May 8: Day One and a Half

Now that I have my fourth wind in our first 36 hours with about an hour of sleep, I’m ready to write until my head flops down on the keyboard. Our day began with our last training walk, a 6-miler of 2 outer laps of the Illahee Preserve woods in Bremerton. Go and see this well-maintained hidden gem if you are local. Next was our drive to Sea-Tac airport, slowed by no less than 4 accidents along the way. Then a 9ish hour flight over BC, Northern Territories, Greenland, Ireland and then plop right into Heathrow. It was a super long Virgin Atlantic plane and we were 3rd seat from back. Back of the bus indeed. We even learned that on top of all you get with first class, there also comes an additional sash seatbelt. Upgrades on safety? That’s nuts! Tom and I corkscrewed into our seats in 66H and K and tried to block out the lack of sleep with movies. It sorta worked. Next we hopped an express train to Paddington Station for our following train north to the Cotwolds. Paddington was a delightful bonus add-on for me. I kept looking for him everywhere. “Please look after this bear!” I finally found him in so many forms: t-shirts, stickers, key chains, mugs, bags, stuffies. Mom and I loved reading Paddington bear books growing up, the little pen illustrations so captivating- and that blue pea coat and yellow hat down over his eyes- what’s not to love?! A couple of trains later, and after listening to oodles of PA announcements that reminded us, as we arrived at and disembarked various stations, of the kind, educational and soothing Peppa Pig narrator, we were greeted at the Moreton-in-Marsh station to first drops of rain, and disembarked the bus at Chipping Campden in a full downpour. Probably due to our deliriously sleepy stupor, we got a bit lost finding our BnB, which, in the end, was right in front of our nose. And we got even more drenched in the process. Thankfully our host Deenie rescued and welcomed us in to her cozy home and wiped down our bags and showed us a warm radiator by which to dry out our boots. And so, I’ll leave you with that. More tomorrow after our first day of the Cotswold Way hike!