We've Arrived in Church Stretton!

View of Church Stretton from inside the hut

The report for Wednesday afternoon is that we had, in Ken's words, "the lie-in of the century" today. After going to sleep at 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, I woke up at 4:45 a.m. when Ken's elbow hit the wall in our small shepherd's hut. He kept sleeping, and I fell asleep again at 7:00 a.m. We then slept some more and finally "got up" (though not really) at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Ken built in a jet-lag day for us to do nothing, and that is exactly what we have done all day in our "Hilltop hut"—nothing. It has been for the most part pouring rain outside, and we've simply enjoyed the view of the green hills and trees. 

On Monday, we got a ride to the airport with our friends Matt and Eva, who happened to be flying to Germany on the same day as we were flying to England. Our flight was uneventful, which is what one always wants. I don't even recall any turbulence. Ken and I didn't bring headphones (keeping pack weight minimal), but we synchronized our seatback screens and watched Mr. Bean's Vacation together without any sound. It worked quite well as a silent movie, and it helped that we had seen it before. We did the same with Wallace & Gromit's The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, but that was a bit harder to follow without the dialogue. I also fell asleep during the latter half. 

At Gatwick airport train station, Ken printed off our train tickets to Church Stretton. Given that Gatwick is in West Sussex and Church Stretton in Shropshire, the train trip was long and involved three separate journeys. The trick was to keep awake enough to get off at the right stops to make the changes. Both Ken and I nodded off at various points, but managed to stay awake. I actually stood for the latter part of each train trip, and a couple of times I almost fell asleep standing. 

But we made it to our shepherd's hut, and now we are thoroughly enjoying our rest!