england #13 – we continue to Sawley

I’ve decided to number these England Countryside entries separately from the London ones. Since the two parts of our trip were so totally separate. Maybe that will be a little less confusing. Hahahaha! {actually RE-numbered them later yet again, but whatever! Now they are just chronological} But anyhow, back to the Adventure:

Which really began when we got off the M1 onto the A453. And took that to the A50. I still have no idea what we did- we were following our BFF the GPS’s directions- and had printed directions from the marina as well — but. OMG. We got totally turned around. For starters, we hit the first real roundabout after getting onto the A453. I knew England had roundabouts. I’ve even been through a few roundabouts here, although the only one I’ve had much experience with is at the Kohl’s shopping center in Asheville and it’s not a very scary roundabout. But. YIKES. I was totally unprepared for the UK roundabouts.

First, a whole lot of the roundabouts we encountered — most of them, by far — didn’t go all the way around. So if you missed your exit off the roundabout, you couldn’t just keep going around in a circle until you figured it out. You were forced off the last exit. Which is what kept happening. Honestly, the trip from this point is mostly a blur in my mind, but I know we KEPT going through roundabouts and we KEPT missing the right exit and once or twice we’d end up at ANOTHER roundabout before we could even turn around and try again on the one we just missed, so we’d get even FARTHER away from where we needed to be, and even more lost. Sometimes the name of the road off the exit our BFF the GPS was telling us to take was not the same name as the exit SAID, which didn’t help. Like, he’d say to take the third exit to Whatever Road, and the third exit would be labeled Whichever Road. However, he WAS always right about the number of exits, so later on that was no big deal. Still, the first day it was kind of a big deal. Since we’d lose track trying to count exits and then the names wouldn’t agree and we’d drive on by and get forced off the roundabout onto a definitely wrong exit, and… WAHHH!!

Second, EVERY CROSSROAD IS A ROUNDABOUT!!! You know how when you’re driving here and you come to an intersection, there’s a stop sign or a red light? In England, apparently it’s all roundabouts. Of varying degrees of complexity. Some had a bunch of exits, some had a couple of exits, some had one lane, some had a bunch of lanes, etc etc. And it was very hard, at first, to remember to STOP at the roundabout, since they didn’t have a stopsign- just a line across the road which was real easy to miss when we were trying to count exits and look for road names and not hit anybody. And remember to not ever turn right on the roundabout, EVER.

So. NIGHTMARE!!!  a) I was really tired after getting in late, getting up very early, and having already contended with hours of Tube and Suitcase Adventures, b) I am very dyslexic when it comes to left vs. right and c) the fact that one mis-step could KILL US – or at least ruin that cute little car and bankrupt us — made the roundabouts NO FUN. And yeah, we had some close calls. And it was about time for ME to have a meltdown, especially after we ended up lost in the middle of our first Teeny Little English Village, with roads so narrow you wouldn’t think a cat could pass another cat, yet there I was having to squeeze past other vehicles and not hit the ones parked ALL OVER THE STREET – — AAGGHH!!!! We couldn’t figure out how to get back to the right road, every move I made resulted in BFF GPS saying, “Recalculating! Recalculating! Recalculating!!”, there was NOWHERE to turn around because the streets were so narrow and I kept nearly HITTING THINGS…. OMG.

Oddly, I felt like we would be fine, and I really was not  thinking that renting a car was a HUGE MISTAKE, like you’d expect me to be thinking. But I was exhausted, it was getting late, we couldn’t figure out where we were, and we were both coming unglued. Me from nearly wrecking a zillion times and Kim from watching me nearly wreck a zillion times, and being on the side of the car that I couldn’t judge distance from, meaning she’d be the one getting smashed when we DID wreck.

When we finally got to a spot where we could kind of figure out where the hell we were, Kim called the marina because it was getting late and we were obviously not going to be there by our 2:00 check-in time. We were supposed to do a Canal Boat Tutorial after arriving, and we agreed that no WAY could we learn how to operate a canal boat on top of the day we’d already had. The very nice people at the marina gave us directions and commiserated over roundabouts. We actually were not that far away. They also agreed that we could do the tutorial the next day, no problem!

