Storms and Coasts

Gosh, I didn't realize it had been so long since my last Post. We've been awfully busy.

First off, Happy New Year!! Don and I were so exhausted on New Year's Eve after our trip to London that we headed to bed early. I was awokened at midnight by all the fireworks, but fell quickly back asleep. Don and the children never stirred.

A few notes about Christmas. Last year, I started a new tradition on Christmas Eve night. Since we go to 5:30 church, we always eat dinner when we get home. I wanted to have something special, something traditional, for Christmas Eve dinner. After much thought, I finally came up with the idea of Fondue. We had a wonderful time, it was fun, and the children liked it, so we decided to continue the tradition. This year, however, I wasn't sure what to do with being here. I was telling a friend from church about it and she volunteered her fondue pot and recipe. So we got our fondue after all.

Once again, I was so excited on Christmas Eve night that I could barely sleep. I stayed up until after midnight to call my sisters and tell them Merry Christmas. We talked until about 1 a.m., when I finally headed up the stairs to bed. But I couldn't sleep. Finally, at 4 a.m., in frustration, I woke Don up and asked him what was wrong with his children. How could any NORMAL kids sleep that late on Christmas morning? He tried VERY hard to woo me to sleep, but to no avail. Around 6, after two hours of me tossing, turning, and fussing, the children finally woke. But I got a nice nap. We usually are fairly rushed to get the presents opened, get dressed and go to Mom's. This year, we took all the time we wanted, ate when dinner was ready, and stayed in pajamas at least half the day. It was peaceful and fun - a wonderful family time. We missed our families and the usual commotion of Christmas, but different was nice, also.

Now, to the present. I started getting really depressed about 2 weeks ago. I was just ready to come home. I was tired of being housebound doing schoolwork with the kids, tired of strange foods and not being able to cook, tired of the rain and mud and cold, and feeling very lonely for my friends. I tried to call a few people, which helped a little, but I was really starting to feel depressed, which is unlike me.

I talked with my friend, Anne, and told her how I was feeling.

"Oh, Patti, I'm so sorry I've neglected you," she said. "What you need is some hospitality."

See what I mean? Aren't these people lovely?

She had the children and I over for lunch and spoiled us rotten. She decided to have an American Diner motif, so she made the kids milkshakes and hamburgers for lunch, then we had banana splits for dessert. She had walked to our house to pick us up (the kids can't ride in cars because, by law, both Dane and Daelyn must be in carseats) and walk us to her house. It was raining and we were drenched by the time we got there. She fired up the gas fireplace, put a Disney movie on for the kids (Lady and the Tramp - one of Deanna's favorites), then put on the tea kettle for us. We sat in the kitchen and visited over tea while she made lunch and the children laid around on the carpet in front of the fireplace watching a good old American movie. It was a lovely afternoon - I hated to leave. But it did the trick . . . for a while.

About a week later, I was feeling blue again, but didn't have the heart to tell Anne. She's already done so much for us. We ran into each other at church and she invited the children and me to join her for tea on Tuesday at a cafe in town. I was thrilled - an excuse to get out of the house. It's just this - Deanna was a little behind in school, and we needed to get caught up. I thought Dane was behind, also, but I spoke with his teacher and discovered he's really about 2 weeks ahead. I want to get Deanna to where she's a couple of weeks ahead, too, so she'll have time to rest from jetlag when we get home and acclamate a little easier to sitting in a classroom after three months. So we've been working HARD and long. We've discovered some rather negative things about some of the boys in our neighborhood (when Daelyn was chanting a filthy word in the kitchen one day. Thankfully, he had no idea what the word meant or that it was a curseword, so I just told him I didn't think it was a nice word and he shouldn't use it any more. He said okay and that was it.) and decided it was best if our boys had very little to do with them. Our friends two doors down are no problem and Daelyn and Deanna still have playmates, but not Dane, and it's very difficult when there are children in the neighborhood that you don't want your children to play with. So the kids are lonely, I'm lonely, and it costs us £4 to take the bus ANYWHERE, which is $8, a little steep just to get out of the house.

