Cheerio From the Get-Go

According to the plan, Julie and I would debark the second leg of our one-stop flight to Manchester at 2:45 PM with no jet lag from the eight-hour time difference, pick up our Europcar as quickly as Seinfeld's David Putty would in his ads for competitor National Car Rentals, and make it to the Oxenholme Station in time to for a morning cup of coffee (Pacific Time) before Amy's train arrived around 6:00 PM from London, where she'd spent two nights.

The flights didn't include any unnecessary drama beyond the movies we voluntarily watched, and we cleared customs rather efficiently, arriving at the car rental counter with plenty of time to beat rush hour traffic out of the city.

The queue at the Europcar counter was a bit disconcerting, especially when every other rental car desk seemed hungry for new customers, but so be it.  We had gotten a good price from an authorized representative of Europcar, including "Full Coverage" insurance, understanding that in Europe many rental car companies no longer accept our standard auto policies from home.  In our maturing years, we also appreciate the security of a bit less risk.

We finally had our turn at the counter, and the seemingly inexperienced but cheerful clerk, with a trainer looking over his shoulder, welcomed us and began what turned out to be a mandatory one-hour sign-up process.  Our American brands with empty counter space were looking increasingly appealing right about then, but how many more questions could Mr. Bean ask?

Then came the ironic twist.  "Which of our insurance policies would you like, the one for 25 pounds a day with a 250 pound deductible or the one with no deductible for 29 pounds a day?"

"We already have insurance," Julie replied with a smile, confidently pointing to the "Full Coverage" line of our advance contract with their authorized representative that is ostensibly a branch of Manchester Airport itself, according to their web site.

"We only accept our insurance."

No longer in our happy place after ten minutes of going back and forth, we decided to go ahead and take the bait, agreeing to pay for Europcar's mandatory insurance on top of the insurance sold to us by their AUTHORIZED representative company, which for now shall remained unnamed, because I don't want to accidentally have someone click on their web site and fall victim to the same scam.

I still don't know how that extra ransom money added up to 236.26 pounds (close to $300 American) based on Mr. Bean's quoted per day price, but at least we could get on with our vacation.  After all, precious time lost can never be recovered, and that holds even more true when you've invested in vacation time with family.

In the parking lot, we found our car, a shiny but rather battered blue Ford Focus --- what exactly is Europcar doing with all that bonus insurance booty if not repairing their rent-a-wrecks? --- and headed out.

Make no mistake, driving a stick-shift car on the wrong side of the road onto a freeway that uses roundabouts instead of off-ramps on zero sleep isn't as easy as I make it seem, but fortunately, the traffic was so congested that we didn't have to worry about a speeding ticket.  A parking ticket, maybe.

Yeah, Manchester at rush hour is like most big cities, to which is added the confusion of a ring road that resulted in the GPS occasionally telling us to go the opposite direction to save time getting to the same place we were already heading.

After an hour or two (time flies when you're having fun), we crawled out of the sludge and began making measurable progress toward Oxenholme, but I feared falling asleep at the wheel if I didn't get some coffee. Julie had skipped the American Airlines breakfast of yogurt and granola and needed her "morning meal," so we pulled off at a Burger King and shared a Double Whopper and coffee.  We were already late, but we didn't want to arrive as zombies and frighten the girl.

Gina, Laszlo and Emma had come in from Scotland by train in the afternoon and already taxied to our rental cottage in Grasmere where they settled in, so we kept them updated with our estimated arrival times as it moved from 7:00 to 7:30 to 8:00.

By the time we'd parked in the narrow driveway of the stone house and dropped our luggage, we were making the scenic walk back into the village of Grasmere in twilight a little after 9:00 PM.

Guess what?

A tiny village in the Lake District doesn't tend to have restaurants open 24 hours a day like in the big city.  We found one restaurant after another closed for the evening.  At The Good Sport, where we would return a few nights later for a tasty pub meal, their kitchen had closed at 9:00, but they said the Inn at Grasmere might still be serving meals.

We made it in just two minutes before their kitchen closed at 9:30 PM, but the bartender said the kitchen no longer had any pizzas left, probably because they didn't want to spend the energy serving bloody Americans who would all share one pizza and try to order another once they realized this wasn't a pizza large enough to serve more than one adult.

Told to sit anywhere, we found a long table in the elegant, glass-walled Conservatory that Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlet and their gang had apparently already vacated.  Fortunately, Mr. Body wasn't there either.

I can't remember what anyone else had, but I know my fish and chips meal was terrific.  I don't remember the name of the local ale, but it was great too.

Jay and Sasha, along with her mother Libby, had hoped to arrive about the same time we did, but they didn't arrive until about an hour after us.

