#95 August 27, 2022. Nomad Diary. Housesit in Milton Keynes. Bletchley Park. Move to North Shields.
Saturday Activities. 27. We leave our house sit house all cleaned up. We are all packed up and going on a train trip from MK to London; change trains to Newcastle. On the train, we passed by some towns that I wanted to go to: York and Durham. I was sitting next to a man and Darrell across, who in talking to him I found out so much about his life. He is Tom, a retired plumber from near North Shields. I found out that he has a 91 year old mother in law that owns a Mobile home park that he and his wife manage and care for even though his MIL thinks she is still in charge. Tom told me so much about different areas that was really helpful, and he also told me some memories from his childhood. When the ride was finishing, Tom told me that he really enjoyed our visiting together. He also explained to me about how to get to the Metro to ride to our place in North Shields. We left the train and got right over to the Metro and then to North Shields. When we got to our station, we found our apartment was only about 2 short blocks away. Once we get moved in, we find a place to go for dinner and also grocery shopping within a mile-plus from our flat. The apartment was not perfect but held some contrasts for us. It was clean. Yay. A plus. Finding the lockbox with the key was time consuming and a man working in the pizza shop across the street came and showed us where the lockbox is! Once we got inside we can’t find our towels. So Darrell contacted the host and the maid brings us towels. It’s been fine ever since. The neighborhood is kind of run down and someone is clearly keeping the trash cleaned up in the street out front. This town is really showing some streets with rebuilding and improved real estate. The inside of this apartment is ok, but not posh as we thought it would be. Once we got past how we thought it would be, then we were ok with how it is. It’s been quiet and has a great location for walking to the river and to the Metro. I’m really enjoying it as I type this on the following Wednesday.
Week’s Highlights.
Friday. 26. Today we learn that our host will be coming back tomorrow on Saturday. We decide to try to leave on Saturday morning by checking to see if we can change our train tickets as they are first class for next Wednesday. We also see if we can get 4 extra nights at our stay that we currently have booked in North Shields. We get a green light on both of these travel issues, and then we tell our host that we will leave on Saturday morning. She told us that we could stay on with her as house guests which is amazing and thoughtful! This is a bank holiday weekend and there are travel issues with worker strikes causing delays and cancellations. But apparently we are going to go ahead and get to Newcastle and to the close town of North Shields on Saturday. We walk about a mile to a bike rental unit and get bikes and go see some sights today. We go to the Iron Trunk on the old canal. We get to go through a couple of very cool and strange biking tunnels on our trek, and we stop at a disappointing pub for lunch! It seems we get a good pub and then a not-good pub. We get back and have dinner at our house. We are pretty tired from our ride today and we have several things to do in the morning just before leaving. I get as much of the house cleaned up as I can and we enjoy our evening watching one of my current favorite tv shows here: Antiques Road Trip. It pits two antique buyers against each other with 200 pounds each to buy 5 lots for auction. They go on a roadtrip to antique shops so I learn a bit of geography and I get to watch them shop which is something that I do very little of now that I don’t have a house! They go to auction and see if the gain or lose to their sum. Then they go shop again for the next 5 lots and they do this for 5 times and keep watching their totals along the way.
Thursday. 25. Today is a rainy day. We haven’t had too many of these as this is one of the hottest and driest summers the UK has ever seen. So here is some needed rain. I won’t be doing laundry today because I can’t hang it out. This house has a really nice clothes line too! Darrell makes us pancakes that is a treat and a homemade luxury with fresh berries and real maple syrup as the UK has a Canada connection! We stay at our place all day and we work on the computer, relax, clean a bit and trip plan through the end of September. We will leave Edinburgh and go to Ulverston in the Lake District! I’m so excited about this segment too. I love the excitement and differences in each part of our journey. I have an artist friend in Huntsville, Alabama who asked if I would be going to Beatrice Potter’s house in the Lake District. I didn’t know if we would, but I found out that it is close enough to go from Ulverston! I’m so excited to go and see it with my eyes and my friend’s heart! Later I found out that Ulverston is also close enough to go to the home of Sticky Toffee Pudding which I have not had yet while being here. Another anticipation of mild smiles! Lol. We also made a decision to move after Ulverston to go to Liverpool and then to Wales.
Wednesday. 24. We spent considerable time planning our trip in the coming weeks. We discussed where and when we wanted to travel. Then we each looked at places with their pros and cons and distances to and from train stations. We have used the Airbnb app quite a lot in the states, but more recently we are going to booking.com more often. We got our second week stay selected for Edinburgh, September 14-21. Our prior week in Edinburgh is a housesit. We find out today that our current house sit host may be coming back on Saturday this week and cut this house sit short by 4 nights! We discuss this briefly and then decide not to think about it until we have more information. We go to our local bus to ride to the big MK mall. Our bus is delayed! This happens often here and it seems that we have the bus route that it happens most to! Part of the problem I overheard from a driver telling someone that they are 40 drivers short and they just can’t keep up all the routes as they used to. They are trying to get people hired and trained, but they just aren’t there yet. So we finally get to the mall so we can go to the outdoor food court where the immigrants have food stands set up. I eat Greek and Darrell eats German. All good! We enjoy looking at all the cultural foods but decide to go with what appeals to us of course! We go grocery shopping and then get a bus back to our place.
