The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
Home to Somerset

The Route The first day of a major trip is basically a loss. It's always an early morning flight out of Seattle and then an overnight flight across the pond, meaning we arrive having precious little (if any) sleep for about two days. We can function for a brief period of time but confess to being largely addle-brained in the process. Today was one of those days.

We arrived at Heathrow a little after 7am. Don't fool yourself by thinking that an early morning arrival will put you ahead of the rush, because virtually ALL flights from the US arrive in Europe early in the morning ... and the rather large arrival hall was packed! Fortunately, we had been given passes to the euphemistically-named Fast Lane, which meant our wait for processing could be timed with a watch rather than a calendar! I'm not sure exactly what qualified us for the perk, but it may have been that I have perpetual elite status with Delta. Whatever the reason ... thank you!

Then it was the shuttle to the EuropCar rental office which was actually a pretty squared-away operation. The staff were all well-dressed (when was the last time you saw a row of rental agents in matching coat and tie?) Sign in on the computer, give them name and cell number, and you'll get a ticket like in a deli. When your number is called, you're up. The process went quickly and we were told to go to Zone 2 and pick any car we liked. So for $202.51, we have an almost-new small SUV for the next 17 days. Gotta love that!

I got the deal through Kemwel.com, a service that scans all the available rental companies. They have an office in the US, are very easy to work with and will let you re-book at a lower cost if the car you want comes down in price. I re-booked three times on this rental as the price dropped by over $100!)

The road to West Pennard, our new home base, went right past Stonehenge. You've surely seen pictures of it and for about US$28 each, you can get a bus from the Visitors Center that would let you stand behind a rope, 50 feet outside the circle. You can see the people in the photo on the right ... which we took from the road ... for free! Think of it as a drive-by shooting!


Another hour or so on the road and we pulled into the Summerhouse, our new home, around 1:30, an hour and a half before check-in time. Caroline was finishing up cleaning, but let us drop our bags in the cottage. From the front door you could easily see the Glastonbury Tor (hill). We'd been trying to survive on airplane food, so we hadn't eaten much or very well. We did stop at a service area earlier for breakfast, but I needed something a bit more substantial, so we walked down the road about 400 yards to a pub. Along the way we got a hint of life in this small village.

I loved the feel of the garage. It seemed like a no-nonsense car place and reminded me of similar shops I remember seeing in rural Vermont when I was a kid. The houses along the main road seemed quite large and most had a rental cottage advertised. The big house on the right has a beautifully thatched roof. Never mind the 20-year claims of modern roofing, a good thatch job can last over 100 years before it needs to be replaced (although some patching will likely be required in the interim).

Our afternoon destination was the Red Lion, the pub and restaurant down the road. It has a (typically) small bar, ancient hand-hewn beams and just feels comfortable. Hearing us speak with an American accent is enough to trigger conversations with strangers. In this case, we met Frank and Jan Riding and their elderly blind dog, all recently returned to the UK after living 45 years in the Caribbean. (OK, probably not 45 years for the dog!) We had a pleasant chat for a couple of hours over pints of local cider, a great omelette and an even greater clotted cream cheesecake. We enjoyed each other's company so much, in fact, that we made a date to get together for dinner tomorrow night!

After we officially took possession of the cottage, we headed into Glastonbury for some basic grocery shopping, came back to the cottage and slept for the next twelve hours!


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