A Plethora of Bungalows with Faux Tudor Solar Panels

I slept a bit, then breakfast, then a bit more sleep. My feet hurt a but less but I have a lovely little infection at the base of one toe, so when we finally got going I went into a Boots (my fave British chemist) and the pharmacist suggested a warm water soak with some tea tree oil.  Most of the day was spent on one bus or another traveling around the south coast of East Sussex scoping out possible towns for our retirement bungalow. So many faux Tudor houses! But we have a good idea now of where we want to end up and, after all, that was the point of the visit. It’s just relaxation and foot soaking from here on!

Too Much Travel

The landlord sent up the roofers to our apartment not two hours prior to our departure, but the place is all locked now, our car is still along the side of the driveway as the dumpster hasn’t moved, our downstairs neighbors will take care of wny incoming packages, and the car service arrived early so we were on our way to JFK with no issues. I was able to walk to our gate without too much foot pain, but was glad I opted for a wheelchair on the Heathrow end. Because even though we had no seat mate on the plane and were able to stretch out over the three seats, we got no sleep at all on the overnight flight. So not having to walk to baggage retrieval was a blessing. We were on our way to Canary Wharf in short order, but by the time we arrived my feet were killing me. Still, my UK work colleagues were lovely and I couldn’t refuse a brief tour around the extremely fancy office. Alas, the trip across London to catch the regional rail down to Lewes was exhausting, so many escalators and lifts and not having slept didn’t help. We also had a few issues with out hotel room, but all sorted now  Rob’s college friends Debs and Jane came over for dinner, by which time I was too tired to care about anything else  Need sleep now…

The Hardest Part

We’re all packed and waiting for the car to pick us up and take us to the airport. But of course there are still last-minute hitches our of our control, like some weird tech issues at all English airports affecting all incoming flights (last we looked ours was still a go) and the landlord sending up the roofers again to vacuum up all the detritus from the rafters, which took over an hour of privacy away from us  Still, I’m hoping for the best and trying to get into relaxation mode  I should sleep pretty well on the flight!

M 

20,20,24 Years To Go

Happy blogiversary to Pen-Elayne on the Web! The world and I have both changed quite a bit since 2002, sometimes we keep making the same mistakes, sometimes we make worse ones, and every now and then we learn from them. I plan to keep trying to make daily entries for the foreseeable future, but we'll see how things go in England and beyond. The landlord and his helper came by for a surprise inspection of the roof from the inside rafters, making me doubly glad we cleared those out last week! That shook me up a bit (and rudely roused Robin from his morning nap) to the point where I couldn't concentrate on packing for our trip; good job we have at least all morning tomorrow. As of now I think all my clothes are sorted except my travel outfits, and I still have to go through earrings, but first we need to make sure we can sit together (we can't reserve seats until 24 hours in advance), and tomorrow Robin sets the phones so they can work in England while I take care of last-minute job stuff. As half my brain is in travel mode and most of the other half is already overseas, you'll forgive me for not making more of a thing about this blogiversary. Next year for sure!

A Banging Time

Are we home yet? The roofers have just about stopped their banging. This has dragged on for a full week, thanks to them not being around last Tuesday through Thursday, and I've never been so happy to be away. A decent night's sleep at the hotel, followed by a lovely brunch this morning that lasted way shorter than we thought it might, so we Uber'ed it to 30th Street Station and waited a couple hours for our train, running into our cousins (the groom's parents) who were taking an earlier train, for the traditional Jewish goodbye that lasts a bit longer than the Irish one. Yesterday we'd had trouble finding seats on the southbound Amtrak, and figured if we stuck with the redcap we'd have better luck with the northbound train. Alas, although we got seats they were hardly together. Lesson learned, it pays to be fleeced a bit if you want to sit together. I just hope we can get adjoining seats on Tuesday's flight to London! By the time we got back to New York, I wasn't thinking straight enough to remember the subways weren't running to our neighborhood, so we walked through Macy's and waited for the express bus home, which detoured a bit due to street fairs, and we finally got home about an hour ago to, as mentioned above, the sound of banging. It should all be over by the time we return from across the pond, and I'm looking forward to the relative quiet!