We finally, FINALLY arrived. In one piece. One extremely frazzled piece. Well, two extremely frazzled, exhausted, and starved pieces. We’d had a light breakfast and no lunch, and it was about 3 by then. We just wanted to check the fuck in, and go find a pub.

Checking in takes like an HOUR. Complete with disclosures of all the huge fees we’ll be paying if we break anything and more disclosures about how little is covered by the substantial damage deposit. So if we break anything more vital than the radio, it will probably not be covered. And we also find that yes we do still have to go to the Canal Boat Operation Tutorial. No matter how brain-dead exhausted and frazzled and starving and in need of a beer we were. No, we can’t kick back — we’ve navigated taxis and tubes with Suitcase from Hell, we’ve driven in a new country with strange roads for hours and been lost and had countless close calls and we both feel incapable of processing ANY MORE IMPORTANT INFORMATION — but we have to go learn how to operate a canal boat!! They were VERY nice about it, and very sympathetic to our plight, and assured us that oh, it’s nothing! It will be fine!!

HAHAHAHA!!!! Well, it kind of WAS nothing, in that we stood outside in the frosty air (it was COLD at the marina) with a number of other arrivals, and listened to this terribly sweet old guy as he showed us how to tie knots and demonstrated canal boats and canals and locks to us. With a toy canal boat. And a toy lock. And told us all about all the stuff that could very easily go wrong and result in wrecking the boat or destroying the engine. Which of course would not be covered by our substantial deposit! So Kim and I are both standing there freezing, starving, exhausted, unable to process a word he said other than the ones like “crash” and “ruin” and “disaster”. Well, he probably didn’t say disaster, since he also kept trying to reassure us that it was not hard, everyone has doubts, it’s really a breeze once you’re on the boat! And there’s also a DVD we have to watch prior to setting out, which we think surely to god will actually shine more light on canal boat operation than we were soaking in from a toy boat and toy lock demonstration.

SO. The tutorial finally ends. And we ask the nice old guy WHERE IS THE CLOSEST PUB?!?!??! and he tells us not to go to the one at the marina — it’s terrible. But there is one in Sawley, a ten minute walk, which is wonderful. Of course, being US, we can’t even get out of the marina on foot without getting lost fifty times and walking all over the marina in the completely opposite direction (it WAS complicated, involving a bunch of gates and paths to follow) but. Finally. FINALLY we found the pub. And had a lovely dinner. And even lovelier beers. And decided that no way were we going out in that stupid boat the next day, and neither would we watch the stupid DVD that night. We’d have an EASY day the next day! And despite our mutual HUGE doubts at the wisdom of the whole “operating a canal boat” thing, we’d give it more thought when we were rested and not traumatized.

Next installment — our first Marina Day!

And although I hate to give away any exciting secrets that might otherwise keep you reading to see WHAT HAPPENED?!??! I’ll just note right here that although my first day of driving in England was pretty awful — it got better. It got WAY better. In fact, in a couple of days I was driving like a pro. I was zipping right through the teeny little towns, I could judge distances, I had no problems with staying on the left, and I even understood the roundabouts. It was amazing. And quite a relief.

I’ll leave you with some Marina Pictures– and I don’t know when my next installment will be, since tomorrow we are getting the fuck out of this godforsaken hellhole going back down to Morganton to see Baker B’s other niece who made it down from Baltimore today, then we’re going to Asheville tomorrow night … and then we’re GOING TO CHARLESTON!!! We were not going till Friday but as we’ve been snowed in for THREE DAYS now, and we are very VERY sick of this place, we’re escaping. ESCAPING!!! And it’s supposed to be nearly 70 in Charleston!!! Right now it’s 16 degrees and the wind is howling and we have a foot of snow. So, YAY!!!!  Escape!!!! We figured if we can slide down the mountain tomorrow, it will be cleared out by Saturday or Sunday. I’m all for not coming back.

Anyhow. Here’s the marina!

Our little boat – The Sawley Sister:

Suitcase from Hell, just ASKING to be kicked in:

Walking to the pub, once we finally managed to get out of the marina-