Made It

We’re sitting on our beds in the attic of Hilary and Stephen’s 1840s cottage in Storrington, UK listening to 4:30 am birdsong and feeling oh-so-lucky.

A huge thanks to our family for helping scrub, sweep, and prep the house for our renters yesterday, and to Steve S. for accompanying us to PDX and driving the car and the trailer home.

We thought for sure Iceland Air would reject us outright because of this mountain of stuff. But they didn’t bat an eye!

So many stresses fell away as we passed hurdle after anxiety-provoking hurdle yesterday. The inspector even tolerated our close supervision. 

Made it to Iceland...

And all our stuff somehow miraculously made it to Heathrow. 

 And then... there was a dude at the airport exit with the name Dave Gifford displayed on his phone! Arif’s van was a little tight but Dave is a master at these kinds of challenges and he made it work.

Arif took us 90 minutes southwest of Heathrow along winding, verdant roads.

Google Maps led Arif down a single lane, dead-end country lane to East Wantley Cottage, where Hilary and Stephen and their daughter Ellie met us with open arms. Unbelievable! And thank you, Mark, for sharing your wonderful friends with us.  They have seriously raised the bar on hospitality. And the house is so magical that Lyle and Ruby felt like they were dreaming. Which they soon were...

Dave and I managed to stay up until 10, enjoying incredible food, wine (Plymouth gin for Dave), and British humor. 😀

I mean, look at this!

The kids seem to have slept through the night. What?! —Liv