England/Scotland 2024 Pilgrimage – Day 2

Monday, September 2, 2024

England Adventures

London’s passport control has been automated which, theoretically, makes the process much faster. Once Gregg figured out how to put his passport into the scanner, he was “green light to go.” Me next. Not so fast, girly. After three “try agains,” I got “seek assistance.” AKA, go to a long line and see an actual person.

Meanwhile, Gregg was left looking around, wondering where in the world I had disappeared to. He finally looked my way and I waved at him with my passport. Mystery solved. The nice agent let me through with no issues once I answered a few questions. Whew!

Rental Car

After a stop at the “toilets,” we found the shuttle to the Enterprise rental car lot. Waiting in line, we met a nice couple from Camp Hill, PA (near Penn State) with their daughter who is to begin a master’s program in London. While on the shuttle, the mother realized she didn’t have her purse with all her credit cards and important paperwork. We were inwardly panicing with her and praying. The husband thought it had been “nicked” (stolen.) They went back to the airport so we don’t know what happened. Lord, have mercy.

Gregg had reserved a car through Costco, which didn’t give him an option to request an automatic vehicle. Though we can both drive a stick shift, shifting with the left hand just adds one more thing to deal with while driving on the left hand side of the road.

The agent asked Gregg if he’d like to upgrade to an automatic for 10 pounds/day. Why, YES, PLEASE! WORTH.EVERY.CENT. Gregg declined to Mercedes in favor of a Volve XC40 which is what we drive at home (although this one uses gas.) Nice!

Gregg has done a wonderful job navigating driving on the left hand side of the road. I just do not think my brain could keep up with it, especially through the MANY round-abouts. I laugh at myself each time I get into the passenger side. I push my foot to the floor as I fasten my seatbelt, as though I’m in the driver’s seat pushing on the brake. Lifelong habits die slowly.

Where’s The Car Key??!!

An hour out of London, cruising along the M40 (their interstate system) and Gregg asks, “did we get a key FOB?” Welp. The agent had gotten into the car and turned it on. Then we got in and drove away. Was it possible that he still had it and we would need to return? Otherwise, once we turned the car off, we wouldn’t be able to start it again.

Not in pockets. Not in door. Not in cubbies. Nowhere to be seen.

I tried calling Enterprise, but could not figure out how to dial the numbers correctly with the country codes, city codes, etc. (ended up, I needed to hold my nose just right and delete a zero – go figure.)

The next exit was for the little village, Gaydon. We drove through, past a cute place to eat and an old church without a parking lot, and found a gas station. The banner said “Greggs” but we were to discombobulated to even care about taking a picture.

Gregg searched pockets again, all the little cubbies in the car, even the trunk. How in the world could we not have a key fob? Durn these new-fangled keyless cars. Finally, Gregg looked UNDER the driver’s seat and wouldn’t you know it? The perfect spot to keep a key fob! Second crisis of the trip diverted. Thanks be to God!

Village of Graydon – 1st Church Visit

Let’s celebrate by visiting our first church and maybe getting something to eat! OK!

It wasn’t easy but I’ll bore you the details of returning to the church and parking on the street. The doors were unlocked at the 1852 Gaydon Parish Church dedicated and named after Saint Giles (Church of England.) This small church is still in use as noted by the bulletin and the visitor log book.

The interior architecture reminded Gregg of our summer church, Trinity Episcopal in Morgantown, WV. It has thick buttresses that come down the wall with some filagree at the bottom, though the building is much smaller. It was cozy and welcoming, with sprigs of lavender attached with ribbon bows on the end of each pew.

The small churchyard and cemetery is a wildlife sanctuary. Wildflower seeds are sewn each spring to attract butterflies, and only certain areas are mowed. The effect is a beautifully unkept look.

Pub Food for Lunch

Wandering down a block or so, past old buildings, some with thatched roofs, we came to a charming village store with an outside seating area (closed because we arrived between noon and 2:00) and an old pub. Actually, we didn’t realize “The Malt Shovel Inn” was an old pub until we walked in. What a delightful surprise!

There is an Austin Martin factory and a Jaguar LandRover factory nearby. The pub rafters were filled with names and dates of retired workers, some worked over 40 years!

