends and the "Airman Readiness Center" on base, so it wasn't too important anymore. I think if we are asked for advice in the future, I would recommend people not worry about sending anything in an Unaccompanied Baggage shipment. I spent a lot of brain power back in December considering what we would need "early" in our move -- making lists, piles, organizing -- for no real reason. Oh well. It only got here 5 days before our Household Goods arrived!

Hooray for a new book to read! The same 12 books had been getting old for both mama & toddler.

A truly wonderful turn of events happened when we found out my mom was coming to visit us for the last week of February! Not only was it great to see her and spend time with her, but she ended up being here at the same time as our household goods (HHG) shipment arrived. She was a huge help with unpacking and entertaining Charlotte while the movers were here and afterwards. Since we live at the end of a cul-de-sac, we let our neighbors know ahead of time that a large truck would be arriving on Monday the 23rd and would likely be blocking the driveway. They arrived around 8:30 am and were done by around 11 or 11:30. Paul was taking lots of information down as they brought in all the boxes, making sure it all arrived. As far as we can tell, it all arrived with minimal damage!

Charlotte started whining and asking to nap around 9:45 am. It was tough to find a spot to let her sleep, but I ended up pulling a chair into the laundry room and rocking her there. We both got warm and she fell asleep for about 35 minutes. My arm fell asleep too ;) It was enough sleep to take the edge off at least.

Sleeping in the laundry room

My rubber ducks arrived!

And my ottoman... with ball pit balls inside. She was able to climb in and out, but luckily can't lift the lid by herself yet.

It has been so nice to gradually unpack all our "stuff" -- we are proud to have lived for 7 weeks with minimal clothing and other items, but it is nice to feel more settled. The kitchen is almost fully organized, just needs to have cabinet locks applied to keep little hands out! I already bought them, just have to install them. I was able to do a little baking and cooking this week which was so nice to do with all my normal supplies -- no more measuring liquids using a baby bottle :) I also have somewhat organized our bedroom and Charlotte's bedroom. Otherwise, there are still plenty of boxes to unpack, but we will get there in time. We were glad to hear the moving company will come to pick up the boxes/paper when we're ready for them to do so.

A couple of random pictures

So sorry for the lack of blogging over the past couple of weeks! Thanks for staying with me :) We moved back into our house in St Neots on Valentine's Day. It was still a bit of a construction zone, but the ceilings had been re-plastered and the carpets installed (although some incorrectly, which the landlord says will be fixed). After we moved in, there were a couple of "work days" when friends of the landlord came in to seal and paint the ceilings, and the landlord used a carpet cleaner on the upstairs rugs. It looks better, especially now that we have our furniture in! On the days when Charlotte and I weren't hanging around the house with the work crew, we did a couple of fun things.

The library at Alconbury has a program once a month where they bring a dog or two in for the children. In theory, the kids are supposed to read to the dog, but when we were visiting the dog was mostly being petted. "Abby" belongs to a family who used to be in the military & stationed at Alconbury, but now are living in the area after retiring from the military. Charlotte was pretty enthralled with the "wuuh!" [dog] and gave her a few pats. She also liked seeing the other kids but was trying to steal things from their backpacks so we didn't stay long.

We (Charlotte, Paul, & I) also took a walk into St Neots on an overcast day. This is the view from the bridge over the river just our side of town. We explored briefly and found where the library and a few other shops/restaurants are located.

Hanging out with Daddy in new jammies that Grandmom brought with her from New Hampshire! [My mom visited us for a week over her winter vacation, more on this in another post!]

Charlotte and the lounge singer

It has been a quiet couple of days at the Britannia Inn on base. Yesterday, Charlotte and I took a little walk around to grab lunch and some laundry detergent. I found out that upstairs in our building here at the Inn, there are free laundry facilities. I didn't have high expectations, but when my eyes landed upon 3 American style washers and 4 American style tumble dryers, all sparkly clean and empty ... I'm not ashamed to say I felt true joy. (Embarrassing. It's only laundry.) I did all our laundry in approximately 1/6 of the time it would have taken in the combo washer/dryer at the Old Dairy, and the clothes came out so nice and fluffy. Haha. Waxing excitedly about laundry again, time to find more hobbies...

