Greetings from Gloucestershire!

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Hurtling through the hedges

What to do when you meet another car

There are entirely too many letters in that title - for the uninitiated, I'm in Gloucestershire (pronounced "Gloster-shur") for the next four months. I plan to update this site with journals, photos, and videos from my ramblings.

I arrived at Heathrow yesterday morning and was picked up and taken to my apartment in Cheltenham (slur your syllables and say "Chelt-num" with me!). I saw hundreds of sheep on the way, but I was in the car and thus unable to stalk them and make sweaters out of them. Cheltenham is so cute that I want to eat it with a spoon. I plan to explore it more tomorrow and take pictures.

My apartment (flat) is great, with high ceilings and crown moldings. You walk into a giant room with a seating area with a fireplace and a small kitchen area along one wall. Another wall is three giant windows overlooking a park. There's a band practicing in the bandstand right now, playing "Rule, Britannia," no less! (They're in the rain, so no audience except for me with my windows open). You can crawl out the windows onto a balcony, or you can shut these huge wooden indoor shutters to block all the light.

The bedroom cracks me up. There is a all-out functioning claw-footed bathtub next to the bed. Right smack in the middle of the room. The room is carpeted, except for right under the bathtub. (See pictures below, because I just can't quite describe it enough.) There's also a small bathroom with a shower, sink, and toilet. I also have another fireplace in the bedroom. I wonder if they work - might be nice with the bath. 😊

Anyway, I got here and took about a two-hour nap, then went on a short walk around the other park that's on the other side of my apartment. It promptly rained on me, so I went home. I then went out to dinner with Joe, who is an American charged with looking out for me. We went to an Indian restaurant, then he showed me where the grocery store is for the essentials.

Today I went with Joe and his parents, who are visiting him, to a larger grocery store (car needed) to stock up. We had to take a side route to get back and went hurtling through the hedges on a one-lane road. That's "one-lane", as in, there is one lane for cars in both directions. See videos at the top - I don't know how to put them anywhere else yet. Also, the videos are clearer on my computer - something in the conversion software made them blurrier. I guess you'll just have to make do.

So now I'm all stocked up and in the apartment... but I'm going to avoid the bath for now, because I'm still jet-lagged, and I might fall asleep in the tub. 😊

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Photos

Living Room 3
Shows the kitchen area...

View from the bath
It's a lovely park, but I think I'll be closing the shutters...

Pretty flowers outside
They look kind of like orchid blossoms, but the plant doesn't look like an orchid, so I don't know what they are.

For Dad
Look, Dad - you can buy nice, thick Jersey milk!

Comments

[MOM]

Pink flowers
They look like orchids to me too.