We’re home

Well, all good things must come to an end. A looooonnnnngggg end. By the time we got home around midnight last night, we’d been up for a little over 24 hours. And damn if we didn’t wake up at our usual times — that certainly wasn’t fair. I so wanted to sleep late this morning! We had such a great time drinking, eating, walking, ohhhhing and ahhhhing and, the last ship night, dancing. I don’t know why it took until the end of the cruise to do that, but we had great fun. Lots of people complimented us on our dancing, which made us feel fabulous, of course. Even coming up to us the next day, when they didn’t have to, to say how much they enjoyed watching us because we looked like we were having so much fun. One woman voted us Couple #1 of the evening and one came up to us the next day to say we had inspired her to think she could get her nondancing husband to dance at their wedding in two weeks. I don’t know how that would work, but we’re happy to have been of assistance! There were a couple of places on the ship we didn’t even discover or remember about until the last couple of days — we could have been doing something every minute of the day or night instead of just most of them. We walked the jogging track — 13 laps = 1 nautical mile, which = 1.15 land miles. It occurred to me that I like the confined-space nature of laps and treadmills much more than walking free-form. There’s something about that containment that keeps me going and motivated that walking the roads of Rancho Alegre doesn’t. I think it feels much shorter than “out in the open”, more prescribed. Or something. I got on the scale this morning and all I can say is, it could have been so much worse. If I had really, really eaten everything I wanted, it would have been worse. Laird has not gotten up the nerve to weigh yet. Diet time is upon us. Right after we eat this wonderful spread Asa’s mother, Ava, fixed for us for homecoming dinner. For me, it was homecoming breakfast. And lunch to follow, also dinner as she provided a feast. Great BBQ brisket, cole slaw, onion and corn salad, boiled eggs, watermelon, rhubarb pie — I’m sure I’m missing something. What a wonderful gesture and much appreciated since our fridge would have been barren otherwise.
I spent all my prepaid internet minutes on the last day trying to get our boarding passes, so didn’t get to blog. We didn’t get them for some reason that still hasn’t been explained; we even had a little trouble at Heathrow getting them. Even though we were confirmed on our flight and had seats, the British Air computer just didn’t want to give us boarding passes. Our concierge (and I) spent 35 minutes on hold with BA trying to find out the problem before we gave up and hung up. We had pretty good seats, each an aisle catercornered from one another, except that there was not enough room to cross one’s legs. But the flight attendants were so friendly and cheerful — not something we see on most USA airlines, except for Southwest. The good thing about international flights is the free booze, helps to knock off the edges of discomfort a little bit. But they never have enough ice on board for flights to US. Europeans just don’t get the concept of ice, I think. On the ship, I kept having to go back to the bar to get extra ice for my oh-so-wonderful Hendricks gins and tonic.  The secret of a good G&T is COLD.  That means ice.
Laird is going to see if he can figure out how to get pictures on the blog — now that we don’t have to pay 42 cents a minute. But he’ll be happy to carry his computer to anyone who wants to see — or maybe we will have an At Home evening and y’all can come out here for drinks and nosh and travelogue. That would be fun! [Laird interjects: As we speak (write?), I’m editing the Stonehenge pics. Good sky, and some panoramas with people in view to give a sense of scale. I think some of the bigger stones weigh up to 15 tons! I’m not convinced they have any good idea what the Stones are all about or how they transported or erected them. Of course, I haven’t done any research.]
I had told myself not to go souvenir crazy and I didn’t, though mostly that was from not finding much that I wanted. OMG and I getting too old?????? Well, except I would have bought tons of stuff at the Delft porcelain factory if I could have afforded it, and the expensive shipping. God, there was some beautiful stuff there!  I wanted it all, even though Delft doesn’t really fit into the SW style.  It is clear that I really must find a job as a souvenir consultant — I couldn’t find potholders; dish towels or tea towels were limited and mostly ugly or not on point; there was too much schlock and too much breakable stuff — oh, and too much heavy stuff. The industry needs me! If they only knew.  Maybe we can start putting Laird’s pictures on tea towels for sale?????

Our new superlight luggage really did the trick — we’d have been waaaay overweight if not for them.  So if anyone is traveling in the future and wants to borrow, you’re welcome.  We have two large suitcases (fit the airline overall size requirements), one purple (of course) two-wheelie and one black four-wheelie.  Jon and Pam — do you need?????  I, naturally, carried too much clothes, but actually wore almost everything.  I could have doubled up more.  I have to get the right outfits.  One woman we met says she packs 1 pair jeans, 2 other pants, 3 tops for each pair of pants, superlight (I assume nylon) panties that can just be rinsed, hung and dried overnight, 2 bras, 2 pair shoes, 1 dress-up jacket and one weather jacket and she’s off.  That’s sorta what I did, but her suitcase is way smaller than mine was — must have been all those extras.  Reading weather report said everywhere was going to be cold and rainy.  It wasn’t.  We had beautiful weather, actually too hot for Floriade and Chelsea.  One COLD day on ship.  So we packed according to reports.  That turned out to be unnecessary weight, but who who would have known? But I’m getting closer to downsizing each trip I take!  Thanks to Alex for coming out to say “take those, leave that, do you really need more than one of those, etc”.  She saved me enough weight that we got home with the few things we acquired without either of the airlines complaining.
Hope to see most of you soon.  Thanks for reading us and thanks to those who commented — it was great fun to hear from you.  Homingly yours, l&j

A little more from Laird… I was only a partly diligent photographer. I took a lot of pics of cathedral interiors and exteriors, cool medieval facades, and of the French countryside as we were cruising up and down the Seine to Rouen. So I’ll edit up the mass of pics and select the 150 or 250 best. Skies and backgrounds were not as cooperative as they could have been and were for our Prague adventure last fall. We also can say we loved the Normandy area of France. We cruised down the Seine on Monday afternoon — and since it was a French holiday (V-E day), many, many families came to riverside and whistled, waved and appreciated this cruise ship willing to make the passage up and down the lower Seine. It upset some of our hardwired dislike of the snooty French! Maybe we will have to visit Paris and meet real people, not just tourist service folks.

While we expected some rabbit and squirrel depredations and some damage from inadequate watering of the garden, we didn’t lose as much stuff as we worried about. The big winds last week overturned the new garden shed. However, that may give me the opportunity to build a new one to one pattern we liked a lot at Chelsea, or another of a timber framed shed we saw on a sidetrip to Le Havre.

So, as Jonelle says, homingly yours. See you all soon. Laird