Not too surprisingly, after crashing around 830 pm last night, we woke up fairly alert before 1am. This wasn’t ideal, but after chatting for a spell and then putting on some guided sleep meditation, we were able to fall back asleep until nearly 9am. Being a self-catering establishment, we made ourselves some tea and ate some pastries we picked up at Waitrose.
We didn’t have any big plans for the day other than to take it easy. We drove to the village of Shere, about twenty minutes away. We have been there before back in the winter of 2017, but as we weren’t far, figured we’d check it out again. It is where The Holiday was filmed. The only people out and about in the town were pensioners, or “retirees” to Americans. We walked off in about every direction one could walk in Shere. It is such a small village, that we had adequately covered the entire area in about twenty minutes, shrugged our shoulders and got back in the car.
As much as the haberdashery was calling to us, I just don’t know if I have the space for a new hat. The pub was not yet open, so unless we wanted tea with the pensioners, there was no reason for us to linger in town/village. I had now developed a hunger, so we went to Greggs, a UK institution known for its sausage rolls. Rather than eat them on site (which would have been a gas station parking lot…or in the local tongue “a petrol station’s car park”), we drove to an electric charging point for the car.
It took a bit of time to register the phone app to recognize what I was trying to do before getting the plug set up and passing the time by eating a sausage roll. I also had a katsu curry chicken bake, but grew tired of the taste and threw half away into a rubbish bin. Shortly thereafter a squirrel jumped in the bin, fished it out and attempted to drag it across the car park. Aggressive creatures the squirrels here. Just this morning, a train from Reading to Gatwick was canceled because two squirrels took over the train and refused to disembark. They didn’t even have tickets! All in all, it took about 30 minutes to charge the car 20% — not exactly an endorsement for electric vehicles. If you buy an electric car, you also need to apparently own a house, so you can charge overnight and not idle awkwardly in a car park.
After charging the car, we drove to Rose’s Tea Shop in Sutton Green. Nicole had a ginger loaf and I ordered a cream tea: cream tea being a scone with clotted cream and jam with a pot of tea. Unlike in the U.S., where there are about a dozen different tea options at any establishment, in the U.K., it’s one — English breakfast. We enjoyed our afternoon tea outside in the pleasant English weather — a statement not often uttered in these parts.
We then returned to the Whitmoor farm to regroup and explore the nearby woodland path. There was a swing hanging from a tree halfway down the path, which was swung on. Also on property was a small putting green, a trampoline, and a wildflower garden. We took full advantage of all these amenities, which did not take long. Then we went to find a place for dinner.
We chose a pub just around the corner from the Whitmoor farm, but decided to check out Triggs Lock just a bit farther down the road. It proved to be a nice diversion of solitude amongst the house boats and a peaceful canal as the sun slowly descended in the sky.
After our short romp around the countryside, we went to the Olive Tree Pub where the kitchen had only just opened. We grabbed a table outside and had fish n’ chips and a pizza with some ales. Then we hustled back to the farm to do some laundry and settle in for the evening in preparation for our journey tomorrow down to Nairobi in Kenya.
passports & pepto bismol 