The Tale of the Marvelous Journey – Part 3: Windsor and the cottage

With Caleb squeezed in the very back of our over-packed van and Mom and the girls in the middle seat, I navigated while Steve drove us from Gatwick airport to Windsor Castle.

Have you seen “The Incredibles?” You know the part when Elastigirl and Mr. Incredible are arguing about what exit to take to get downtown? Well, this was nothing like that. Very anti-climactic. For the most part everything was well-marked. We didn’t make any wrong turns. Until we got to Windsor, that is.

Before we got to Windsor, however, we stopped for our first meal in England. We didn’t know it at the time, but the place we stopped (Harvesters) is part of a chain. The kids had chicken nuggets, Mom and I had jacket potatoes (baked potatoes), and Steve had fish & chips. Steve’s nerves were frazzled by this point. I think he was starting to doubt our decision to come over here. About halfway through lunch, he got up and had to go outside to walk around a bit.

After we finished up, we crammed ourselves back into the van and headed out to Windsor. We got to the town just fine, saw the castle from a distance, then proceeded to get lost. I think we drove around for about an hour before we finally were able to park and get to the castle. Thank goodness for the GPS! Before we left, we bought the Europe street map software for Steve’s GPS. At the time, I was loathe to pay the $61 + $9 shipping off eBay, but that sweet little cd has proven to be a lifesaver more than once!

Have you seen “National Lampoon’s European Vacation?” Remember, “Look kids, Parlaiment! Big Ben!”…I feel like that was our mantra: “Look Audrey! The castle!” I think we said this about 20 times before we actually got there. Frustrating.

Finally there. The ironic thing is that there’s a Burger King across the street from the castle. And a Starbucks. Something is just wrong with that. The castle was very impressive. We didn’t do the audio tour because we just wanted to get out and shake off the jet lag. We knew we needed to do something to keep us awake until a relatively normal bedtime. Like 7 p.m.

We can go back any time within the next 12 months for free. They have a very cool program in place after you buy tickets once at several sites. You have to buy a ticket for each place, but once you do and you have it validated, you can come back to that place free. So we’ll do that again.

Caleb was most impressed with Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House and with all the weapons and suits of armor displayed around the castle. Audrey liked the 100-150 pink-upholstered chairs in the dining room as well as QE’s pink throne. We’ll go back again and see more another time.

Back in the van and off to the cottage. By now it’s about 4 p.m. We are all exhausted and cranky. The hardest part was getting off the M4 (similar to our interstates) and getting to the right place in Reading. We got off on the wrong exit on a roundabout and had to go literally 10 miles back down the M4 before we could turn around. That’s frustrating. You can’t just “make a block” or “take a u-ie” to try again. Grrrrr.

So we go from the M4 – 3 lanes divided each direction – to Reading – 2 lanes each way, not divided. No big deal. I’m able to navigate and Steve is able to drive ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD through a busy downtown center. A minor big deal. Then our nice 2 lane turns into an ugly 2 lane – very narrow lanes. Then our ugly 2 lanes turn into 2 ugly lanes on a bridge and are even more narrow. Then our ugly 2 lanes on a bridge turns into 1 semi-ugly lane on a winding road through the village (suburb) of Caversham. For 2 miles we are twisting and turning through a residential area, then all of a sudden, the houses stop and we are very abruptly in “the English countryside,” but we have a nice wide lane to drive in.

Across from a pub called The Pack Saddle is the first of 2 turns to the Mapledurham Estate and our cottage. Our road situation turns ugly again. No shoulder, just shrubs and hedgerows, but there is a middle stripe on the road. This should have been encouraging, but instead was just harrowing. I can’t remember if we met any vehicles on this road or not…but this wasn’t our last road. The next (and last) road to the cottage is a lane. I wrote in an earlier post that I could take 5 steps and be across it. This was truly a nail-biting experience.

We only met 1 car, and thankfully we saw the driveway for the cottage before we had to pass, so we parked in our driveway and got out and kissed the ground. Actually I think we all rushed inside to go to the potty.

I don’t remember eating dinner that night. We admired the dairy cows (Holsteins according to Mom), then went to bed. I think we all just found a relatively soft place to lie down and we slept. I think it was about 7 p.m. but nobody complained.

Next installment: Step Cottage.