Philly Phamily Phun

I could have wished my IT band issues didn't make walking so painful. Robin could have wished he'd used our overnight garment bag as a backpack instead of schlepping it around Central City in Philadelphia for so many blocks. Nonetheless, the wedding of our beloved cousin Jake to Lena (actually their second wedding, the official one was a few years ago as Jake's mom has been ill) was lovely and the reception, though long (and these olds left around 10 PM), a lot of fun. Too exhausted to type more.

Roofer Madness Redux

Have I mentioned next Monday marks the 24th blogiversary of Pen-Elayne on the Web? And that I may go dark for a week or so after that as I'm not sure I can blog from my iPad? Well, if I haven't mentioned that it's because the roofers have driven most of the sanity from my head. They were here from 9 AM to almost 9 PM, and they threw a lot more stuff into the dumpster in the space where my car is normally parked so I know they were still stripping shingles, but I have no idea where they left off as they were hammering like crazy during the last hour or so. We'll find out tomorrow on our way to the express bus. With any luck, by the time we return from Philly everything will have been done. I don't get it, other roofers working on houses in this neighborhood didn't take more than a day. I'm figuring there was just way too much damage on our roof for it to be a quick job. In any case, I wore my earbuds and got through work, we took a long lunch at our favorite sushi place and picked up a bare minimum of food for tomorrow morning, Sunday night, Monday, and most of Tuesday, and I won't have to hear any banging for at least the next couple days. Now to finish packing!

Goodbye Manhattan

Well, I'm coming back to the area on Saturday and Sunday on my way to and from Philadelphia, but this was my last day in the office for the next two weeks. Unfortunately I got very little sleep last night, probably due to nervousness about impending travel, so I sought to leave as early as possible, pretty easy considering very few people were in the office, certainly nobody I supported. So I hightailed it out at 3 PM, sped through Moynihan and Penn, got the subway just as the elevator doors to the platform opened, got a seat right away, and all was fine (give or take having to stand too long on the local bus) and I was able to log on again and do another hour of work when I got home. Trying to wrap up everything before travel time! There's a non-zero chance that I will in fact log off tomorrow with inbox zero...

Shredtastic

Still no roofers, although contractors did come by again to dump more stuff in the dumpster. Glad they stayed away, as I had two more international business trips to book for my partners, one in a 3-way phone call and the other - yep, one last change to the India trip. Meanwhile, Robin has begun shredding all our financial stuff from years past that had been sitting up in the now-vacated rafters between our apartment and the roof, as by law we only need to keep a handful of years of records (and the important ones are pretty much all online now). He also managed to put his old Cintiq drawing tablet back in its original box (another bit that had been stored in the rafters) along with various peripherals, and we're well on our way to getting the apartment in good shape to welcome Jonny's cat Mango when he leaves the weekend after we return to retrieve his car and drive it back from Texas. Been awhile since we've needed to make space for a pet! In the meantime we can now reach the steamer and our suitcases easily, which will make our upcoming trips that much easier. I'm as organized as I can be at work, getting ready to send out my reminders to peers and partners tomorrow morning, and feeling my usual nervousness about travel.

Passage to India

White Rabbits! Do they have that superstition in India? Regardless, that's where one of my partners is headed next month, so I spent half the workday getting the ball rolling on his travel, which seemed to change a few times every hour. We finally got everything set, and it certainly kept me busy during an in-office day! I came home in the muggy and amp weather to find the roofers hadn't been working today, but they certainly made use of the dumpster still sitting in "my" parking spot. At this rate I hope they at least try to finish up by the time we leave for England. In the meantime my car is safe in the driveway in a spot where I can see, so I'm trying not to be too concerned about what happens when we're away.