Max: Moving out of Hog Cottage is an experience I hope not to repeat in the near future. I believe I told you that we had no parking space by our cottage and that it is a steep switch-backed path up from the street where we take our lives in our hands parking as close to the stone wall as possible. There is also no place to safely turn around, we have already put a scrape in the side of the car trying that maneuver, so all of the luggage and bags go down the hill while we strain to keep control of them, and then we trudge back up for another turn. Well, actually, Caitlin does most of the trudging and most of the work. She is such a trooper! Then, one last look around ... read more

Max: After the rain of yesterday, today breaks sunny and bright. I snuggle down in my newly washed sheets and watch the birds flying in the top branches of the trees close to the diamond patterned glass. Hog Cottage does have its charm. But today begins the search for explanations of my family name: de Macclesfield or “from Macclesfield”. At least that is one plausible explanation. The Anglo-Saxons created the Macclesfield One Hundred: a division of land and title given to the first de Macclesfield, but the line died out. Later the son of John Alcock-a stockman on the Hundred- went on to the position of Keeper of the Royal Wardrobe for Richard II. He assumed the grander name of de Macclesfield in lieu of Alcock. In all truth, the name could have been taken by ... read more

Max: Have I told you how creaky this stone cottage is? Well, even with all of its creakiness, Cousin John’s early rising does not disrupt the heavy sleep of Caitlin and I. (I can hear John now, “Early? I wasn’t up until 8 AM! You were the ones overslept!) And sleep we did. A day of fresh and snappy autumn air in the beautiful English countryside has made us sleep like lambs. Speaking of which, Caitlin is now an official fan of sheep—especially here where they spray them with beautiful pastel colors to brand them, so there are blue, green, and lavender sheep. I didn’t see any pink…. Anyway, I am surprised that I am not sore today….I expected to be lame at the very least. Probably, I thought, I would need an iron lung today….No, ... read more

Max: Every time I told London people that we were going to drive to Derbyshire their answer was, "OOOOoohhh, you're going to THE NORTH..." We had a discussion with the concierge ( he, at least, had been to THE NORTH and enjoyed it tremendously.) and it was decided that we should hire a car to get us to the outskirts of London where we would pick up our wrong-side-of-the-car-steering-wheel car. Really there was already too much stress with the idea of driving that right side steering wheel, we did not need to make it more by trying to drag suitcases and bags down stairs to the tube. That at least was a good call. Let's cut to the chase: we picked up a little gutless wonder automatic Vauxhall, we drove via the most difficult route imaginable ... read more

Max: I am up at 4 AM London time and then must have dozed on and off for a bit; but I gave up at 6:30 AM and hoped that the 7 or 8 hours of sleep that I had enjoyed—as much as sleep can be enjoyed whilst sitting straight up in a plane or totally interrupted in the middle of the night (which is daylight in my brain)—in the past 48 hours would see me through. Let’s just start off by saying that it didn’t. Caitlin snoozed away while I tried to find all of the articles of toiletry and good grooming that were stashed in carry on luggage, checked in luggage and my enormous “purse” which is really a zip up shopping bag, and should have been arranged for quick dressing to get out ... read more