Sarah Jane Humke

I decided to break the post into two pieces as it was going to be pretty long even with the metric ton of pictures in it.  Sooooo, here’s Part II…

The day of our departure was a serious flurry of activity that started early and didn’t end, at least for me, for a good 38 hours or so.  It was a REALLY long day….

In the morning we went and took cuttings of my African violet plants.  I more or less filled up a rollaboard suitcase with the the 400 or so cuttings that I had.

 

 

Then there was a lot of running around doing last minute errands and packing.  One of these was taking the remaining geese to their new home.  It was kinda fun as it was in a rental minivan:-)  Pity the poor folks who rent that bad boy next!  Then, in the afternoon, we ended-up taking the pets to check-in at the cargo area at the airport.  We were there for a couple of hours since the paperwork for 5 animals is pretty intense.  But the folks at the cargo area were great and we were able to keep the dogs out until it was time for us to go check-in for our part of the flight.

Once again our plane was “Hot Lips”.

 

We were able to see the pets get loaded onto the plane which was nice.  I was pretty stressed out by this point even though there was nothing more that I could do at this point.

Do I look stressed?

We got through and all of the pets were absolutely fine.  We had about a day to get sleep and get sort of oriented and then we were full-bore into our stuff being there.  We had a lovely truck driver knock on our door at about 8:00 in the morning on Friday with our container in tow.  He told us that the unloading crew would be there in an hour.  We scurried to get dressed and incarcerate the pets.  Alas, we hurried to get everyone in their places and then no-one showed.  So, we called the company and there had been a whoopsie in the planning as they had planned on the truck coming on Monday not on Friday.  So they contracted a local, what they call removals company, to come and unload the container.  

The crew arrived in about an hour and then the hard work started.  I was amazed at how well things came through as even the clay pots that were sort of thrown in at the end were for the most part intact.

 

Arranging the house proved to be…..well…..challenging.  There is a lot of space but oddly not a lot of wall space.  At least not on the first floor.

 

Milo had decided to hole-up in the art nook the night before the movers got there and we really couldn’t get her down.  So she had a lovely birdseye view of the whole moving-in.

 

We are getting used to the area.  It is very much like the area that I grew up in.  Very agricultural.  I think that more tractors go by the house in a day than cars and trucks.  Hell, there almost as many horses that go by!  But it is REALLY pretty, so much so that there is an official designation as for it’s beauty.  

 

 

 We finally found a large craft store in the area that is comparable to a Michael’s or Jo Ann’s.  It’s called Hobbycraft and I wasn’t let down by their selection of yarns.

 I was let down by just how FREAKING expensive they are.

 

If I am going to pay £6.00 for a very small ball of yarn I want to be giving it to a small shop owner.  I actually didn’t buy any yarn at all.  Can you believe that?  Me, walking by lots and lots and lots of yarn.  

 

We’ve been taking lots of walks in the area.  There are a lot of footpaths in the area and the girls love walking on them in good weather.  

 

This is what the area looks like.  The Ivinghoe Beacon is in the background of this photo.

 

On our walks we end-up seeing lots of sheep with their lambs.  They are super cute and pretty much everywhere.

 

All in all, we are adapting quite well.  I have just started a new Meet-up group called the Ivinghoe Aston Yarn Therapy.  I’m hoping that someone will show up to it.  We’ll see.  I will be posting more regularly once we have internet at the house.