Charlotte had a tough night last night. She has been teething (we think maybe those dastardly molars are starting to fight their way toward the gumline), has a cold, and had some diaper rash too. So she's been kind of uncomfortable at times. It came to a head last night around 11 pm -- we had all been asleep for about an hour and she woke up squealing, in what appeared to be some intense pain. She was arching her back and sobbing. I gave her some Tylenol and she calmed down quickly, but then seemed to become quite hyper?! It is dye-free Target brand acetaminophen, but maybe the cherry flavoring got her riled up. No idea. So she played with her toys and danced around and we even video-chatted with my parents at 11:30 pm our time. I'm sure they thought there was some kind of emergency, but no -- just an overtired mom and a hyperactive 13 month old. She finally settled down around 1 am and I was able to get her back to sleep. Another wake up at 3 am and 7 am were soothed quickly, and she and I actually slept in till 9 am!

Of course, that meant she was ready to nap around 11:15 am. We had planned to meet up with our (until today, internet-only) friend Kayla "anytime after 11:15 am" for lunch -- I jinxed myself there! -- so she was kind enough to pick up some food and bring it to our hotel room instead. It was fun to get to know her, as we have some random connections through St Louis and living over here now.

Tonight, we went out to dinner in St Neots with Kristen & Mike, at an Italian restaurant none of us had been to before (La Cucina). The food was really very delicious, and the lemon gelato dessert was absolutely fantastic. The highlight of the evening though was that a lounge singer started up in the back of the restaurant midway through our meal, and she and Charlotte really hit it off. She came over and serenaded Charlotte personally twice, which was hilarious to the rest of us. Charlotte kept encouraging her by bopping around in her high chair to the music, nodding and swaying -- the singer at one point said "I love that little girl in pink, I can't sing properly." We finally just turned her high chair around so she could watch the singer without having to twist 180* in the chair. As we were getting our things together to leave, the singer came over and told me that she teaches music classes to little ones and Charlotte has an excellent sense of music/rhythm for a baby her age. Not sure if that's science, but it was so much fun to see Charlotte enjoying the music. Kristen got a couple of pictures. A fun night that took our mind off the craziness of housing issues! We'll definitely go back.

Who is this lady?

Living the nomadic life

Well. Where to start? The last week has not quite gone according to plan, but we are all safe and have wonderful friends, so we can count our blessings. And I have a glass of wine, so that helps too :)

After much jockeying, we finally figured out that we would sign our lease for the new house last Thursday. It is a complex process, as we have been receiving government compensation for housing/food for the last several weeks while we were "homeless" and living in the holiday cottage. The technical stop-date for the compensation is when you sign the lease for housing at your new station, therefore it's in your best interest to move into the property that day if possible -- that way, you don't have to pay out-of-pocket for the hotel any longer. However, we don't have any furniture yet -- in fact, we still haven't received our unaccompanied baggage shipment ("should be there in 2 weeks" as stated on Dec 22)! Luckily, the air force base provides furniture for us to borrow in the meantime --nothing fancy, think "freshman dorm room" motif, but it works. They could deliver the furniture and some appliances on Friday, meaning we only needed to stay at the cottage for 1 additional night.

The day of lease-signing was stressful -- the complexities of having a British Sterling account linked with an American Dollars account, with fairly incompetent bank employees to explain them fully to us, have led to several frustrating situations. We think we have it sorted out now, but it wasn't much fun to have our debit card denied when we had the correct amount of funds in the account. Grr. Once we got that fixed, we got the keys to the place! We went to the house quickly to drop off a few items, then returned to the cottage to finish packing up. Paul took two additional car loads of stuff over with him (we had all our luggage, plus what we've received in a couple of packages, plus the food/diapers/etc we have purchased since living here). We noticed it was chilly in the house, but didn't spend much time at all there and figured we'd turn the heat on when we arrived in the morning to await the furniture delivery.

It was a busy whirlwind on Friday morning as we packed up the remaining items at the Old Dairy and headed to the new house. When we got there a couple of minutes before 9 am, the furniture guys were already there! We were impressed because they had given us the *helpful* window of 9-5 for delivery ;) They moved in the beds, tables, chairs, high chair, microwave, fridge, a few large wardrobes, and tumble dryer (yay!). We tried to turn the heat on in the house but the radiators didn't seem to be heating up. We left to run a couple of errands, and when we came back, it was still 9 degrees Celsius in the house. Brr. We called the landlord early afternoon to apologize for our ignorance, but how do you turn the heat on? We pushed the buttons he told us to, and waited. He assured us it would take a long time to heat the house, but after 3 hours it was still 9 degrees and the radiators were no warmer to the touch. I was getting desperate, particularly with trying to keep Charlotte somewhat warm and entertained. We called him again, and he said he would come by after he got off work (around 6 pm). When he arrived, he said the pilot light was out (but Paul had seen it was on earlier) and "fixed" it. He gave us a quick overview of the house, and headed out. Radiators still weren't warming the place, and Charlotte started to meltdown as the result of lack of sufficient napping and general coldness. We looked at each other and quickly decided to take our friends (who have a newborn, God bless them) up on their offer to let us spend the night at their properly heated home, and let the house warm up overnight.

