...but I had to be in town for other reasons

I have arrived!! In beautiful, warm, sunny England, with rolling green fields, and squirrels frollicking, with daffodils sprouting everywhere, magnolias budding, and cherry trees blossoming. Ahhh.

The remainder of the flight was about the same as the first half, except that I had an aisle seat, and the window seat person couldn't sit still. I kept waking up to find her crawling over me. But I still managed to sleep almost the whole way.

On Saturday we headed south to start our house hunting, in the glorious warm weather. We drove past a turn off to Dorchester, which meant I provided Adam with lovely song for the rest of the journey (or until he issued a gag order). The first house we visited was perfect: a modern townhouse in a little village, nicely furnished, with the current owner going overseas for a few years. I was almost expecting that every house would look equally wonderful in the sunshine, but I was wrong. Reading has a lot of old, exceptionally narrow terraces. The bathrooms were attached to the kitchen at the back, but the kitchens were only one person wide. So now we are planning our approach to convince the owner of the first house that we will be fantastic tenants.

We managed a bit of shopping in Reading, amid the Easter sales crowds, before heading home. In true English fashion, we wandered up to the local for lunch and to watch the England v North Ireland football match on the big screen. I had fish and chips for £6, which was so big it came on a platter. Adam had a mixed plate, which neither of us realised when ordering, was a mixed plate of deep fried. Not so much as a skeric of salad.

After a 7 hour afternoon nap yesterday, and the change to daylight savings, I am almost on Adam's time table. But I had a rude shock when leaving the house this morning: no sun and only 8 degrees. I should have known that the sunshine wouldn't last.