Better late than never!

​Even in London, life gets busy!  I wrote this last week, but am just now getting around to posting...but it's still all true! 
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We (well, Charles & Jack, at least) were sad to miss opening night of Black Panther in London last week, but we finally made it yesterday afternoon.  Why not go to the movies at 4:30 on a school day?  I thought I’d steal a line from one of the extra scenes that seemed particularly poignant, especially after our recent adventures:
 
"We all know the truth — more connects us than separates us," T'Challa adds. "We must find a way to look after one another as if we are one tribe."
 
Last week, we rented a car and set off on a “Tour de UK.”  We realized early on how over-ambitious we were, and that England is not as small a country as one might think based on the map.  We chose to embrace it, and had some amazing adventures.  The wonderful thing about having a car in a country where there are far more beautiful, ancient, interesting sites than there are days in the year is that there is no pressure to even try to accomplish seeing all of them.  En route to our first night’s lodging with friends in the very north of England, Newcastle upon Tyne, we let ourselves follow signs to a “home” we’d seen once in a guidebook, and were delighted to find Burghley House, built by William Cecil in the mid-1500s, mostly to ourselves.  The kids enjoyed their first breath of wide-open spaces and (very) cold fresh air!  We had lunch in the charming town of Stanmore, splitting a pint of beer and enjoying the warm glow of the kids realizing this was an adventure.  Even our bathroom break was charmed- again choosing a random “historic market town,” we discovered a beautiful arched bridge (c. 1600), and an old mill adjacent to the car park.  I should pause here and give Charles appropriate props for managing all these small towns (and their related traffic circles) while driving on the opposite side of the street! 
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The next morning, before setting off for Hadrian’s Wall, we detoured to the coast to climb rocks in Tynemouth- literally where the Tyne river meets the North Sea.  Even Caroline was hugely impressed, exclaiming “This is crazy awesome!  This is the best thing I’ve done in my entire life!” (which, if you’ve been following, you’ll appreciate was a beautiful thing for us to hear).  It was so cold, even the seal (yes, that’s right) didn’t stay for too long.
 
​Hadrian’s Wall was built around 122-132 by the Romans as the upper border between the conquered lands and those crazy Scots (or their northern predecessors).  Parts of it still exist, and we met some family (cousins I’d never met!) at an ancient Roman Fort.  Enduring a fine mist of icy rain and wind that was quite literally on a current from Siberia, we didn’t last long, but got a sense of why those Romans maybe didn’t go any further north and gave up on the fort after awhile.  The boys enjoyed finding the oldest toilets they’d ever seen.
It was somewhere along the road between there and Edinburgh that I started to realize how many sheep there are in Great Britain.  Wondering how they withstood the cold wind, Charles reminded me of their wool sweaters.  Classic Irons humor.  The roads in Northumbria and along the southeast coast of Scotland were breathtaking, and gave us a sense of the scale of minimally uninhabited countryside that still exists in the UK outside of London and the industrial cities.  It reminded me very much of two places we love- central Virginia and the Italian countryside.  Raw and natural but cultivated and life-giving, in large swaths as far as the eye can see. I love the way the light softens when it can spread out over huge wide-open spaces like that.  I imagine Heaven is like that… ​

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See that ridge on the horizon? Charles ran that hill in the snow that morning!

 We arrived in Edinburgh at night and crashed into our AirBNB, sending Charles for Thai take-out and eating in our PJs (Valentine’s Day on the goJ)  We didn’t allow nearly enough time to fully appreciate this great city, but we were up as bright and early as we could be, with French pastries and lattes in hand, to be at Edinburgh castle when it opened (by way of the playground).  It really was the most amazing castle I’ve been to- so well preserved it was easy to imagine walking around in long dresses and capes.  For those who know Tolkien, I felt like we were in Minas Tirith!
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I was most sad that we didn’t have any time to browse the adorable shops of tartans and wool scarves, but after a brief stop in St. Giles (in honor of our good Presbyterians) and a good lunch (complete with an Edinburgh gin & tonic), we kept our priorities straight and headed to Victoria Street for a feel of Diagon Alley and in search of Tom Riddle’s grave in Greyfriar’s Kirk.  Even I kind of loved how Edinburgh feels Harry Potter-ish, and I could see the ways JK Rowling took inspiration from her surroundings while writing it. 

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​We hit the road again to head to our much anticipated “night in a castle.”  Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, we hit a pothole and got a flat tire.  When we called AA, the only landmark we could give was “the River Tweed on our left.”  Thank goodness for European engineering and the “drive while flat” tires they equipped our rented BMW with.  I will save the details of the saga, and now that everything has ended well, we’ll celebrate how we ended up staying the next two nights at Augill Castle, near the Lake District in England.  Charles and I have been able to stay in some very nice places in our 15 years of marriage, and we both agree that this was our favorite hotel experience.  I can’t even describe all my favorite things—the meat and cheese platter we were served when we arrived, the open bar (honesty service), the claw foot tub I enjoyed while my children were sleeping in their own room attached to ours, the good sheets and heavy down comforters, the family style breakfast served at banquet tables in the dining room, the free-range chickens, the dinner party, the after-dinner drinks, the genuine welcome and tolerance of families with children, the amazing hospitality of the proprietors’, who ultimately drove the kids and I into town for lunch as we were stranded?  If anyone is looking for a unique family vacation in England, I can’t recommend this place enough!  It was a wonderful occasion to embrace making lemonade out of lemons, and we will remember it forever! 

Augill Castle

​As we drove home to London, we marveled at the blessing of a flat tire and how our travels had brought us into contact with so many decent human beings.  Friends we hadn’t seen in decades who welcomed us into their home, family members who drove out of their way to meet us, though we didn’t know each other existed last month, two exceptionally kind and fascinating tow-truck drivers (one of whom was heading off to play bagpipes at a wedding in Uganda!), car servicemen who advocated for us and shared donuts with Charles, waitresses and barmen who were happy to give directions and charge my phone.  Being out of context and needier than usual, we were humble recipients of kindness and grace.    We were the wayfarers to whom these strangers offered comfort.  And so, I’m back to T’Challla.  Rather than hoard our resources, life is so much better when we share our blessings and look out for one another, regardless of where we come from!