Winscombe and John's Family

Hello Readers! I know, I know I have been slacking off on the blogs lately. It isn't that I haven't had things to write about, it is just soooooo busy at work. But here I am, on my first half term holiday, and now the ideas that have been in my head can be freed and written forth!

A few weeks ago John and I went to visit John's parents in Winscombe. It is a beautiful place, a small English countryside village, run mostly by Quakers, therefore there is only one pub in the entire village. The village winds up and down hills, and is surrounded by farms, cows, and other forms of nature. It takes about two hours on a good traffic day to get there by coach, but on our Friday night it took over three. I was in a bad mood because I had to rush from Dagenham, where I work, to Newbury Park, where I have to drop off my timesheets, to Victoria station, where I was to get on the coach with John. Needless to say, I had been running, literally, 2 and 1/2 hours, on all different sorts of trains, by the time I got to Victoria where John was waiting for me. I was not in a good mood, and John, bless him, called, not realizing my situation, and had the nerve to say, "Hurry up please!" Oh, he has learned his lesson ladies and gentlemen, he has learned his lesson. :-) Right John?

So we get there finally, and John's dad is waiting to pick us up. John's dad has a great sense of humour, pretty easy going, and full of facts and knowledge about England, its culture, and its history. I enjoy talking to him and am always learning something new or being corrected gently on something I said. Such as, there are no back yards in England, you do not ever refer to a garden as a yard. I don't mind, it is stuff I need to know in order to correctly converse with people here and he never says it in an overbearing or rude way.

Finally we arrive at the house and John's mom is there, waiting for me. Imagine the sweetest hostess in the world, next to mom, and this is Janet, John's mom. She smiles and takes me in her arms and gives me a secure hug and I know I am safe and warm for the night. The mad dash to the train station, the super long coach ride; they are all forgotten when John's mom hugs me. Then, to top things off, I get to meet Jemma, John's sister, and her husband James. Jemma is expecting her first child in February and was as cute as could be by continuously rubbing her tummy in an absent minded way. We ate Janet's wonderful cooking she had waiting for us and decided to head into the lounge to pay with John senior's new Wii.

The Wii is the game console with a wireless hand held controller that you can use like a bat, a tennis racket, or a bowling ball depending on what game you are playing. We decided to play ten pin bowling and I soon had the hang of the controller. In other words, ladies and gentlemen, I kicked some butt and won with a 185 score. Dad, are you proud?

Next morning I woke up to the sound of mooing cows coming from the farmer's field next door, and the smell of toast coming from downstairs. Breakfast was amazing, as usual when Janet cooks, and off she, Jemma and I went to shop in Bristol. The boys, including John's younger brother Jack, were heading to Jack's football game.

Downtown Bristol is amazing, the shops are similar to those in the States, but there aren't many shopping malls that are indoor. I have learned to love Marks and Spencer and bought practical walking and working winter shoes from them. But this weekend I discovered House of Fraser and other stores that are just as nice. I also was happy to discover that Jemma, Janet, and I have similar tastes in fashion. It was nice to know this and also nice to discover how easy it was to talk to both of them and get along with them during the course of the day.

Finally we all met back at the house and enjoyed an evening of curry cooked by John's mom. In England, Indian food is referred to as curry, or as to having a curry. Janet did an amazing job and the meal was superb. I am learning to enjoy the spiciness of curry more and more and using it as a substitute for my decent Mexican food cravings. I especially like the potato curry and beef curry.

The next morning I got to experience the town of Cheddar. Yes, my faithful readers, this is where the cheese was created. But, there is also an amazing rock gorge called Cheddar Gorge. This natural rock formation goes up hundreds of feet and runs on for several miles. As John's father drove us up through it I got to see tons of people repelling and climbing at different points along the gorge. I also got to see small and large mountain goats. It was crazy to see a long haired, long horned huge mountain goat out in the wild. Oh and the cheese, ahhhhh the cheese . . . . I think that is enough said.

Next ladies and gentlemen . . . . my lovely international kitty Gidget.