Anyhow, Anne invited us for tea. We had a lovely tea with hot scones (they don't pronouce the o the long way - they say it ah) but the children were getting a little antsy and Anne and I hadn't quite finished. Across the parking lot from the cafe is the village green and park, so I asked Deanna to take the boys over the play while we finished up. I paid the bill and had just put on my coat when I saw Daelyn running towards me without his siblings. I knew something was wrong. I looked towards the park and saw Deanna walking towards the cafe with her arm around Dane. I ran to them. Dane had fallen off the see-saw (with a little help from Sissy who was trying to give him a really good ride), hit it, and split his ear open. He was bleeding profusely and obviously needed stitches. Anne took me immediately across the street to her doctor (there are some real advantages to living in a small town - everything's right down the street or right across the street) who looked at Dane and agreed that his ear needed stitches. The ear was cut clean through in the lobe and needed to be sutured from the front AND back. He also had a bad knot behind his ear and the doc thought he needed an X-ray. I called Don who came home and met us on the way. Deanna was very upset and Dane was hysterical. My little girl blamed herself, of course, and Dane was in real pain. Daelyn just saw the whole thing as an adventure.

Don took Deanna and Daelyn home and Dane and I boarded a bus for the hospital. Navigating the English medical system is interesting and certainly leaves no doubt in my mind that private healthcare is a far better system that national healthcare. We got into the doctor rather promptly, but the nurses treat the patients, not the doctors. The doctor came over, looked at the ear for about 2 seconds, then pronounced judgement and the nurses were left to complete the task. He said no X-ray and no stitches - all Dane needed was glue and steri-strips. Interesting, considering I had asked the doctor in Culcheth if they could glue it back together and he said no. He also sent us to the hospital specifically FOR the X-ray. The ER doc spent quite a bit of time telling me how much better English medicine is than American, but Dane's steri-strips came off yesterday, and his ear is not joined and will have a permanent disfigurement. I have a few strong opinions about National Healthcare.

That was Tuesday of last week. We were planning a trip to Glasgow last weekend, but it fell through Wednesday night, so we needed to go into Warrington to the train station to see if we could get our tickets refunded before Friday. The kids and I did our chores and some schoolwork on Thursday morning, then headed to the bus stop. The wind was very strong and cold, and we laughed about Mary Poppins' east wind. Our bus never showed, and we finally, 45 minutes later, took a different one. Turns out, they had hurricane-force winds of up to 99 mph, and there we were standing at the bus station, oblivious. Trees had been uprooted everywhere and chimneys had been blow into the streets. Don told us he even heard about two cars that lost their tops. Roads were closed everywhere. A bridge coming out of Warrington was overturned and there we were, sitting on the bus. All the highways had been closed because of the winds and traffic was being routed through Warrington, so between the tripled traffic and the closed roads, it was, literally, bumper to bumper. It usually takes 25 minutes on the bus to get to town - we sat on it for 2 1/2 hours before we finally got off and walked into town. We got our refund, but there was no way to get home. We talked to Don (thank God for my cellphone) who suggested we have dinner at the Pub and then walk to the hotel. One of his co-workers volunteered her room for us to hang out at until the Highways opened back up and the roads cleared, which was supposed to happen around 7:OO.

Anyway, the computer just warned me that I only have 5 minutes before they shut me down, so I'd better move along. We ended up staying at the hotel overnight in two of Don's co-workers rooms and they spent the night at our house. They couldn't get to the hotel, we couldn't get home.

This week, we rented a car. I decided that I had to see somemore of England. We picked it up on Monday with a sack lunch in tow, and headed for the Lake District. On Tuesday, we went to Scarborough and Whitby on the North Sea (the East Coast of England), yesterday we went to Stratford-upon-Avon (YAY, YAY) and, today, to Wales.

We won't be coming home on the 31st after all. Don expects to get us new tickets today for Feb. 16. I'll write more about that next time but, for now, goodbye, my friends. Cheers.