Our Last Day in England

We took it a bit easy today. It was a bank holiday, so b/w the less frequent buses, & most places being closed, it was a bit forced upon us to take it easy, which was probably good since we'll be on the aeroplane most of the day tomorrow. This morning began at 6:30am. Asher initially woke up at 5:45, so we decided that it wasn't so bad to get up then. He's going to be so off schedule that it doesn't really matter anyway.


We had breakfast and then went off to the park, but there had been a very heavy dew last night, so everything was really wet. We had decided to go to Chingford today in a last ditch effort to find a coat for Chad. We got there around 9:30 & almost every shop was closed, so we stopped at Cafe Nero to kill some time & have a latte. I ordered an iced latte & the next thing I knew she was blending it. It wasn't overly icy though, so it was a bit like a melted milkshake. Not too pleasant. Another reason to not go to Nero.


Then off to shop we went, however the shops were still closed, so we made our way up the street & found nothing open, & caught the bus back to Highams Park. Then we went back to the park, since other children's bottoms had dried off the playground. Chad was quite interested in getting an English breakfast before we leave, & had seen some signs at pubs for all day breakfast, so we took the car & returned to Chingford.

We stopped at a pub advertising all day breakfast & went in only to be greeted by a waitress telling us that they didn't open 'til noon, & it was 11:45. We contemplated the "All Dayness" of their breakfast if they didn't open 'til noon, then decided we'd go elsewhere b/c Chad doesn't like to be the first patrons in a restaurant after it opens as sometimes the kitchen isn't in full swing yet at that time.

So we returned to "The Royal Forest" pub that we had eaten at with Theres. I had a carbon-copy of the mal I had the other night & enjoyed it thoroughly. Especially the Sticky Toffee Pudding, this time I had it topped w/ Custard & it was DIVINE! I figured since it is so difficult to make & impossible to get at restaurants in Canada that I'd better take advantage of being able to eat it as often as possible.

Asher had a double burger & was doing quite well with it except it was a bit large for his little mouth. Chad decided to break it for him.... thus began a small meltdown where Chad & then I was instructed to "fix it." We had to explain that it couldn't be fixed, the crying actually stopped quite suddenly b/c a boy at a nearby table started having a tantrum of his own & Asher doesn't like to compete at times like these, so he let the other boy do the crying from there on out. It may have helped that my dessert showed up shortly thereafter as well. He was a bit disappointed that there was no ice cream this time, but it couldn't be helped, Sticky Toffee Pudding is better w/ Custard!

We came back to G&M's for naps (yes we all enjoyed nap time) & then went out to the back garden to enjoy the grass & the sunshine for awhile. Chad wasn't feeling well & didn't want to leave the house so we ordered Pizza Hut (don't we splash out?) for dinner & Asher quite enjoyed that the man came & brought it to the door.

So we are in for a long day tomorrow. After an 8 hour flight plus airport travel & waiting & am already looking forward to our hotel's pool & my once-in-a-blue-moon chance to take a bath at the hotel. Signing off from England, Ta-Ta!

"Going a Church aday...Yay!"

This is what Asher says every time we tell him that we're going to go to church. He loves going. I think perhaps it's more for the toys & the kids than anything else, but it's a good start. We decided to go to All Souls this morning since Chad never had a chance to go while we lived here. Church was at 9:30 or 11:30 & since it takes 1:30 to get from here to there we decided to go for the 11:30. We also knew they had a lunch at 1pm so we thought if we were interested in staying for htat it made more sense to go to the later service.

We got into London at 10, so we stopped for a coffee at Caffe Nero since Asher had fallen asleep on the Tube on the way in. We're not the biggest fans of Caffe Nero since when we lived here every time we went our coffee had been made with sour milk, but we figured that the weather wasn't overly hot, so it wouldn't be as much of an issue. We had a rather good latte & Asher continued to sleep for about 45 minutes. Then we continued on to All Souls. Chad spoke w/ one of the ministers about getting into ministry in England, but he didn't seem to know how to go about it, so he wasn't a whole lot of help. We enjoyed the service, the singing was really great too. Asher enjoyed being able to play with other kids for awhile, but when we went to get him from the creche he was standing in the window looking for us.


After the service we talked to a few people & went to check out the lunch, but since there was no highchair we decided to go elsewhere for lunch. We had passed a Garfunkel's on the way to church & I thought we should try it b/c it looked rather good. My meal was ok. I probably didn't choose the right thing to order, but my dessert was magnificent! I had a Treacle Sponge with Custard. Asher also enjoyed my dessert. He doesn't seem to understand that we aren't buying them for him, but I don't mind sharing... within reason!