In previous days they had attended the legendary Formula 1 race at Silverstone and planned to tour of the MG Factory en route (their "Baby Car" is a classic MG Midget), but traffic was worse than expected, as I guess we should all by  now have come to expect.  Food service had long since stopped for the evening, but they managed to grab a few French fries and other nibbles from the other plates.

We all enjoyed another round of drinks.

Even when everyone else happens to be "in the general vicinity" of a foreign location, it goes without saying that co-ordinating everyone's biological clocks can be challenging.  Not only were we evenly split between Eastern and Pacific Time Zones back home, we had people from each zone who had been on Great Britain time for different periods.

On top of that, we have vegans, gluten free, Paleo, high-potato and cheap-o diets with which to contend.  I should add that all of the kids stepped up to buy drinks and meals throughout the trip, which I'm sure they prefer over having Julie and me pay and then complain about their somewhat less conventional choices.

An advantage of sharing a house rather than staying in hotel rooms is theoretically that we can save money on meals, not to mention avoid looking for restaurants catering to all of our different diets, by stocking up on groceries to enjoy at home.  However, we obviously hadn't found time to buy any grocery provisions for our stay as of yet

We did have enough instant provided to get us through the morning, but despite eating late, our three children plus Sasha joined me on a walk into Grasmere the next morning to find some real coffee as well as some breakfast.

Once again, we found nothing was open yet, so we had to wait until 9:00 AM for a little take-away window called Lucia's that emanated delicious aromas to open.

We strolled over to the Co-op grocery store, which really didn't have bad prices at all, and purchased a few necessities and treats, but by now minds were set on Lucia's hand-made pastries we'd seen in the window.

Despite now having real coffee to brew, the kids still bought lattes with coconut milk or whatever, much like the little kids who can't wait 30 minutes for two marshmallows if they can have one marshmallow now, and I bought a latte and chocolate croissant for Julie so she wouldn't feel left out, despite having just bought a bag of chocolate chip brioches at the Co-op for the same price as the freshly made sweet roll.

I would be quite adult about it all, waiting to brew some back home if not just drink instant coffee, but I had to try a fresh Cumberland sausage roll, didn't I?

As it turned out, we ate very few meals "at home," which caused particular angst for my inner-adult when I saw my well-loved companions paying 5 pounds each for a bowl of porridge --- and yes, that is pretty much oatmeal --- when for that price I could have bought a container of oatmeal, some cinnamon, and bottle of syrup that would have provided a week's worth of porridge for all of us, if prepared at the cottage just like the Mama Bear would.

But I have to say, the food everywhere we went was great.  I nonetheless skipped a few meals, as it seemed like we were always sitting down to eat and so didn't seem worth the expense to me personally.

Amy and Lukas would only have one full day with us before flying to Germany, and her grand vision for the Lake District centered on a picnic on a sprawling grassy field, with all the girls wearing white sun dresses like something you might find in Jane Eyre.

The one item I knew we absolutely must do was go to Sizergh Castle, so having finished breakfast around 10:00 AM we were off like a flock of turtles by 11:00 AM to the nearby city of Kendal.

I'm embarrassed to say that I spent considerably longer getting out of the driveway than Jay in his slightly smaller car.  I pulled back and forth like Austin Powers in a hallway, although I was overly cautious to avoid any contact with the thick hedgerows lining the road, much less the ancient stone walls.  I should have bought the more expensive insurance and just banged my way out like Austin would have.

Anyway, we were surprised to arrive before Jay's carload that had a considerable head start.  Buying admission tickets, I learnt we would not be able to buy food at their restaurant for our picnic and eat it at the scenic spot by the lake that we'd seen on line.

We would have to do our picnic elsewhere, it seemed, later in the afternoon.

Not a problem, because we had just finished breakfast anyway, right?

And the castle is hardly Versailles or Schönbrunn Palace in terms of size, much less grandeur

45 minutes or so later, the other car arrived, and we learnt they had stopped for groceries for the picnic.

Because we couldn't bring the picnic inside, and Laszlo eats his first meal at 12 noon regardless of what time zone he is in, they unpacked all the groceries on a picnic table in the parking lot.

I didn't believe it to be what Amy envisioned, but what could I do at that point?

The die had been cast.

Everyone else seemed to be happy to have a little post-breakfast snack, so we settled in for a while.

I always try to remind myself to never let the plan stop me from enjoying the moment, but it can be a challenge, especially when that metaphorical marshmallow is just waiting to be eaten.

Lots of great finger foods had been purchased, and not too many minutes later, the substantial leftovers were stored in the car, freeing us to explore the home of our ancestors.