Contrary to the photo below of our flat tire, this little road-trip turned out to be part of one of my most favorite days in England with James. If you’re perplexed, and haven’t watched the video above… just watch and you’ll see why. How baffling it was to both me and Andrew that James had never heard of a Chinese fire drill before! Baffling and absolutely adorable. “Do we go clockwise or anti-clockwise?” I mean, who even says anti-clockwise? James will be moving to America soon, so it simply felt like the right thing to do… Especially since we were stuck in traffic en route to Stonehenge. We certainly gave all of the cars surrounding us something to laugh at while they waited for their turn to see a bunch of ancient rocks in the middle of nowhere!
In the end, we decided to save Stonehenge for the following morning (to avoid the traffic) and instead headed straight for James’ sister, Caroline’s house in the countryside. Caroline and her wonderfully welcoming husband, Neil have a home that makes me second guess moving to New York City. It was so calm and quiet that I think I can safely say Andrew and I finally felt completely relaxed for the first time in a long, long time on this trip. So relaxed, that Andrew fell asleep while the rest of us had an apéritif and caught up since we last saw each other (at least since Caroline and I saw each other last, as it was the first time I met Neil)! We took the dog for a walk… we took in a beautiful view overlooking Lord Bath’s estate below… and Andrew practiced his British accent with some gentle coaching by James. Usually it’s the other way around, us coaching James, inserting as many “yos” and slang words into his formal accent as we can. Back at “home” (our home for the night) I could barely make it through desert, and snuck up to bed early, if nothing else to revel in the calm before our visit to Stonehenge, reunion with other friends in London, the Notting Hill Festival, and oh right… our transatlantic flight to Peru!
