We're On Our Way

June 21, 2010


Departure day is finally here. What an ordeal getting the house organized, the cars put to bed and all the stuff we needed to get done prior to leaving. I ended up being a midnight carpenter, eventually not getting to bed at all. Ross and Marina hung in ‘till 2:30am, then they went to bed. Ross is a very sound sleeper, while he was sawing logs, I was installing baseboards in his room using a brad-nailer. He didn’t even grunt or roll over.

The house is now ready to go, huge thanks to Christine on the weekend, and this morning special thanks to Mike, Sarah and Megan Fedak/Ostler and Angela Read. Without their help this morning there is no way we could have made it to the airport… and we left Angie cleaning up the rest of the house. What would life be without great friends …. We’re so fortunate to have such giving people on our side looking out for us.

Sarah drove us to the airport. All our bags weighed within 2 pounds of the maximum … thankfully we didn’t have our carry-on bags weighed too. I think my rolling suitcase weighed another 50 pounds … and my laptop bag (with 2 laptops and lots of other stuff in it) weighed in over 30. After a quick flight to Toronto and a couple hour layover where we tried to get some sleep we boarded the Boeing 777 in row 52 and settled in for a flight over the Atlantic. I asked Marina the over-under on me falling asleep on the plane. I was asleep before takeoff and was sawing logs until Jessie woke me up because there was a growing puddle of drool on my chest (yuck!). It was a quiet and smooth flight and I got a few hours of sleep. I think Marina and the kids did too, but it is hard to tell through closed eyelids.

Once we hit Heathrow we queued in the line for immigration, picked up our luggage and made our way to the tube. We caught the Piccadilly line to Cockfosters – one end of the line to the other – and there was a work slowdown by maintenance workers and it took nearly three hours. Anyway, we arrived and called our hosts Joan and Eric. Eric picked us up in his BMW 5 estate car and we managed to get all our luggage and the four of us into the car (somewhat miraculously I’d suggest).

We rested up and adjusted for most of the day, watched a football game, went for a walk, had dinner and went to bed. After nearly 48 hours without lying down, a bed felt pretty good!