A New Beginning

Here I am at the beginning of another adventure! As is tradition, I will open with talk of luggage. My poor suitcase had a rough go of it on my last grand adventure, so I am using part of Hailey's set. She (and Anna, yay!) is meeting me in London at the end of this trip and needed new luggage, so it all worked out. As you can see it is very loverly.

I am headed back to Scotland and England for three weeks. The beginning of the trip I will be in the company of a couple of hilarious ladies Anna and I met on our last tour of the UK. You will be hearing more about them very soon. I'm spending a couple of days in New Hampshire with them and we are all flying out of Boston together. My flights from Vegas to Manchester, NH were without much incident.

I did witness a love burgeoning between a couple of passengers on the commuter flight from Newark to Manchester. The woman was in full Impressive Mode, complete with a loud, almost caustic voice. The man was soft spoken, but appeared to be completely taken with the brash thing across the aisle from him. It was a short flight, but I was highly entertained. Good luck to them, I say!

I collected my bags and noticed a slender blonde woman with short, flippy hair sitting on a bench engrossed in her book. She looked familiar, though the Jessie in my memory had long hair. Deciding that since we were now the only people in the baggage claim that did not work there it was safe to assume she was who I was looking for, I approached. After a tentative, "Jessie?" brought her out of her alternate reality, we were off.

It is beautiful here! The leaves are starting to change, bright reds, oranges and yellows have begun to outnumber the green. I've never really seen the changing leaves before I don't think. Jessie had to go back to work for the afternoon, but Jan arrived just in time to take over Heidi-sitting duties. I felt very safe in her care; obviously, she has a black belt in something.

Jan took me on a drive around the area and up into Maine, where she lives. We had lunch at a little restaurant that sits in the marshes. Wonderful views! The lack of sleep over the last week started to hit me hard and I had to cry off the hike she wanted to take me on in favor of a nap.

In the evening we picked up Jessie's three boys and ate at a delicious chinese restaurant. A sort of Last Supper for her and her family. We returned home to relax for a bit and then headed to bed. I slept about 8 hours total! Amazing, I know. We have a leisurely day of manicures and roaming about the town planned for tomorrow.