Rain, Rain, Go Away.. And Never Come Back

Between terminals at Chicago's O'Hare Airport on our way to catch our flight to London after the Christmas holidays. 

I let January slip past me without a post although, when I was in the midst of it, it felt like watching paint dry. If we were still in the states, I'd think it so terribly romantic to be living here and wandering around in the English rain, like that last scene in Four Weddings And A Funeral, ‟Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed." Oh please. There's no way you couldn't have noticed. Mainly because there's been so much of it. Apparently, it hasn't rained this much in January in the UK since sometime in the middle of the 1700's! And it's not romantic in the slightest. It's So. Incredibly. Grey (Really, they should coin their own color. Incredibly UK Grey. If it doesn't already exist in a J. Crew catalogue, it really should.) and downright dreary. It's only good for staying inside all day in your pajamas, drinking tea when you're not sleeping an excessive amount and finding laundry and Pinterest the most exciting parts of your day. Yeah, I'm aware that's probably the most boring sentence written in history maybe ever. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm aware of the Polar Apocalypse they're fighting in our home regions in the states and I'm grateful we aren't fighting snow as well. The potential flooding I can deal with. We're at least in a two-floor flat, thank goodness. But this English diamond has lost a bit of its luster. Not that the honeymoon is over, but we do need to get moving into Real Life and that usually circles around doing something for a living. While one of us has that, in fact, that was the reason for moving here, the other, namely me, does not. Not yet anyway. And for the love of all that is good and holy, I need to get something soon. There are only so many soup recipes I can find fascinating. That said, I've become something of a soup wizard, which, thank you, Pinterest. I appreciate what you've done for me, but it's time we see other people.

My National Insurance Number finally arrived last week, which is something akin to a Social Security Number and will allow me to work. I've been waiting since the beginning of the year for it when I found out not only did I need one, but it was quite the process to get. Had we known this would cause a delay in finding me a job, I would've applied when I had more time to kill when we first arrived. But now having procured it at last, I can move forward. I've reset the initial interview I had with a temp agency in town that I previously had to cancel and I'm hoping by next week, they'll have found some gainful employment for me to sink my teeth into. And if it's not quite teeth sinking, well.. provide me a reason to get out of bed before noon. At this point, I'll accept that. 

In the meantime, obviously there's still been a lot of excitement here for us despite the gusty and oppressive weather. I'll do my best to catch up on all of our January Fun Times, but we'll start at the beginning, New Year's Eve!

We welcomed our first overnight guests, our Seattle friends, Paul and Erin who visited us after their trip to India and their holiday trip to Liverpool to see Paul's family. We spent a crowded New Year's Eve together at The Rusty Bicycle with oh.. 250 other people. Though we arrived early to this tiny pub, it was already nearly full. Every time we found seats, we were forced to eventually move and ended up at an outside table in the covered garden for the majority of the night under a couple of heat lamps. There was a lot of drinking. For like six hours. As I said, we got there early. Luckily, only one of us took a goofy picture and he's probably very proud of it. 

Our handsome men, Mike and Paul. That's Mike's ‛normal' face.

Me and Erin and our happy, tipsy faces under the glow of the heat lamp.

Our friends, John and Jen, also met us out as well and, after midnight, with the crowd at its peak, we decided to walk back to our flat, which was a quieter and warmer place to continue celebrating.

The next day, despite the pissing rain and wind, we thought it was the perfect day to venture out since Paul and Erin had a car and we don't often get out of town unless it's to London on a long bus ride. We collectively decided to find the prehistoric White Horse in Uffington. If you don't know what that is, I suggest you click on the link and read up. Also you'll see a MUCH better picture than we took. 

I don't think any of us thought this outing would be quite so arduous, but the rain kept coming and Paul and Erin's gps led us to smaller roads that were blocked due to flooding at first, so we had to scout out a different path.

Oops! That's just under 2 feet of water covering that road. Let's go another way. 

No problem! Onwards and finally there we were, a carpark with National Trust signs leading the way. Funny, it looked like a pretty basic hill with a lot of sheep hanging out to us. And oddly, um.. it was. It's amazing how these centuries old landmarks of history are literally just part of the country's landscape. 

Both Erin and I had on our wellies, the boys did not unfortunately, but the slope of the hill and the wind that'd picked up which blew the rain sideways made it difficult for all of us to stay upright on the already slippery grass and navigate all the sheep poop that added yet another element of risk. But we made it to their version of ‛the viewpoint', which honestly, this picture below was the best I could get. You can.. kind of see it.. right? I think the only way to get the best view is from the sky, but that wasn't going to happen that day. 

It's there! That itty bitty bit of chalk is a giant prehistoric chalky horse,  I swear!

Paul doing his best to fight the wind and stay upright. His hair is having a grand old time.

We didn't stay long. We got the pictures and that was it for Uffington. We made it back to the car and all of us were soaked. This is what Mike and I looked like immediately after: 

Windblown and exhausted from our White Horse trek. Actually, Mike looks pretty good. Wtf?

That part of the trip over, we all decided we should backtrack a bit and head to Bampton, the town that stands in for the village in Downton Abbey. Ooh we were excited for this!

We drove through and really, it looks like every quaint little town Mike and I have seen already in Oxfordshire. Nothing terribly special about it. They're all about the same age of old, which is still lovely and historical, but unless you have a guide, it's hard to figure out on your own. We noticed all kinds of current town street signs and the like and wondered what part of the area was actually used for the tv show. Then we accidentally found the grassy triangle that connects three different roads all used over and over for small scenes. One is the side of the local church, another the gate to Crawley house and another to the Grantham Pub. There's also a giant tree in the middle. At the time, we missed seeing the gate to the Crawley house because we weren't quite sure what we were looking for and obviously, signs for things like the Grantham Pub had been removed but I recognized the walkway after seeing old episodes again. That little area is host to quite a few different types of scenes - but of course, not while we were there. No one in their right mind would be there when we were, on a stormy New Year's Day, when EVERYONE was probably at home because the ENTIRE town was dead. Sigh. 

The Bampton town church used in Downton Abbey, sometimes, this shot exactly.

We stopped in a pub for a bite, but had just missed the end of lunch because of course we did. We settled for beers and peanuts. Fine, whatever. We were the only customers there. I did love their pub sign. I find it hilarious that Aunt Sally is a pub game. I guess cribbage was already taken. 

They did have this very colorful toilet in the ladies' room though. Fancy!

Aren't they the cutest lovebirds?

We gave up trying to find any more historic or famous places that day and decided to head back home. We took our friends to our new favorite French bistro for dinner, Côte Brasserie, and had a fantastically decadent New Year's feast. They left the next day to visit another set of friends after a morning walk through Christ Church and Merton College and we felt ever so lucky for the time they spent with us. It was really wonderful to feel the energy of old friends in our new home. Ahhhh.. 

More of January soon, I promise, and more pictures!