Ellenborough Park Hotel

Right outside of the city of Cheltenham we arrived at the Ellenborough Park Hotel.  OMG, this place is gorgeous!

Heathrow Airport

When we de-planed at Heathrow on the tarmac, we were escorted to buses for a 3 ,onute bus ride to the UK Border inside the International Terminal. We waited in a serpentine line like at Disney for the automated passport control.

It was easy and after our passports were scanned we did not have to have our bags opened or anything. We just walked through the "nothing to declare" area and we were officially in the UK.

We took a bus to the car rental agency and picked up the car.

Rob drove first and I was the navigator. Driving on the left was interesting. There were many roundabouts on the way, mostly on the A40 road to Cheltenham.  One of the really odd things was that some of the roundabouts had stoplights just before entering the roundabout! I had thought that the roundabouts we're supposed to eliminate the need for intersection stop signs or lights.

About 1 1/2 hours of driving we arrived in Cheltenham.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

 

MCO - Orlando International Airport

Today we are flying to London from Orlando.  The first leg of our trip is Orlando to Newark (another messed up airport). We will see how it goes. We have 1 1/2 hours between flights, we are manifesting that it all goes well.

First minor hiccup, I broke Robin's suitcase handle. At curbside, I pulled up the handle on her carry-on and the handle broke off. Shot happens!. Rob and Robin off to buy a new carry-on and repack her suitcase. We have plenty of time!

They did not buy a new bag. Green duct tape to the rescue!

Waiting at gate. 

On board Flight 1190. Making progress.

 Landed in Newark 1/2 hour early.  Plenty of time to get the flight to London, UA Flight 14.

NYC skyline from Newark Airport, right before departure.

We finally made it! A little issue with Elly's gluten free meals (none were to be had). As compensation we are getting "miles' added to our account.  Now if we can get our bodies to think that it's 7am instead of 2am!

Heathrow Luggage Problems

The news in the past few days have detailed all the problems at London's Heathrow Airport. It is so bad that you have to wait 4-5 hours just to get you checked baggage.  Delta Airlines just flew a plane today from Heathrow to the US with no passengers, just 1000+ pieces of luggage!

Lost Luggage at Heathrow Airport

Our solution to this problem is to only have carry-ons, 1 carry-on suitcase and a backpack as our personal item should work.  It was difficult deciding what to pack for a 10 day visit. Plus, next week, England may break heat records from Sun to Tues.  We should be ok being used to the Florida heat. Should be fine.

Trip to England July 2022

Ellenborough Park Hotel in Cheltenham

Elly and I and our good friends Rob and Robin decided to vacation in England this summer. We will be spending 5 days in the Cotswolds and 5 days in London. This will be my first time traveling outside North America (I've had a few trips to Canada). A little apprehensive due to all the news with flight cancellations and the total mess at Heathrow where today they just told the airlines to limit ticket sales in and out of Heathrow.  At least we have our tickets.  Hope all goes well.  We have resolved ourselves to just go with the flow.

This is a photo of the Ellenborough Park Hotel in Cheltenham. This is where we will be staying for the 1st 5 days. The weather forecast is for hot weather next Monday and Tuesday, but being used to the Florida heat, we should be ok.

 Really excited. Stay tuned.

END OF EVERDREAM FARM POSTS

 

The Story For Another Day

If you go back and look at my February 10th post, you will notice that at the end I mentioned that we ended up in Winter Garden again.  On my Feb. 9th post I also mentioned that we shared a table with a couple and friends that said they lived down the road at Oakland Park, a nice community with Craftsman style houses.

I am writing this many months later because that encounter completely changed our lives. I am now only getting around to update the blog because we have been extremely busy because we bought a house and moved to that community! Oakland Park in Winter Garden Florida  Florida! Just Wow!

Click here to see the webpage for our community: Oakland Park Website

So getting back to the story: When we ended up in Winter Garden again, we came down Tildenville School Road and took a right towards town.  After going through town, Elly mentioned that we must have missed Oakland Park and asked if we should turn around and go find it. We were both tired and decided that we should just head back to the house in Mount Dora.  As we were leaving Winter Garden, there was a large parking lot (Park & Dillard) so I quickly turned in and stopped to look to see where Oakland Park was on the GPS.  We decided to turn around & check it out.

As we pulled into Oakland Park, we say two signs: Open House or Model.  We decided to go see the Open House.  Inside we met the realtor, Mauro, and looked around.  It was a two story and Elly was done doing stairs, so we asked Mauro if and single story homes were available.  He told us that one had just come on the market two days ago.  After contacting the owners we hopped in Mauro's car and drove over to the one story. As it turned out, Mauro lived two houses away. As we drove up, we saw this cute little bungalow.

835 Easley for Sale

So we went inside

Mauro in the entry Hall

Mauro & Elly in the kitchen

We both immediately fell in love with the house. We looked at each other and said "Yah, we could live here!"  So we went next door to Mauro's house to make an offer on the house.

A few days later, our offer was accepted and Mauro welcomed us to Florida! we both said "Shit, what do we do now.  There was a lot of paperwork to get a mortgage because we still had our house back in Sterling. It was like the Spanish Inquisition, but it all worked out in the end and all the people that we dealt with were great!

Closing was done back in Boston in March with a rep from the Title Escrow Company. So now we owned two houses. Time to sell our house in Sterling.

More Realtor pictures of the house:

Front Office

Kitchen

Master Bath

Patio

Back screened n Porch (Lanai)

Living Room

Front Hall