Tuesday. 23. We stay near our place today. Close to our house I made a 2:30 hair appointment for a wash, cut and style for 30 pounds. This is about $35. The woman gave me a good cut which is my first since getting one in Ft. Lauderdale back in May! Before this appointment we walked a couple of miles to another neighborhood called Oxley Park for an Indian lunch at Pappa J’s restaurant. We were the only people eating lunch while we were there. The food was delicious and we had some extra attention and conversation with our college student waiter who was from Pakistan. We had spicy dishes that we shared: one chicken, one okra and two orders of Naan with spices.
Monday. 22. Today we ride the bus to Bletchley about 5 miles from our location since we have to go the main station and get the bus there. It takes us about an hour to get there. Very different from having a car to just go and do, but this is our way of slowing down and doing life differently while we are here. I have scoped out a bakery that I want to go to for pastry and cappuccino. It is amazing and fully true to their 5 star google ratings. Then we walk about a half mile to the Bletchley Park Museum and enter. Wow! We spend 5 hours here. We took a short break to share a snack bar cheese sandwich. We have seen this place referred to in a couple of movies we have seen and some History channel shows. The story here is just incredible and amazing! There were 9000 people assigned here at the peak of World War Two. It began with fewer people around 1941 when the Brits got a German ‘enigma’ machine from Poland who had decoded some of the ways this secret coding machine was working. This led to more decoding methods and amazing machine development over the war years. From this came the development of the first computer called Colossus. This place was all under secrecy too. After this we walked back to the town and ate at a delicious Greek Gyros place before heading back to the bus stop. I see our bus number and run and get on the bus. Darrell follows me and about 10 minutes into our ride, he looks online to track where our bus is, and discovers that we are going away from Milton Keynes not towards it! We get off at the next stop and try to figure out how to get back to MK! We walk about 3 blocks to a train station and wait 20 minutes for a train to take us to MK! Once we get to MK train station, then we go out to get a bus to our neighborhood! We finally get back and relax in our nice house!
Sunday. 21. The weather is beautiful and the air is nice. In our neighborhood there are woods and paths meandering in all kinds of directions. Walking and biking is made so easy here with many under road paths. We decide to walk the 5 miles to church, and get a bus to return us to our area. Our walk is long but enjoyable. We arrive just about on time to the community center and hear the congregational singing has begun. The sound reminds me of sounds from my trip to Kenya, but not exactly the same. We stop at the restrooms and then go on in to sit among a roomful of Africans. Later we find out that they are all (about 80) from Ghana. They speak English with different accents and abilities. They use a translator for their common language called Twi. In Ghana, like in Kenya, there are many languages and the people there learn a common language for commerce and understanding between tribes. After church and visiting with many friendly members, we go to a bus stop and find out that the buses are either very slow or not showing up today. So we start to walk back the way we came because there is a pub restaurant that is about half a mile from us. We are very hungry as it is almost 2pm now. Thankfully the pub gets us seated with a 90 minute time limit on our stay. We eat a delicious lunch at this pub, and gain strength to walk the rest of the way to our house. Somehow on our return we have added more mileage so that our daily total is 12 miles today! We are tired and ready for a rest.
Nomad Notes: This week’s issues are about our data plan. We left the US believing that we could use GoogleFi for the whole time we are in the UK. But since leaving, we learned that this won’t work and our limit of out of US usage is 90 days. GoogleFi notified us that our data plan and access will soon be ending. We knew this was coming and had tried to get an in-country sim card, but that failed too as our phones have e-sim cards as the second card stored inside and cannot be used easily. After some thinking and study, Darrell found a company called Ubigi that we can use and switch onto our e-sim cards. They charge $8 per 3 Gig per month and we each get an account to keep us active online. We still have wifi usages and phone and text through GoogleFi. Ahh, breathe.
Another issue that has come up for me since moving around has been the acidity or ph of the water. We are drinking tap water here in the UK and the changes in my body are so subtle. Darrell noticed that the water is slightly acidic. From our past experience, we add just a little baking soda to drinks, water, coffee and tea and it tastes improved. I started doing this and some hip pain that I have had around the clock went away in the night! On the other side of this base addition, I add some diluted vinegar to my daily intake as a way to get acetic acid. I have found since adding this ingredient almost daily since March, that I prefer the wine vinegar and that it seems to help my digestion.
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