The first couple of weeks in England have come and gone and I am wondering how they passed so quickly. From the blurry moment of arrival to the hotel, where we arrived after gathering our bags from the airport, and Nathaniel and I fell asleep on the couches in the middle of lobby because our room wasn’t ready (got a few looks for that) …to the countless hours of running errands to get things for the house…to finally being in the house and starting to get settled and sending the boys off to school.
It’s an interesting feeling to be in a brand new place that is exciting and pretty and holds so much opportunity for adventure, but to realize you’re not on vacation. You’re there to live. And you need pillows. And a dryer, and vacuum, and food, and fridge, and plates, and toilet paper. And then realize, oh wait, we need toilet paper holders too! None of it i very fun or glamorous, it’s just expensive.
So our first days were spent exploring the various shopping centers of greater Chester. An employee at the electronic/appliance store told Tim that he should just get a job there after he saw him for the fourth time in five days. Often, we’d find something and then because of my indecisiveness, go analyze options at several other stores, only to end back up at the first place shrugging our shoulders and saying, “OK, we’ll take it.”
Most of our purchase decisions were based on timing. To get into our house, we needed beds. We went to store after store, only to learn that there was a several-week lead time on getting a mattress delivered. So we switched strategies, to buying a floor model instead. If you’re shuddering at the thought of buying a mattress that’s been tested out in the store by other people, yeah, me too. But we sprayed it and cleaned it and put covers on it, and well, you deal if you want a place to sleep.
The greatest of all of these endeavors was IKEA. I felt some comfort in knowing there was a store I was familiar with, and where I knew we could get so many basics for the house. I talked it up to the boys: a kids area! So many fun rooms! Meatballs! We entered and we knew we were in over our heads. There was an hour an a half wait list to get into the kids play area. Pff, we said. We’ll probably be gone by then.
We were there about four and a half hours. We did end with meatballs though. And a car that could not have possibly fit another item, as evidenced here:
I should mention that a lot of this stuff we knew we were going to need and had planned to purchase. But the necessity and timeliness of it was hastened when we found out that our shipment (clothing, furniture, home goods) was delayed. Apparently there was a reference number that was supposed to be created and wasn’t and when it was, the email to send it was over a file size limit, and then the email rejecting that email went to an unchecked spam folder…all I know is we packed our stuff on Aug. 2 and a month later, it hadn’t moved from Milwaukee. Crap.
We thought maybe it would be here a couple of weeks after we got here, so we could avoid buying a lot. But once we realized it would be mid-October at least, we knew we needed somewhere a little more comfy for our butts than camping chairs.
But we’re getting there. Day by day, out place is starting to feel a little more like home. We made pancakes this morning and the boys have watched a movie on the couch. The sounds of them giggling and snoring and yelling all make it feel like home.
I don’t know that we’ve convinced the boys that England is that fun yet. But we have been teaching them to be patient, that sometimes you have to do the not-fun stuff to get to the fun stuff, and that sometimes if you hang on long enough, there may be meatballs.
And plus, when you go to a castle, you just hear about the knights. When you go to IKEA, you get all of the material needed to be the knights.
Tosa to Tarporley 