The First Day

Change has always been difficult for me.  I'm someone who takes comfort in some degree of predictability.  Of course, there are changes that aren't difficult.  What I'm talking about are changes that you know will affect your life on a large scale - those that keep you up at night with "what ifs" and occupy your waking mind with attempts to make plans for the future.  The problem is, it is impossible to plan when there is so much uncertainty.

My daughter, Annie, begins her first day of true adulthood (the first day of her first real adult job) tomorrow.  She will be teaching band and music 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.  Wow!  THAT is a day of change, for sure.  As I listen to her and watch her, I kind of know what she is feeling.  I had a first day of work one time too.

 After living at home ALL of my life until then,  I had gotten a studio apartment, sight unseen, in New Britain, CT at the recommendation of my uncle.  I drove my parents' station wagon,  loaded with stuff, on Thursday, September 10th, 1981 from Burlington to New Britain, CT.  No GPS. I got a speeding ticket in Greenfield, MA.  I somehow found my apartment complex and moved the contents of the car into my tiny apartment.  My parents and sister would be coming on the weekend, but I had my first day of orientation for my job at Travelers Insurance Company in Hartford on Friday, September 11.

On Friday morning,  bolstered by my "business suit", I drove courageously into Hartford and parked in a parking garage a few blocks from the building.  I was in a training class for computer programmers.  There were 25 other trainees of varying ages and ethnicities.  I don't remember much about that day.  But I do remember what happened afterward.

This was a time with no GPS, cell phones, or internet.  I got to my car to drive back to New Britain, anxious for the arrival of my family.  I had never driven in so much traffic before, and I missed the sign marking the turn to get on I84W.  Instead,  I drove into the north end of Hartford.  Soon I was in the midst of a very run down street lined with graffiti-ridden buildings and storefronts with windows covered in bars.  There were more Black and Hispanic people on one block than I had ever witnessed in my entire life in Burlington.  This was a place a young girl from Vermont was not comfortable being lost in.  Somehow, I managed to retrace my path and find my way back to the highway and back to my apartment.

My parents and my sister helped me move in and get settled.  I bought an inexpensive but reliable used gold Dodge Dart with a black roof and white-wall tires from my uncle who worked at Papa's Dodge in New Britain for $1750.  In one weekend,  life as I knew it had disappeared.

I would begin my job at Travelers Insurance company on Monday.  My mom and sister drove back to Vermont, but my dad had business meetings in the area and would stay for a few more days.  I was so thankful for that!

On Monday,  I used the commuter bus from the mall to get to work (first time taking a bus).
I made it through the day with this Asian guy staring at me from across the room.  I looked forward to seeing my Dad that night for dinner.  The commuter bus stopped and I quickly located my old-lady car.  On the windshield was a piece of paper.  It was a note from my Dad.  His business meetings were canceled and he had driven home earlier in the day.  He wished me luck and signed it "Love, Dad" in his barely readable handwriting.  

I burst into tears.  Somehow I was able to see well enough to get to my apartment.  I sat.
I cried.  I was lonely.  I was scared.   There was so much uncertainty in my life.  I had no friends there.  I had almost no money.  I had nobody to talk to.  I had no phone.  I missed my cat.  I missed my family.  There were no mountains to look at or lakes to sit by.  

I wiped my tears,  put myself back together as best as I could, and drove to the mall to find a pay phone.  I called home collect and they took the call.  It was short because long-distance phone calls were expensive,  but this call gave me the strength and courage to go on.

Over time,  I became less lonely.  I got my own cat.  I discovered beautiful places in CT.  I made friends and had fun. How could I have guessed that I would never move back to Vermont?  That I would stay here and have a wonderful life.  That I would marry that Asian guy that was staring at me on that first day. 

Life is interesting and unpredictable and scary and wonderful.  
It's just a good thing that those "first days" happen only so often!

Life at the Lake

During each year, there are two times that are especially meaningful to our family.

One is Christmas and the other is our yearly family vacation at Lake George.  We 

have spent an idyllic week together at the lake every summer for the past 23 years.