Post dessert we took the bus down to where I used to work, just to look at the area again, & then we rode another bus to catch the Tube, to catch the Train to get home. Asher has really enjoyed all the different forms of transportation that we have been able to take here. Even though when we are on them he won't sit still. We got home quite late in the afternoon, so Asher didn't get an afternoon nap, but he was really quite good. We had a bit of an early dinner b/c Chad wanted to go to All Saints in Woodford Green.

All Saints is the church that we were in at about the same time of year five years ago when Chad felt God was calling him into the ministry. I told him he really ought to go there again so God could tell him what His plans are for us again. I'm now waiting for him to get home & let me know.

A Day at the Market

Today we decided to walk through Walthamstow Market to see if Chad could find a suitable coat. Of course our first stop was Costa Coffee to fuel up for the morning of shopping, but we had to walk right by a park, so after we had purchased our drinks we let Asher go play on the playground for awhile. Apparently the most exciting part of the playground was trying to escape it, so that little play break didn't last very long.


We walked up & down the stalls only to discover that 95% of them were not men's clothing items, which was what we were primarily looking for. However I did find a nice "England" sweater for £3. I'm very excited about that purchase, but won't be able to wear it properly for about 3 more months. It's a good investment. We also found a cute baby book for the new little one & that was only £3 as well. So it was a pretty good day for me. Not so much for Chad as he still didn't find a coat like he wanted, but I think he's somewhat enjoying having something to look for, so it's not so bad.

After the market we came back home & tried to get Asher to sleep, but he'd fallen asleep at the market for awhile, so it wasn't meant to be. Chad took Asher out for a walk later & I had a bit of a kip. Then we went to Chingford to the King's Head Pub. We used to go there occasionally & quite enjoyed both the atmosphere & the food. We brought Theres along as well. She's living @ G&M's house & we had met her before we left England before.

However, once we got to the pub we were told that children under 14 are not allowed inside the pub. We were invited to eat outside, but when I asked about a highchair the man said, "no, we're not really a child friendly pub. I mean, we're friendly, just not to children..... I mean, ummmmm." At this point we knew it wasn't meant to be. Asher isn't really the sort to sit on a picnic table bench for an hour while we try to have a nice dinner.


Theres suggested "The Royal Forest" pub in Chingford at the Inn, so we decided to go there for dinner instead. The service was a bit slow, but the menu had really good variety, even the kids' menu had over 15 choices. We had a very enjoyable dinner & I had Sticky Toffee Pudding for dessert that was delicious.


Tomorrow it's back into London for Church etc, so off to bed I go!

Traditions Are Grand!

Today we went into London to do some shopping. Chad had some Christmas money that has been burning a hole in his pocket. He wasn't really sure of what he wanted (other than a haircut), so in & out of shops we went. We had the stroller, so it wasn't too much of an issue w/ Asher.

We started out by going to Starbucks b/c that's the way one is supposed to begin shopping on Oxford street, obviously. There is literally a Starbucks every block, it can't be a coincidence. Up & down the street we went. We decided to appease Asher for lunch & eat at McDonald's. He'd been such a good shopper & he didn't even complain when we passed the first McDonald's, he just watched it slowly go by.

After lunch we stopped at a green space for Asher to run around for awhile. It was a bit wet, but we thought it more important for Asher to get a chance to expend some energy than to keep his shoes clean, so off Chad & Asher went chasing pigeons. Shortly thereafter I heard a wail that was distinctly familiar. Apparently Asher had been running to investigate a statue & found the only puddle in the park, slipped, fell & cracked his head on the cement base of said statue. Amazingly he was more concerned about being wet & dirty than the fact that he had a giant goose-egg forming right b/w his eyes. We cleaned him up as best we could & moved on. I figured it was about time for a nap & kids tend to sleep better after they bonk their heads!

On to more shops. Chad still had not bought anything & it was going on 2pm. We had circled all the way back to where we had started & the rain began to fall. We decided that since Asher was now either sleeping peacefully or passed out in the stroller, we'd go into Starbucks & read for awhile until the showers passed. At about 3pm we decided to head for Piccadilly Circus & Leicester Square since there are a few more shops along there.

Chad suddenly remembered there was a jacket that he really liked in one of the shops we had gone to earlier that morning, so we went to try & find it. We had no luck, BUT he did finally make his first purchase.... a pair of sunglasses! We decided since we were so close to Chinatown at this point we really should have dinner at Wong Kei's since it was where we went almost every week with our friends Jeffy & Meigan. It was all we remembered it to be & Chad really enjoyed the garlic hot sauce.

