No Place

I love Home. Home is where you take a brolly out with you even though it is blazing sunshine because chances are it will rain before you can get back. Home is where you hear "and your penny change". Home is where you drive fast down narrow country lanes at midnight. Home is where meals are served with gravy. Home is where clean clothes appear in my drawers and wardrobe. Home is magic.

It is also rather beautiful to me. I know skit feels that she lives in a much better place but to me orchards and vinyards are the thing. And country houses with elaborate gardens.

I went oop north (even skit must agree with me that Hull is north, right?) for Fairie's wedding and experienced the dull and run down villages there. Either the buildings were new and ugly or old and needing work. Many were vacant and up for sale. Down here in Kent (and Sussex- I live on the border) villages are full and vibrant. Basically because everyone that lives there commutes and gets London salaries and so can afford to keep up the mock Tudor cottages with roses around the gateposts.

While Home, I made some effort to do things with the Family. One afternoon we took off to Groombridge place and saw dinosaurs, dragons and zeedonks (those with the stripey toe-socks). There was a raptor show as well and the hawk took a particular liking to my dad's head. This is Kent (or Sussex...). So much more organised nature than the lands skit roams. Another day was spent in Maidstone (morning- much rain) and Faversham (afternoon- blistering heat). We wandered the orchards looking at apples, pears, plums, quinces, cherries and mulberries. Exciting, no. But exceedingly pleasant.

From email to mum:
The bus to Gatwick didn't leave until noon so I should have taken dad up on the offer to have a lift with him. It was incredibly disorganised and I gained nothing by sticking with the crowd. Ah well. The journey to Gatwick took about 90 minutes thanks to traffic. Then it was about 20 minutes to check in because I was lucky and got on one of the first buses to arrive. Then I grabbed a sadwich and a brownie from WHS and joined the queue for the departures lounge/security gate. That queue took about an hour so it was almost 3pm when I got through. There was only one metal detector in operation upstairs. I assume that there were more in the downstairs security but perhaps not as that queue was snaking all over the check in plaza. Gatwick really couldn't handle us all. So I was patted down and sent onto the gate which I reached at 3pm. Just after I got there, they announced that we could bring books, magazines and food onto the plane as long as we showed the receipt to prove it was bought at the gate. Suddenly I found myself in a stampede to the tiny WHS shop which had one poor girl on a till to serve the passengers of an entire 747. I lucked out and got the very last issue of New Scientist on their shelves. Of course this flimsy read only lasted me just over an hour so I was twiddling my thumbs for a while. They started boarding at 4ish. Everyone had to be patted down and their bags inspected again so it took about an hour and a half to get us all on board. Once on board I was quite surprised at how fast we took off. I guess that is why we were at Gatwick. Normally at Heathrow we queue for about half an hour for the runway. Once in the air, everything was okay. No turbalence. They provide us with more food on this leg of the journey as you are not meant to sleep like you are coming from the states to the uk. Which was nice as I get hungry. I think I slept for a bit but as always it is hard. We touched down around 8pm I think. There was no difference in security at the SF end. I got a shuttle ride back to Menlo Park and punced on MR begging her for milk for breakfast. She also gave me strawberries and some snacks for a late dinner.