These pictures show why we keep going back!

The Secret Cottage Tour

When rain forced us to cancel our plans for a biking tour of the Cotswolds, I made a last-minute booking for "The Secret Cottage Tour" instead.  I want to thank the rain, because 
I can't imagine a better tour of the Cotswolds than this!

Before this trip, I had never heard of the Cotswolds.  I came upon them when I was 

googling places in the English countryside.  The Cotswolds is an area of @800 sq.

miles of villages from the middle ages, remarkable churches, rolling green hills, baaing

sheep, beautiful gardens and idyllic thatched-roof cottages built with local yellow limestone. It actually feels like you have gone back in time.  It has been designated an "Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" in England, with regulations to maintain the character and intergrity of the region.  For instance, if a cottage has a thatched roof, you cannot update it - it must remain thatched.

After picking us up at the railway station at Moreton-in-Marsh, we were loaded into a 7 person Mercedes minibus.  On our way to the Secret Cottage, we stopped at an ancient church and graveyard next to a large manor house.  

Across the road was a field with hundreds of baaing sheep.  I had never heard anything like it before. So pretty!  We proceeded a short distance down the road to the Secret Cottage.

The cottage was originally divided into three separate dwellings, each with a large fireplace for cooking and heating, and a winding staircase to the upper level.  It has been transformed into a one-family dwelling where the Simpsons now live with their family. 

Upon entering the cottage,  Polly Simpson greeted us with a warm smile
and a farm table brimming food displayed on Spode china.  We were given
a tour of their home (no pictures allowed except in the kitchen) and left
about 1/2 hour later with a full tummy and ready to venture out into many picturesque
villages.

Life in the Cotswolds is slower paced - MUCH slower.  Many of the 

country lanes we traveled were wide enough for only one car.  The 

speed limit signs were indicative of this much different lifestyle.  The

signs also demonstrated the friendliness and politeness of the people. 

Everywhere you looked, there were flowers!

The tour guides were beyond excellent - very knowledgeable about the
area and its history, friendly, and very willing to man the camera
for any of the guests wanting pictures.

It is common for the cottages to have names:  "The Grey Cottage", "Mill View Cottage".
We saw one named "The Cottage With No Oven", 
and not to forget "The Secret Cottage" which the tour was named for.

The name Cotswolds has a meaning, as do the often odd-sounding names of its hamlets and villages.  "Cots" are sheep enclosures and "wolds" are gentle hills.  In medieval times,

the area was known for its wool trade when over 500,000 sheep grazed the hillsides.

"Chipping" relates to the old English word for "market",  

so the the town of Chipping Norton  meant "market town in the north".

"Slaughter" meant "boggy place, hence how the villages of Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter got their names.

It was a feast for the eyes!  Footbridges across streams, mills, enchanting stone cottages...

We hardly noticed that it was drizzling!  I felt like we had been 

transported back to a different time and place.  

Peaceful, quiet, enchanting.

We walked through this pub in Chipping Norton.  There were mugs

hanging from hooks on the ceiling.  It was explained that years ago,

patrons of the pub would hang their own mug on the ceiling and use it

whenever they went there.

We also noticed many old telephone booths that had been

converted to defibrillator stations.  Since pay phones are no
longer used,  thousands of the red phone booths 
around the country have been repurposed as lending libraries,
mobile charging stations,  coffee booths, and in this case for 
defibrillators available to save the lives of residents and visitors.

We commented that there don't seem to be very many windows
on most of the thatched cottages, and the windows are very small.
The tour guide explained that the people that lived in the cottage would
get up early in the morning and leave to work at the manor house,
and come home after dark.  They were hardly there during the day,
so the lack of natural light made no difference.

Here is a close-up of the roof!

We returned to the Secret Cottage for a wonderful lunch and for high tea in the
afternoon, with clotted cream and scones.  

At the end of the day, we were taken back to the train station

to board the train back to London.  We had smiles on our faces

and dreams of returning to this fairy tale place once again!