Angekommen in England mit lieben Kindern und eingereistem Hund (ohne 6 Wochen Quarantäne) fahren wir zunächst zu Dover Castle, um Echo kurz zuerleichtern.
An den White Cliffs wollen wir frühstücken, allerdings findet sich um die morgentliche Uhrzeit kein ATM, denn wir sind noch immer pfundlos und auch geöffnet hat noch gar nichts. Also schlängeln wir uns durch engste und hügeligste Regionen runter an St. Margaret’s Bay Beach. Der Parkplatz ist kostenpflichtig. Noch immer pfundlos ignorieren wir das allerdings gekonnt und wollen erstmal ans Wasser. Der Strand erstrahlt in herrlichem Sonnenschein, das Wasser glitzert und der Wind weht angenehm warm.
Anouk erkundet die Steine und die Wellen, während Espen wieder eingeschlafen ist. Echo unser Wasserhund bellt lautstark die Wellen an, muss aber angeleint bleiben, weil auf dem Schild steht, dass Hunde nur angeleint erlaubt sind. Ganz deutsch halten wir uns daran. (So die Theorie! In der Praxis sehen wir später die englische Auslegung dieser Regel 🙂 )
Espen wacht auf und wir frühstücken unseren Reiseproviant: Milchbrötchen, Äpfelchen und Cabanossis. Ein weiteres Auto fährt auf den Parktplatz und uns fällt wieder unsere Pfundlosigkeit und die damit verbundenen geprellten Parkkosten ein. Aber das Auto mit englischem Kennzeichen hält und bleibt stehen – ebenso ohne zu zahlen.
Die Kinder laufen am Strand und auf der Promenade herum und futtern fröhlich. Dann steigt ein Mann aus dem Auto aus und kommt aus einiger Entfernung auf uns zugelaufen. Wieder schreit das deutsche Gewissen: keinen Pfund in der Tasche für den Parkautomaten. Ich lege mir schon ein paar freundlich-entschuldigende Worte zurecht, aber es kommt anders.
Der Mann lächelt freundlich, wünscht uns einen “Good morning.”. Bevor ich meine Worte abspulen kann, reicht er mir eine Emailleschale mit Himbeeren and says: “Here, for the kids. You must be hungry.” I am shocked but obviously managed a very friendly “Thanks you so much.” Anouk and Espen are happy and empty the bowl immediatly. For the little ones it was probably only a bowl of fruits – but for me it was like: “There it is! This kindness I have missed for so long. I don’t care whether it is just oberflächliche politeness if the people call me “my dear” and “lovley”. I just soak it up to my soal. And this man – with his old mother sitting in the car and waving to us – they just gave it to me right at my first contact in UK. I just love to be here. Those raspberries – my perfect gift for my 30th birthday.
After the breakfast we decide to head on to Coventry, our first stay on the way up the highlands. Its where John is living and working right know. So we booked a hotel room there to see him. The kids are tired again and fall asleep soon, just after we managed to solve the problem with the poundlessness.
We head on on the motorway towards London. Alex, at that time awake for about 26 hrs with only a little rest before we started our adventure in Göttingen, suddenly is out of power. So we need to change at the A20 near Ashford and I have my first driving lesson in the English left-hand traffic. It goes pretty well – on the motorway at least. 🙂 With all four my beloved asleep we are passing London with some traffic jams. But I don’t care I’m still cheerful to be back and am philosophising about the raspberries.
At about noon the kids wake up and with another snack for them, we feel really hungry now. So we just decide to take the next junction (M1 near Flamstead) and look for a place to eat. Still the weather is great with about 26 degrees and nice sunshine with little friendly clouds.
We are lucky since right at the junction we discover a place with an outside area which is also fenced – perfect for us. So we went there (the restaurant was called “Harvest” – a chain as we figured out later) and ask whether we could take to dog to the outside area – it is much too hot for Echo to stay in the car. It’s fine but the thing was that there were right closing the breakfast and have not yet opened the kitchen for lunch – of course it was only 11:30 and not 12:30 as our car told me. But well, we decided to wait those 30 minutes. The menu looked promising.
We looked for a nice table and kept the hungry kids busy. After the 2,5 hours of sleep Alex was a bit fitter again – but now extremely hungry and getting “hangry” (a new word we learned a few days later from the “hangry man” himself – John.) After eating the kids took a toilet pause – Anouk inside, Espen on his potty next to our table. I am very proud of them. Especially of Anouk, who did not need any of my well planned spare panties I was carring in my handbag.
After the rest we continue our trip. Alex is driving us right to Coventry – the kids are sleeping, playing, laughing. Just perfect. In the early afternoon we check in to our hotel – the Novotel Coventry and I tell John that we have arrived. Alex is completey wasted because all of this and needs to have a rest with his headache. So, Anouk, Espen, Echo and I meet up with John in the hotel and spend the afternoon at the hotels park and little playground. The wheater is so nice. Since I am very exhausted as well John is playing a lot with the kids. We planned to have a birthday dinner this evening but since I could really properly talk to Alex back in the hotel room since was still feeling miserable, Marcus and I took the kids again and went back to the park and playground where we had a quite poor birthday dinner with cabanossis little dry pieces of Vollkornbrot and the rests of chopped carrots and cucumber from our food basket. I guess John felt a bit sad for me, but it was fine. I would have been to tired to enjoy going to the pub.
After John had left us and Alex was a bit better we just washed and put the kids asleep in the Ausziehcouch. That was nice since both could sleep together, what they did very nicely. Alex and I just fell asleep without any wishes for anything else.