B2B Part Two 2023: Arrival Day

After a three-year postponement because of the pandemic, we felt very good about travelling to England again, but we also felt very strange. Because of Ken's suppressed immune system, we had continued to live cautiously for months longer than most people: we avoided large public gatherings and eating in restaurants, and we wore masks right up until the trip. We decided that after the flight and the public transit to our first B&B, we would re-enter "normal" life during and after our travels in England.

On the morning of our departure day (May 4), we had breakfast at McDonald's (drive-thru, sitting in the car, as we had done for the last three years), and then met with Pastor James at Walnut Grove Lutheran Church for a prayer to send us off, which was encouraging. As usual, we had a few last-minute things to take care of before we left, but for the most part everything had been taken care of--at least, we thought so at the time. 

Perhaps we could say that just like our walk along Offa's Dyke (see B2B Day 57), our travel began with a series of ups and downs, some more steep than others:

Down: We received a message that our British Airways flight was going to leave an hour late. 

Up: The delay ultimately didn't have any impact on our travels. Our friends Peter and Joan picked us up at 5:15 p.m. and drove us to the airport in plenty of time with no traffic trouble. 

Down: At the airport, we had a surprisingly disappointing dinner of vermicelli and a spring roll. 

Down and off the edge of a cliff: While waiting at our gate, Ken tried to sign into Gmail and because of the different IP address, Google required verification to be retrieved from a code sent to our landline phone at home. Without the code and after much confusion with multiple codes being sent, Ken ended up being locked out of his Gmail account, locked out of the blog, and worst of all, locked out of Airbnb because his sign-in to Airbnb was partnered through Google. It was frightening and frustrating to lose access and have no way of contacting a human being to help. Even though we don't watch the series, we had recently watched a random Star Trek: Enterprise episode entitled "Dead Stop," which intriguingly illustrates the helplessness of humans trying to deal with a technological system that doesn't care, has no morals, and exists only to serve itself. We definitely wished we could have talked with a human being about our situation, since it was incredibly stressful to wonder how we were going to manage this trip without email and the ability to commuicate with our Airbnb hosts, e.g., to get lockbox key codes to enter! [This experience really threw me: post-pandemic, I felt nervous and anxious about travelling, period, and also wanted to get away from technological life and just enjoy walking in the beautiful UK countryside. So to have our ability to communicate taken away right at the start was about the worst way possible to begin a trip. (Hey Google, how about implementing travel notifications like banks and credit card issuers do!) Seriously though, I already felt rather "fragile" emotionally coming out of the pandemic so it was very, very difficult to have this happen.—Ken]

Up: They fed us well on the flight, which was uneventful, though at times a bit bumpy.

Down: Bumpy enough that a young woman needed to use an airsick bag. I don't think I've been on a plane recently where that has happened.

Up: We landed safely at Heathrow on Fri. May 5 around 3:15 p.m., later than scheduled but well within the "buffer" Ken had built into our itinerary, so there was no stress about making our scheduled trains to London Paddington and then to Stroud, Gloucester (our arrival night's destination).

It still felt strange to scan our passports and walk through the "nothing to declare" exit so swiftly and easily. We were early enough that there was a Heathrow express train to Paddington that left before the express train we had booked via advance purchase for a significantly reduced price. Our understanding was that we had to take the later train we had booked in advance; we talked to a couple of different workers at the station who said that we could take the earlier train, so we did. I think our interpretation of the advance purchase terms and conditions was the correct one, because our tickets didn't work at the Paddington ticket gates and we had to have the gates opened by a train official. 

 

A lovely view from our Airbnb room in Stroud

Happily, we had no issues with the second leg of our train journey from Paddington to Stroud. It all went smoothly and Ken had fun identifying places along the way, particularly disused bits of the Thames & Severn Canal, the towpath of which we'd be walking along on our first day's walk (see B2B Day 27).

 

Our stellar Airbnb hosts Richard and Christine met us on the platform at the station just as we were taking our masks off—Richard looking at us as if he thought we were probably the right people to meet, and Chris holding a sign that said "Welcome Ken & Sara." It wasn't like they were that much older than us, but it was so sweet to be met and it felt like Sara's parents picking us up at the ferry terminal in the old days! They drove us to their place, with its excellent arrangement for guests. Our room was lovely and had an amazing view across the valley, with cattle and sheep grazing on the hillside opposite. Stroud is a town surrounded by the beautiful Cotswold landscape; it felt so good to be back and nestled in the English countryside.