The Series of Tiny Suprises

After a lengthy, overnight flight, during which neither of us slept, Mom and I arrived at Heathrow. We did have the pleasant surprise ofsharing our flight with a young British man, Jack. A couple weeks ago, Jack and I butchered chickens together for a mutual friend.  He and his brother are the grandsons of my "egg man". All summer they delivered farm fresh eggs to my work. What a small world. He was slightly devastated that the Tim Hortons at the airport gate did not have any sour cream glazed donuts. He was hoping for one last Tim's fix before leaving Canada!

Our next pleasant surprise was that our shuttle from the airport to the hotel (arranged by the tour company) was a luxury sedan, rather than the minivan we were expecting. I'm very grateful that I don't have to navigate the London traffic! By the time we got settled, it was nearly 2pm local time (we left Sundre at 3pm MST) and it was time to find food. A few blocks away, we found an area with local shops and selected Mister Pumpernick. Look at him, how could we not!? Of course, our fir-st meal in the UK was fish and chips. We ended up sitting by two ladies who will be on our tour with us - like I said, small world!

The day's forcast was calling for rain, but we were blessed with warm sunny weather. So, we left our coats and umbrella in the hotel. While we ate, the rain came, so it was a rather damp walk back!

Most of what we did today was eat and sleep. Our nap was cut short by a scheduled test of the fire alarm system. It's just as well, it's better to acclimate to local time. It was getting dark when we went down for supper at 7, so we opted to eat in the hotel lounge. Waiters are quite concienscious of allergies, so I didn't much of it when the description of the Caesar salad mentioned anchovies. As it turned out, there were actual fillets of anchovies draped across my salad. Lesson learned, never assume! 

Leif and Saga were delighted by the tiny jars of ketchup and mayonnaise brought to the table!


They day finished with a soak in the comfiest hotel tub I've ever seen. This was especially delightful, because it's incredibly rare for hotels in Europe to even have bathtubs. Nothing like tea and a biscuit before bed while I write!



P.S. If there is a way to edit the size and placement pictures on this tablet, I haven't figured it out yet, so bear with me!

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