Travel

Visiting the Mother Country

“If we don’t leave now, we could miss the flight,” I urged.

With one final, last-minute inspection to confirm that our home was as secure as possible, we climbed into our trusty Volvo station wagon and reversed on to the road.

“We’re on our way!” exclaimed Matthew.

Fifteen minutes into our drive to the local airport, GSP, Sue spoke up, her tone anxious: “On, no, I left my cereal in the fridge. And I don’t think we can turn back now, can we, Jim?”

“It’s going to cut it fine if we do,” I answered tersely. “Do you think we can get something in Britain that you can easily digest?”

“Guess that’s all I can do,” Sue replied. Sue had been facing a challenging health-and-diet-related condition for some years, and was only now just beginning to get enough strength to embark on a one-week visit to Britain–a long overdue one–but then everyone appreciates what COVID did to international travel.

A few hours later, on a comfortable layover in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport (one of the busiest in the northern hemisphere), we reflected on how providential circumstances had worked to bring this day to transpire the way it was. My mother, Jean Alison Holmes, had passed from this life to the next more than a year earlier and it had been almost impossible to make travel arrangements for her funeral at that time. She had requested that I would speak at her funeral (which I was able to do remotely by a video recording) but I felt it only right to be present at the sprinkling of her ashes.

Several hours into the transatlantic flight, I found myself musing on what it might be like to be back in Britain after some years. Life in America is lived briskly, conveniently, and efficiently, so the idea of having to navigate narrow streets, busy motorways, and drive a car without automatic transmission played somewhat on my mind. And what would it be like to face Britain’s warmest weather on record? That seemed counterintuitive!

Terra-firma and Terrible Tire Trouble

“So glad that you made it safely.” Jan’s voice was warm, if a little metallic-sounding on WhatsApp as I updated her from Heathrow that we had our feet well and truly on British soil. But some hours were yet to elapse before we could all embrace after what felt like a lengthy drive to her hometown a little south of Birmingham, made not a little difficult by the low-tire-pressure warning light that flashed on as we made our way along the motorway toward Oxford. “We’ll add some air,” I announced, sounding more optimistic than I felt as I broke the news to Sue and Matthew as we pulled into a motorway services location. But each terminal I tried to get compressed air from failed to operate, notwithstanding my insertion of different one-pound coins to claim my little extra portion of compressed British air. “Well, let me check the spare tire, anyway,” I said, as I wanted to be sure we could at least keep mobile, especially if what was maybe a slow leak turned more catastrophic. Opening the trunk, I looked to see where the tire was–presumably in a sub-compartment. “Hmm: no sub-compartment,” I muttered. “Let me look under the car,” I said to myself, thinking the spare would be suspended there in the cavity space. Groveling underneath, now sweating not only with the heat but with frustration at the sloppiness of the rental car agency, I beheld…nothing. “Well, let’s just drive on and pray that we don’t deflate a tire,” I announced. There didn’t seem a better plan.

Thankfully, although the warning light continued to burn, whichever tire it was did not go flat. When I called the rental agency, a bright, British accent announced, “O, sorry, sir, no, we don’t supply spare wheels with our cars; you just have to use the repair emergency kit to pump it up.”

“How dumb that sounds,” I thought as I politely thanked her. In my convenient world, I like to be prepared. That means a jack and a fully inflated spare wheel.

On with the Visit

After recalibrating to UK time, just five hours ahead of eastern time in the USA, (and also finding out that the rumored heatwave was a reality–it was exceptionally hot weather for Britain) we headed north to the beautiful Lake District. Navigating traffic around Birmingham on a Friday afternoon was every bit as frustrating as I thought it would be, only even worse. Traffic backed up for around two hours. The main reason? A broken-down van occupying a lane a mile or so after an on-ramp. A rather perplexed driver stood by his van while yellow-jacketed patrol officers looked on in puzzlement, as they waited for a rescue truck to come and solve the problem. In my simplistic world, all they had to do (and there was enough muscle power, I would have thought) was to push the broken-down van off the road and let simple people like me (and maybe two thousand over drivers traveling on the same road in the same direction) drive past at something faster than stopped or slow walking speed.

The Lakes and North East of England

The location as beautiful as ever, we made our home for two nights in the town of Penrith in a small-but-comfortable air b-n-b. Joined by our good friend Raymond Zulu and with my sister Jan and nephew and niece, Shaun and Pru camped out in a nearby location, we were well positioned to prepare for the sprinkling of my late mother’s ashes in the countryside nearby.

Sunday took us to Northallerton to visit with friends Cyril and Margery Fawcett, senior citizens and dear saints now in their nineties, members of the Northallerton Evangelical Church, our former home church, with the happy providence of their daughter, Rebecca and family, husband Stephen, and their two boys, Jonathan and Matthew, on a short visit from Northern Ireland.

Darlington, just twenty or so miles further north, was our home for twelve years, and it was fun to be back in town, visiting our other home church in Aycliffe and enjoying meeting with old friends and neighbors. Two days spent there sped by quickly as there were various administrative matters to take care of.

Heading Back South

Tuesday was spent on the road, with a brief visit with John, Sue’s brother in the Manchester area. By then, the weather had turned much cooler and we felt that this was the “more normal” Britain, the Britain that we were used to living in those years ago when the overcast weather made it seem as if we were living in Tupperware, and never left a shadow even in the brighter light. The final day was spent enjoying a visit to Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford upon Avon.

Owing to expected labor union strikes, we knew the so-called London Orbital, the M25, could be seriously gridlocked with motorists avoiding the railroad service. It’s often been said that the M25 is London’s largest circular parking lot, and we did not want to experience it, so we were on our way back to London’s Heathrow Airport by just after 3am. It made for a long day, but we were thankful to be able to start the check-in process early, and good that we did, as Matthew repeatedly ran into security checks that looked as if they would bump him from the return flight. I don’t think he has ever been so happy to be sitting back on an airplane as when we finally reclined in the comfort of Delta’s Boeing 767 to ferry us back over the Atlantic for an extended layover in Detroit, Michigan, before we would finally catch our connecting flight and put our feet back on South Carolina soil sometime after 11pm.

In pictures: click on the images below to enlarge them or view them as a slideshow.