We were hungry, but Gregg was afraid if he ate anything heavy, he’d fall asleep driving. We almost opted to return to the gas station for snacks, but happily decided to stay and split a “classic pub meal,” Homemade Shortcrust PIe, “fully cased in buttery pastry, seasonal vegetables, proper gravy, and mashed potatoes (or chips.)” Gregg ordered a Coke Lite and I had a delicious cup of hot tea and milk.

The pub also had a small dog which wanted a bite of our meat pie, and a Cockatoo reminded me of Fred the Cockatoo on the TV show Baretta. (I’m dating myself here.) The lady bartender and the servers were both friendly and welcoming. We were refreshed by the whole experience.

Thank you to whomever put the keys under the seat. And thank you, Lord, that we got off to look at this hidden jewel. Sarah Jackson says to look for the glimmers in the day. This was a bright and shiny glimmer.

Houston, I think we have another problem

Continuing towards Liverpool on the rather uneventful highway roads, we invented some excitement of sorts ourselves. We needed to catch two ferries tomorrow to get to our destination, the island of Iona.

So, let’s plan that out. We’ll leave from Liverpool and drive to Oban where we catch the first ferry. Hum… our drive will take us about six hours. So what are the ferry times?

Whelp. If we want to take our car to the first island, which was our plan, the only ferries with openings are at 6:45 am (which clearly wouldn’t work since we HAD to get sleep tonight) or 6:15 pm or later. Since check-in at our place of lodging is between 3:00-7:00, that was a problem.

Another option was to leave our car in Oban. There is plenty of “walk on” spaces on the ferry. But then we would have to nagivate getting across the island of Mull for the 2nd ferry. It takes an hour by car. We could go by bus which runs three times a day, or go by taxi. What to do. We decided to mull it over, no pun intended when I thought of that word.

Liverpool

My exhausted driver got us safely to Liverpool. Thanks be to God! He had made reservations at a Hampton Inn for 70 pounds ($92.00) so we made our way there. It ended up being a nice hotel, but a comedy of errors happened there, beginning with the fact that they didn’t have any working key cards. But, not to worry! They could escort you to the room and let you in. That would be fine, if we were hunkering down for the night.

Years ago, when we drove through Liverpool (and stopped at Abbey Road for a photo), Gregg decided Liverpool’s Everton was the soccer team he wanted to follow in The Premier League. Not to be confusing, but there are two teams in Liverpool, one by the city name, the other is Everton. LIverpool is equivalent to Downton Abby’s “upstairs” while Everton is the “downstairs” or blue-collar workers’ team.

Since we had planned to drive by the stadiums (they will begin playing in a new stadium next season), we opted to take a drive before going to our room. We enjoyed that scenic tour of Liverpool.

On our way back, we just happens to pass a Costco! Well, what good Costco member could pass up the chance to shop?! Hoping to find Everton gear, we left disappointed on that count, but we did buy a case of water, Coke Zero, and peanut butter pretzels. And gas was so much cheaper! Score!

The Price of Gas

Mind you, I said Costco’s gas was “cheaper,” NOT “cheap.” It was 1.27 pounds a liter. Sounds great, right?! Think again.

• ₤1.27 = $1.67
• 1 gallon = 4.55 liters
• $1.67 x 4.55 = $7.60 a gallon!

Thankfully, this car seems to be a “mild hybrid” (not plug-in) so the gas mileage has been 48.5 miles per gallon. And, yes, I find it quite odd that they purchase gas in liters yet their car give mileage in gallons. The mysteries of life.

New Plan

Back at the hotel, we got into our room and decided we really needed to figure out tomorrow and how we were getting to Iona. After talking and some phone calls and checking, we ended up being able to slide our Iona reservations from Tuesday and Wednesday nights to Wednesday and Thursday nights. And we were able to cancel our Thursday night reservation in Inverness (hopefully) without a fee.

Inverness was a late add to our list after friends raved about its beauty. We decided that we’ll skip it this trip. We’re both happy with this change in plans. Tomorrow won’t be a wild and harried day.

First Tesco Stop

With that settled, we had one more thing to do before sleep. Buy a few “necessities” we hadn’t carried on like toothpaste and deodorant. So we walked a block to a Tesco Express. Their selections were so limited and our active brain cells were limited even more, so we walked out and decided it could wait. I had packed a little tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush so we shared. And tomorrow we may stink. We’re married and we’ve lived through worse, so it’s fine.

zzzzzz