‘Scuse me while I kiss the ground…

Hello all…

Mr. G & I arrived safely back to American soil on Sunday evening…and boy was I ready to kiss the ground. 

We had a great trip, despite the circumstances and it was nice to catch up with the family from across the pond.  Plus as I said in my previous post last week, I had the pleasure to meet my nephew Jamie - who is an absolute doll!!!  

We actually had a nightmare time trying to get to England…bad weather in Newark cause flight to be delayed, which meant that we would most likely miss our connecting flight to Manchester, so we asked Continental to get us on a flight to London and we’d figure it out from there…they booked us on the next flight out and as we ran up to the counter at the gate, the attendant was unsympathetic, knowing we were on our way, saying “Sorry, gate’s closed - you can’t get on…we’ll put you on the next flight out in 2 hours.”

We checked in at the new gate 45 minutes prior, on their recommendaton, only to find that they didn’t have us on the flight at all - that we were standby only with a full flight.  What a cluster, to say the least.  In the end, we had some help from the International Concierge and we got on the flight, with a connecting flight to Manchester.  Although we weren’t sure where our bags would end up…either Newark or Manchester.   And with only 36 hours to the funeral, we were pushing it a bit.

In the end, we got to Manchester about 24 hours after we initially arrived to check in at Houston.  What a drag.  In the end, they upgraded us to 1st on the way back from Newark to Houston, which was a nice thing to have for the last 3 hours of our travel. 

Customs gave us a load of crap at Newark coming back in for some reason…taking us into this dumpy little underground office with really old linoleum floors and cranky Homeland Security Officers…and we had only about 5 minutes to spare to make our flight.  We were both ready for 1st class treatment by the time we sat down.

The funeral was beautifully done and the weather held out for us, which was nice.  Sun was shining every day but one…it was nice to be in England with that kind of weather for a change.

I spent one morning in Frankby, horseback riding at a local riding school - they loaned me a beautiful black Fresian named Izzie to hack around on…nice to canter along out in the fields with loads of tall grass and blackberry bushes!!!  It’s been awhile since I’ve riden, so I am still a bit sore!!!

Even though, the fam took me around to see Liverpool the last time, we actually did another tour of the city - it is amazing what they’ve done in the regentrification of the city centre!!!  And of course, there is still loads of kitschy Beatles things everywhere, but you know, it never gets old.

We also took a small trip up to Edinburgh for the night and we had a blast.  What a beautiful city…seriously.  I’ve been all over Europe, but Edinburgh has got to be one of the coolest towns I’ve been to in a long while!!

I have eaten enough pork product to immunize my self from swine flu for a lifetime - pork pies, bacon sarnies, lincolnshire & leek pork sausages…on and on and on…

My brother in law and his wife threw a BBQ the night before we left and had all of their mates come round…we ate and drank until about 9 PM and then for some tearful goodbyes!!!

As lindaloohoo said in her comment on my previous post, it’s a shame that it takes something so sad to bring the family together, but in the strangest of ways, it is such a blessing.

It was good to see everyone!!!