After a lovely, WARM evening of sleep, we went back over to our house on Saturday morning. It was now 8 degrees :( We called the landlord, and he came over with a friend who apparently knows more about boilers/radiators/electricity. Charlotte and I took a little field trip to the local superstore and picked up a few food and cleaning items -- and when we came back, there was a replaced fuse for the boiler and the radiators started warming immediately. YAY!! We relaxed for most of the afternoon, then headed over to Jerome & Erin's for dinner again. When we got back from their place, our house was a comfortable 18 degrees and rising. Thank goodness. We slept a quiet night on our new dorm furniture.

The next morning, we got up with plans to explore St Neots later in the day. Charlotte napped mid-morning -- we had moved her Pack-n-play into the master bedroom for the nap since her bedroom gets a lot of mid morning night. We will need to get a blackout shade for her room, but for now this was our quick fix. When she woke up, I went to go take a shower. I reached into the shower stall to turn the water on -- it hesitated briefly and then started flowing.

Not 3 seconds later, Paul starts yelling from the foyer. "Turn it off! Turn it off! Water is coming out everywhere!" I came running and found water flowing out from around the chandelier in the hall/stairwell. It quickly started coming through wider and wider areas of the house, flowing down from the (inaccessible) attic. I quickly deposited Charlotte in her Pack-n-play and Paul and I started running around the house, trying to find the water shut-off valve. We were totally panicked as water was flowing through light fixtures in Charlotte's room, the upstairs closets, and started coming out the downstairs fixtures as well. It was flowing freely through other parts of the ceiling (where there had been cracks in the plaster, I suppose) and the stairwell looked like a waterfall was coming down on it. We found various knobs, but nothing seemed to slow the water at all. We looked everywhere, running around outside -- nothing. Paul placed an emergency call to the landlord, but he didn't answer. Charlotte was screaming bloody murder at being abandoned in a stressful situation. I kept running by to reassure her but it didn't help. I think this was the moment she seemed to realize she could be "left" -- it wasn't pretty and she has been nonstop clingy to me ever since.

Finally I thought to go ask a neighbor where their water shut off valve was, as the houses on our court are all fairly similar in appearance. The older gentleman who answered the door told Paul his was under the kitchen sink, and Paul was able to wrestle ours to the off position. An odd way to meet your neighbor, that's for sure. The water was still flowing, but seemed a little slower. The landlord called back around this time and said he was on his way over, then called again to tell us to turn the cold taps on to run the water out of the system. Ahh -- we are newbies and hadn't dealt with this before -- that makes sense now that the main is turned off. Finally the flow seemed to stop, and now it was just dripping steadily from everywhere.

Making the situation more comical (?) was the fact that we had only 2 towels and about 5 pans in the house to try to catch water. I did put our new trashcan (50 liter capacity) under the leak in the living room light fixture on the first floor -- when the water stopped, it was about 3/4 full. Kristen & Mike, we will wash your towel and pans really well before returning them!! I now was carrying Charlotte around and trying to empty pots/pans/bowls as they filled. Craziness.

The landlord finally arrived to survey the damage. A plumber came as well, and found that there was a burst pipe on the shower pump in the attic. We aren't sure if it was related to the cold temperatures in the house or not. A few minutes later, Paul was upstairs on the landing and saw the far side of the landing's ceiling starting to collapse. He quickly leapt back into the closet room and narrowly avoided having sheetrock/plaster/insulation come down around his ears. The landlord was speaking on the phone at the time, and calmly said "there goes the ceiling." I had to laugh. About a half hour later, as he and Paul had initiated cleaning the stairwell/landing area, the ceiling in Charlotte's room fell as well. Charlotte and I stayed out in the conservatory for the rest of the afternoon since there were no ceilings that could fall in on us out there. The rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning up the mess and pulling up the carpet in the hallway/stairs. They didn't pull up the carpet in Charlotte's room yet, as there was furniture sitting on it at that point. The place is a total mess, to say the least.



