Dear Waitrose
To whom it may concern, why is it that your seventeen year old checkout staff can join the Royal Marines Commandos , but is unable to sell me a bottle opener and corkscrew because it’s on the ‘restricted list’.
New hat
The air freight arrived (woot!) and with it H’s awaited USCG cap; courtesy of star Keenan. Perfect for keeping in the shade.
Canal Walk
A Sunny Saturday walk along the Grand Union Canal
Rooney and Rooney came with us.
Some of the terminology gets some getting used to. I guess this would have been called Butt Side Lock. Whatever, it was half empty…
…possibly because the bottom gate of bottom side lock was leaking a fair bit.
H inspected the overflow – maybe a future aqua-engineer in the making?
While F inspected some of the nicer boats to live in on the canal.
Our destination? The Three Horse Shoes pub, a delightful spot for a pint and some nosh.
Berko Walk
Here be Berkhamsted , snug in the valley.
And here be the view the other way, across the fields.
You know that you’re on the right path here because of the fence.
Although H was checking via the GPS-sync’d map on the new fangled Windows Phone 7 prototype all the same. At work we call this kind of exercise ‘dog fooding’.
Whatever was wrong with a compass and a good OS map?
Northchurch Common
An early-ish morning walk at Northchurch Common
Starting in the woods along this wonderful woodland road
before opening out onto open common land.
H found sticks. Big sticks.
F found trees. Big trees.
And Fay found things hanging from branches, buzzy things, bee buzzy things.
Lovely Cross Oak
Awesome to be back in berko. It’s a bit smaller than the last place but you wouldn’t know it.
We’re also making progress on the garden thanks to loads of help from Chris, Kim, Jessica & Les.
The skyscapes from the back bedroom are pretty amazing too.
Publishing Crossoak
Everything is hard here (or at least harder than we’ve been used to).
Cancelling services in the US was far easier than signing up here. Anyone would think I was asking
them
to give
me
money.
One exception has been this nifty do-da. Since we’re not going to be settled for a while signing up for a broadband lock-in didn’t seem like a good idea, instead 3 has this little mifi thing that pumps
secure
wifi around the house (or car, or coffee shop, or wherever) and runs it over the cellphone data network 3G or 3.5G (aka
HSPA
).
Monthly and PAYG options available.
Super.
Essentials?
Having moved 4,500-ish miles with only what we could carry, what was top of the essentials list? A bread machine. Obvious really.
First challenge was weighing 450g of flour (g = gram = unit of weight in these parts, equal to around about 15.873282864 ounces). To the rescue was this amazing measuring cone, courtesy of amazing Jessica.
Lovely stuff.
Barton-on-Sea
Health and safety Les took the boys for a short walk at Barton-on-Sea. They were gone for a long time…
…Fay & Jessica looked everywhere for them.
But everyone was safe-and-sound.
Please look after this Ewok
Ewok flew over as *the* advanced party, to check out the UK was still an okay place to be. Just in case of problems with customs and immigration, Ewok is an American Australian Labradoodle after all, his travel crate was suitably decorated with informative info.
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Ready to fly
Our last meal on US soil – Anthony’s at Seatac.
Hanging out at Gate S10 before “10 hours in a metal tin can”, as H said, or “movie all night flight”, for Mr. F.
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Last Day
Our last day in the USA. A relaxing time thanks entirely to the generous-as-always Clarke’s who let us squat in their gaff. The neighbours said it was the best party in years!
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Last Picture
The last picture from 18926. A great house. Hope that Tim finds someone that can enjoy it as much as we did.
[Note: this entry is appearing out of sequence,
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Post-flight stretching
Finn discovering the perfect way to shake off the effects of BA world traveler.
Barton-on-Sea
The boys had a successful crabbing expedition with Granddad
But, of course, they had to be put back again.
This one made a bee-line for the surf.
I didn’t know that crabs knew anything about bees.
Pizza
Pizza Express, our fav.
Except F who thinks Domino's is better (based on his experience
in Longview
).
That said, service wasn’t.
Favourite Places to Eat
Our favourite places to eat?
* Rays Boat House * Purple Cafe * Matt’s in the Market * Inn at Ship Bay * The Indian Palace in Woodinville where we had our last dinner with Satwant, Bir and the kids. Butter chicken, rogan josh, rice and nan.
Fantastic food, great people.
[Editors note: posts will be in hybrid spelling mode for the next few weeks^D^D^D^D months]
Note: This post was updated on 2020-10-01 19:36:29 to fix broken links
Last Day Bye Byes
We’ve said bye to loads of great friends over the past few weeks; we’re sad to be going but it’s been great to see people and be reminded of the great times we’ve had.
I’ve also said ‘great’ quite a bit recently.
(Un)fortunately, I’ve not been too on the ball taking pics, and many that I did snap are now packed up for a multi-week cruise across the Atlantic…
Moving
The home office. It managed to go most of four years without becoming a studio . Although the boys did loose most of the playroom to paint and canvas on occasion…
Everything got packed into boxes or wrapped in stuff before loading into the BigTruck.
Even the bottle opener, necessitating the revival of student style wine opening skills.
With everything packed the place looked very bare.
The office office got the same treatment too!