From Hexham to Wicken Fen

 

Up this morning about 6 am.  Today is our transfer day from the north of England – Hexham, to be exact, to Wicken, a suburb of Cambridge, where we will spend our last week in the U.K.  The (incredibly inaccurate, it turns out) estimates for the drive were 4½ hours.  Now I know that that doesn’t always necessarily allow quite enough time, but today’s estimate did not take into consideration the fact that it was also a U.K. Bank Holiday. The roads were packed – the rest areas were packed, and I think every camper in the country must have been on the road.  Additionally, there were several areas of major road construction, where three lanes were funneled down into one or two for mile after mile … it all adds up, believe me!  At any rate, the really interesting part came near the village of Huntington, where the roads had been totally rerouted, and even Emmy, our always faithful GPS had no idea what we were doing and which way we were supposed to go – and we even have the latest maps installed!  When we circled through the village for the second time (and even I recognized it!) it was back to the maps in earnest and, as Robert said, navigating the “old school way” – by paper maps!  At any rate, Robert, ever-the-faithful-navigator, was able to overcome the facts that our atlas was dated 2017 and that even Emmy’s just-upated GPS maps were wrong to get us toWicken and our home for the week.  In all, rather than the 4½ hours we expected it to take to get here, it was almost 7 hours in total.  Have to admit, I’m tired!

The smallest space heater ... next to my purse!

Downstairs kitchen area

Dining room

Soaking tub!

Living room/kitchen

Our back patio area

 

Guess what we're having for dinner!?

House across the green!  Love the thatch!

Our host, Yoko, was waiting for us, and showed us through their lovely guest cottage in the garden.  She maintains that she and her husband are not gardeners – but truly, their yard, which backs directly on to Wicken Fen, which is a National Trust protected area, is absolutely stunning!  We’ve missed the wisteria by about a week, but what is left is still lovely!  And their cottage is beautiful!  And HUGE!  Such a change from Hexham!

 

Huge living room/dining room/kitchen – incredibly fully equipped, with an amazing bathroom, with both soaking tub and shower, and there is a huge changing room equipped with shelves and drawers and hanging areas.  The bedroom is lofted above with great windows everywhere!

 

I had planned, after we got settled, to head into Newmarket and do the laundry, but R wanted to get to work on some Caltech business, so I decided to run a load in the washer here instead, and yes, use the drying rack instead of a dryer.  There is a lovely Bosch machine which didn’t take too awfully long to run, so now clean undies and socks are drying away!  We then decided that we needed to head into Newmarket to see if we could find something/anything to eat.  Turns out that most restaurants and pubs are closed today or closed early for the holiday, so we thought we would see what we could find!  First things we saw were a Burger King and a McDonald’s – which definitely weren’t on the list – but we did find a Domino’s Pizza in town, which was open – so we got pizza and chocolate chip cookies to go!  Brought them back to the apartment and put a movie on TV.  Jurassic World is now playing away, and we’re eagerly awaiting the escape of the Indominus Rex!  Planning on heading into London tomorrow, as there are planned train strikes later on this week, and we want to get to the Flinders Petrie and British Museums if at all possible!  

 

So, more tomorrow, from somewhere!

Lots of love,

m

xxx