Monday was out last day of the cruise and I was looking forward to spending a few hours in Ireland but it was pouring rain. Not the typical misty UK rain but pouring. We headed out anyway but I made the mistake of not wearing my jacket so when my umbrella blew inside out, I got drenched. I would have been anyway. It was raining that hard. But we didn't let it stop us from shopping on the high street. Despite only being there 2.5 hours, I bought more in Ireland than I had the whole time in Iceland. Go figure. Still no yarn but a few other goodies.
By the time we got back on the ship, we were soaked to the skin but it was nothing a good towel off and change of clothes wouldn't fix. We had clothes hung all over the cabin in hopes that they would dry some because our luggage had to be out in the hallway by midnight. We had our last class that afternoon and I went to the last afternoon tea and brought scones with clotted cream (the sign said cotted cream for the whole trip - ESL alert!) and jam for everyone. It felt strange to pack up our class supplies and clear out the conference room.
We started packing before dinner and finished afterwards, resorting to packing our still wet clothes in plastic bags. We spent our last night outside of the bar, knitting with the entire group. It was going to be sad to leave everyone but we vowed to stay in touch. Teresa, the tour manager, had offered to drive Anne and I to Heathrow since she would be driving right by so we didn't have that to stress over. I slept fine on our last night on the ship.
We met the group for an early breakfast at the sit down restaurant then waited in our designated spot until we were called to leave. We picked up our luggage, took the bus to Teresa's car and were off. Teresa knew that I'd failed to find any Kellogg's Country Store (my fave UK cereal) so we stopped at a Tesco Express and ASDA (Wal-Mart in the UK) but didn't find it. What a peach Teresa is, right? She dropped us at Heathrow and we checked in no problem. We had middle seats on the flight home, which is NOT what we'd booked but oh well. I watched a movie before finding the HBO series Chernobyl, which I managed to watch all 5 episodes of with just minutes to spare. It took forever for our luggage to come out in Chicago but I waited in the customs line while Anne waited for the luggage and we made it through customs, rechecked our luggage, changed terminals and got through TSA and to our gate with time to spare, even before our flight was delayed. Almost home.
When I called Andrea to say my flight was delayed, she offered to pick up my car from the body shop before she picked me up at the airport. When I got outside the Lincoln airport, which is tiny, my car was so clean that I didn't recognize it. Really. The repair was perfect too, which was the frosting on the cake. Andrea drove me home and had even left her car at my house so she could drive herself home. What a great friend she is. I was pretty tired but immediately unpacked and hung up my damp clothes before showering and going to bed. It was nice to be home, sleeping in my own bed surrounded by my cats. The house was also cleaner than it's been in years, thanks to my new cleaning lady who had come for the first time on the day I left. The toilet looked brand new. Yay!
I felt right to sleep and slept until after 5:00 - not bad for jet lag but staying awake for 24 hours helps. Since I was up so early, I did 2 loads of laundry, ordered a Panera salad to pick up on the way to work and headed in. I was fine all day, not even fading in the afternoon, and was caught up before I left right at 5:00. But so much for feeling so awake that morning. I found the side door wide open and I hadn't hit go on the dryer. Oh well. I'd made it through the day so called it good. I was super tired but the Survivor finale was on so I watched that and finished the laundry before going to bed. I slept well again and while I didn't sleep until the alarm, I still got plenty of sleep.
Besides getting over jet lag and catching up at work, there was lots going on. My friend Lorri, who had fed my cats and watered my containers while I was gone, went away so I was watering at her house after work every night. I also had book club Thursday night at 7:00. I did a big food shopping at HyVee on Friday night so was good to be home all weekend. I had no plans beyond getting back on track. While I had unpacked Tuesday night, there were still piles on the bar and table so I got all that put away and had a nice, relaxing weekend, catching up on Ravelry and some TV shows I'd missed. It was lovely to be home and I had wonderful memories of a fantastic trip. Life is good!
No comments:
Post a Comment