Bonjour Europe

We did it... we're finally here! The last few days have been a blur, an adventure and a serious education, so much so that today G and I have just chilled around the house trying to gather our thoughts. Where to start?

We flew out on Friday arvy from Port Elizabeth after a 1.5 hr delay and having to throw out a few items because we were overweight (err, no, it was the bags that were overweight). Bye bye jean pant! In OR Thambo we wondered around starry-eyed in the duty free section of OR Thambo for a few hours before catching the international flight at 8:30pm. One of our seats was a window seat (yeeehah!) and so the two of us sat peering out into the darkness trying to match up the lights we saw below with the towns mapped on the LCD screens in front of us. Highlights were seeing the end of Africa and the beginning of the Med, Saturday morning sunrise over Spain and spotting the London Eye and a parked Concord as we came cruising into London.

Heathrow was another example of the Lord opening doors (literally). We approached the immigration desk with a wad of paperwork in hand, ready for long ques, a barrage of questions about our one-way flight and bank balance, and problems with the fact that we had decided to take a chance and not get chest X-rays (and thereby try save R500). It turned out somewhat differently. We were ushered into a very short que because we were visa holders, asked "is this your first time here?" by the Immigration Officer, and told "we'll send you a letter telling you where you can go have x-rays taken" by the Health Inspector, and that was that! I was shocked... could have packed my jeans instead of this wad of paperwork. We followed the sign to "baggage collection" and arrived as our bags popped out. Then headed for customs expecting X-ray machines and cavity searches. We walked in and out through an open door without anyone even looking at us or speaking to us (not that they had any reason for concern :-). We opened the next set of swing doors to find 100 people staring at us waving little boards with peoples names on them, but as we walked out Alan (Gaylene's brother) and his wife Chantelle walked in. Perfect timing! One big lesson in "expecting the best". We were then whisked away north to their house in the town of Great Paxton.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=great+paxton&sll=53.098145,-2.443696&sspn=9.191008,20.43457&ie=UTF8&ll=52.261434,-0.230713&spn=4.680972,10.217285&z=7&iwloc=addr&om=1

After much chats we went for a little drive around to show us the village surrounds. The place is breath-taking and is surrounded with wheat farmlands, and walking and cycle trails everywhere. The local dam hosts scores of swans and ducks. Yes, the bird-watching has begun with Alan and Chantelle giving me a supper "birds of Europe" book as a birthday present. Ten lifers in the bag already without trying.

Apparently all the swans in England belong to the Queen!

After a nail biting Super 14 final (i can't beleef... arme haaie!!) we crashed. To help ease into the UK thing, Sunday saw my brothers Rich and Simon and Simon's girlfriend Dannel come round for a braai. Rich brought pseudo boerewors from a local butcher. He apparently heard about boerewors and got the recipe of the net. It tastes alright but they're all in the shape of traditional English pork bangers. Quite a hoot.

Then we explored our village of Great Paxton on foot. Its almost surreal, like a little fantasy world in a movie. No litter, perfectly manicured lawns, kids playing in the street, a local village store, one little bus stop, a little school in the middle, and farmlands all around.

Our house is the little one in the middle. The postman comes around in his little red "postman Pat" van and the ice cream van puts in a regular appearance. You can place orders with the milkman and he just leaves your bottles of milk on the stoep. The local farmer will also deliver organic vegges to your door.

There are farmlands literally 500m from the house and all have public walkways and cycle paths running through them.

Yesterday G and I decided to explore the town of St Neots (about 5km away ..... uuurrr .... whats that in miles?). This is the main town servicing our little village. We did a self guided Historical Trail which was amazing. Way too much to tell so the pix will have to speak for themselves.

John Wessley apparently preached in this building behind G.

The oldest secular building in St Neots built in the 1500s and is now a jeweler.

The town church, St Mary's, was rebuilt in this form in the 1400s. Thats just insane!

Dwarfs only.

The main river in town, the River Great Ouse (pronounced "Oooz").

Finally, a list of things the Fyvies have learnt so far:

1) The blank face you will get from the lady at the coffee shop in response to your request for "rooibos", is genuine.

2) Dragon fruit is a weird looking fruit from South Africa available only in the UK.

3) Just because its light outside doesn't mean its not 9:40pm.

4) Broadband is cheep cheep and allows you to compile heep um much long blog pages.

And the best one so far......

5) The glass opening thingy in the top floor of a double-decker bus is a mirror which the driver down stairs uses to look up to see who is upstairs. You are likely to irritate the driver if you peer down it for an extended period of time trying to figure out what on earth it is.