november 7

9 hours of sleep....check.

1 cup of delicious coffee + hot chocolate....check.

Time to blog!

Well, it's here and here to stay I believe -- the weather, that is. It's grey (gray?), damp, a bit dreary, and getting rather cold. For the past couple of days, it's been getting dark by around 4:45 and I think someone told me that in the middle of winter it can be dark by 3! That will take some getting used to....

Oh! I have a story for you! On Friday, Adrian and I, once again, went to Just Flutes in London. Trevor took us to the train station in Wye Friday morning and asked when we'd be getting back so he'd know when to pick us up. We thought we'd be back around 4 or 5, but we weren't sure. Trevor said anytime was fine as long as we didn't call between 6 and 6:30, when he's eating dinner.

So we went to Just Flutes and while Adrian played flutes for a few hours, I walked around East Croydon, went to the market and got my hair cut. (Hair cuts are so expensive here!) Several hours later, we got lunch at Wagamama and then headed back to the center of London to do just a tiny bit of shopping. We wanted to get Trevor a small gift for driving us to and from the station so much recently. So, going to the center of the city on a Friday afternoon was maybe not the best idea because it took WAY longer than we'd anticipated. But we got his gift and headed back to St. Pancras and then back to Wye....

And this is where the story really starts.

To get back to Wye, you have to take a train from London to the station in Ashford and transfer to another train to get to Wye which takes about 7 minutes. Once we made it to Ashford, Adrian called Trevor to tell him we were almost back to Wye. At this point, it was about 7 pm, quite a bit later than 4 or 5, but we didn't know we were really supposed to be back earlier. So, Trevor was not so happy with us... On the train back to Wye, Adrian and I were of course panicking, realizing we were about to be in trouble with Trevor. We were frantically discussing what to say to him, who would say it, how we would say it... but thankfully we did have a gift for him!

Well, as we were occupied with worry, it seems we missed all the announcements saying that to get off at Wye, we needed to be in the front four cabins of the train. We weren't. Not even close.

The train stopped, we looked at each other confused, and then realized we were about to miss our stop, with Trevor waiting to pick us up. Wonderful... So we, along with two other passengers, ran like crazy people to the first four cabins, pushing people out of the way, panicking... You know in movies when everything happens in slow motion and everything is silent except for the person yelling "NoooOoooOOOOOoOOOOOOOOOOooOooO!!!"? (That sentence was poorly constructed, but whatever. You get the picture.) Well that's exactly what happened. It was terrifying.

Did we make it?


No.

So now we were not only in trouble for being late, but also for being dumb and missing our stop. We had to go to the next station in Chilham, which was not too terribly far away. The other man who missed the stop in Wye called his wife to come pick him up and offered us a ride back to Wye. We accepted his offer because he was clearly not going to kidnap us, so don't worry, parents, if you're reading this. His wife and her friend came and all 5 of us crammed into her tiny European car and drove back to Wye. She offered to take us back to the Old Dairy, which saved us at least 50 pounds. And as it turns out, Trevor wasn't even mad at us....

All's well that ends well.

Oh, and one more very important part of the story: The man who offered us a ride from Chilham to Wye was probably the most attractive person in the world AND HE HAD A BRITISH ACCENT. A real life Hugh Grant, but without all the bad things about Hugh Grant.

And Saturday, November 5th, we went to a huge bonfire/fireworks show nearby to celebrate Guy Fawks night. It's a tradition to have a bonfire and burn an effigy of Guy Fawks, a member of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. They tried to blow up the House of Lords, but were stopped, which is why people celebrate the day. I think I got that right... I could be wrong, but I'm going to go on and just pretend that's accurate...

And today is practice, practice, practice... the usual.

I think that's all I have to write about this morning. And I need another cup of coffee, so I'm going to stop here.

:)

PS - Please just ignore any silly typos I make... because apparently I make a lot of them. I keep finding them and it's embarrassing... :)