After a scrumptious dinner it was time for the traditional dessert.... Ben & Jerry's ice cream! I was sad to discover they were not serving "One Sweet Whirled" as it is my absolute favourite, but I made do with a scoop of "Coffee, Coffee, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz!" & a scoop of "Baked Alaska." They were the perfect compliment to each other. And off we went to try to find Chad's jacket once more.

After nearly an hour we managed to find the correct shop, but in the course of the day they had sold the last of the jackets he liked. Needless to say, he was disappointed, but hopefully he'll find something else to take his mind off the "jacket-that-wasn't-meant-to-be-Chad's."

Now we're back at G&M's & I'm doing yet another load of laundry. I thought I'd make it until we got back to Canada, but I didn't really want to haul a bag of wet muddy clothes back with me. Sounds like the washing's done, so I'd better get everything all laid out on the radiators! Yay!

Laundry In London

That's right folks, today I spent doing the exciting task of washing our clothes. Yes, apparently they do that in England too, although their methods are a bit different from ours. To start, you need to take the 2 loads you have & split them again into 3 or possibly 4 b/c the washing machines are front load & quite a bit smaller. Then you load the washer & wait about 1 hour for your load of washing to be finished.

When the washing is done, you take all your wet clothes out & sort out all your undergarments. Then place all your wet clothing items on the radiators in the house, taking care to place your unmentionables in your own room in a discreet place. Then you wait about..... well, it's been about 10 hours & only about 1/2 of the laundry is dry. Of course you can count on your jeans taking at least 24 hours to dry.

During all this time you must have discussions with your spouse who is feeling the heat of all the radiators being turned way up. If he turns them down, drying time is increased, if they stay turned up, sleep is fleeting as the room must be cool in order to get a good nights sleep in.

Once the laundry is dry, you must fold, grab, wrinkle it so that it softens a bit. It can get quite crispy, especially thicker items such as thermal shirts & jeans. Ahh, it makes me glad to have a nice large washer & dryer waiting for me at home, but it sure gave me something to do all day!

Back In England

Today we flew back from Dublin to London. Pretty much that's what we did all day. We stayed at a B&B in Portmarnock near Dublin last night. The owners were kind of eccentric & weird, not in a cute way, it was a little creepy actually, but they did serve us a decent breakfast!

This morning we returned the rental car & spent 2 hours at the airport waiting for our flight. Chad chased Asher around & I watched our luggage. I like that arrangement. Asher slept on the flight, so that was really nice not to have to fight with him to sit still. Once we got to Heathrow we had to take the Tube back to Geoff & Margaret's house. That took another 2 hours. We are finally back at their home & really looking forward to a relaxing week. We don't have anything we need to do, just whatever we want to do. Except laundry. I suppose I have to do that.


G&M leave Friday for a trip of their own, so tomorrow we are just going to spend time with them & let Asher play. He got quite upset when we told him it was time for bed tonight. He did not want to stop playing.

So for the Ireland part of our trip, here are the smartest & dumbest things we did......

Dumbest: Taking Asher along? No, it wasn't that bad, but I would rethink doing it again. Chad & I have a pretty fast pace & it was really hard to get Asher into that. Probably not taking Asher's stroller along to Ireland. Not that we would have used it a ton, but it would have been nice to have when we were walking around in Dublin.


Smartest: Bringing straws along. We only had a sippy cup of water along for Asher & I didn't really want it to get used for milk, so having straws worked great in all the B&Bs for breakfast & some places we went for lunch & dinner.

Mullingar by Car

Tonight we are at a very nice B&B in Mullingar. We're headed back to Dublin as we fly out on Wed & we thought we'd still like to see the Guinness Factory so we can compare it to the Heinekin factory! I say it's a nice B&B b/c they gave me a nice apple sponge for dessert. I like my desserts, yes I do.

We had dinner at a "touristy" pub in town & it wasn't all that great. Luckily we had had a really good pub lunch this afternoon, so it was still a pretty good day. Chad & I shared a meal tonight b/c we weren't very hungry. Normally I enjoy such a venture b/c it means I can order a dessert, but the dessert menu was not very appealing, so we stopped at a petrol station on the way to the B&B & got some Magnum Ice Cream Bars.



We drove through the Burren today. It was more what we envisioned when we thought of Ireland. Well, except for all the rocks growing out of the ground. As we were headed East again it got more familiar. Sheep, stone fences, some cows, small winding roads. Ireland is a nice place, but I think I'm ready to go back to England. I don't think I'd like to move here, but it was nice to see.