Jerome and Erin were incredibly gracious to let us sleep at their house again on Sunday night. On Monday morning, we went into the housing office on base to use their knowledge/advocacy to help us through the situation. Neither Paul nor I have ever been through something like this and we just want to make sure the house is repaired appropriately for us to stay in. They kindly came out to the house today to give us their opinion about what needs to be done to make it right. Intensive planning is under way for house repairs -- carpeting, new sheetrock for ceilings, plastering, sealing, painting (which they term "decorating"), and we hope to be back in the house (not fully fixed, but inhabitable) by either the weekend or early next week. And I think that's all I have to say about it at this point. Whew.

We checked into the base's temporary lodging facility, which is a perfectly fine hotel suite for us at this point. The adventures continue! (But we will be happy when they involve more traveling and less in-home waterfalls.) I smiled when I saw that the hotel room is decorated with the same artwork that Mercy Rehab is! This painting in particularly is the one I used to look at when I was feeling frustrated with something at work -- it's on the wall of the spinal cord unit. I'd imagine that I was walking along the path and it would calm me down. So I'm taking that as a good omen of things to come. :)

And here's a couple of pictures of Charlotte for her fans -- taking coloring very seriously, and giggling extravagantly while swinging.

Less serious swinging!

Paul's flying adventure

Note: I am not an airplane enthusiast as some of our friends are, please bear with my awkward verbiage in this post :)

As I've mentioned before, our temporary quarters at the Old Dairy are located next to an air strip. The same family owns the holiday cottages, the farm, and the airstrip/airplane hangars located on the property. One of the family is an expert airplane pilot -- you can read about his business, etc. here: http://markjefferiesairdisplays.com. Our first weekend here, we heard airplanes that sounded like they were swooping fairly close to our cottage -- because they were! Mark and friends do stunts with their airplanes, flying in tight formations and performing fancy loops and dips. They apparently take their shows all over the world. Pretty cool to see an airshow from the field right next to your hotel room!

After Paul was enthusiastically talking to Jenny, the cottage manager, about how much he had enjoyed the "show," she asked him if he'd like to go flying with Mark. To his credit, he asked me before saying 'yes,' -- my eyes widened but I knew this was something he really wanted to do. So on Sunday, Paul went flying!

It wasn't a great day for it -- overcast with 30 mph winds and gusts near 40 mph. I was definitely nervous as Paul got dressed in warm clothing for the trip. I bundled Charlotte up to walk out to the field to watch them take off. Paul climbed into the cockpit with Mark, which he said was extremely narrow with a tiny bench for them both to sit on. It was the smallest plane I've ever seen, besides model airplanes you hold in your hand. I was trying to stay calm as Charlotte and I huddled behind a building out of the wind and listened to the airplane preparing to take off -- trying not to think the worst. Ugh. I was so glad when they finally took off and everything looked very smooth -- we watched until we couldn't see them anymore. 

Paul says (paraphrased): We took off in the small, single-engine prop plane and ascended, passing through the clouds which were at about 3000 feet. We got some condensation and ice on the windshield as we went through the clouds. We got up to 6000 feet, where it was -6* Celsius outside. We flew around for awhile, it felt like the opening scene from Back to the Future 2. We then dipped back below the cloud level, and we could see the air force base where I work. Mark could talk to me through the headset, and he was pointing out various things -- Graham Water [where we went a couple of weekends ago], a herd of deer, the prison, some other small towns including St Neots. He offered to let me take control of the plane, but I said no, my wife was already worried enough about me and she'd probably kill me if she knew I had agreed to fly the plane. [Ha!] I got my camera out and started taking pictures, but as I was looking through the viewfinder I started to feel nauseated. I told Mark I wasn't feeling well, and he reached over and unzipped my jacket, telling me to throw up into my jacket if I needed to, as it would be easier to clean me than to clean the airplane. He offered to go further, but I didn't want to continue on, feeling as sick as I was. I pretty much focused on not throwing up on myself for the rest of the flight. 

So he burst through the door about 30 minutes after he had taken off, surprising me as I thought they would be gone longer. He lay on the floor for about 2 hours, then said the motion sickness was mostly gone. 

Mom, is he ok?

He was really glad he got to go! Then on Tuesday, Mark came to our cottage in the early evening and asked for some help. He was packing up his airplane for travel to India, and needed some help holding large pieces as they disassembled it. Paul had a good time helping with that as well. It's been a fun place to stay, but we are definitely looking forward to moving to St Neots tomorrow!