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

Nature Preserves & Trader Maes Shabby Chic

When we were at "Meant To Bee Treasures" sjop a few day ago, we overheard the owner saying that she had to drop a few things off at Trader Maes.  Hello Google "what is Trader Maes?"  it is another shabby chic vintage store in Apopka.  Locked it in on Google Maps for a later visit.

Today we traveled down to Oakland (next door to Winter Garden) to visit the Oakland Nature Preserve.  It look like it had a 2/3 mile boardwalk through the swamps to lake Apopka.   As soon as we left the parking lot heading t the boardwalk we spotted this turtle just sitting there posing for pictures.

The boardwalk was nice and headed through the swap towards the lake.

Further down the boardwalk we finally potted our first Florida alligator just hanging out on a tree trunk.

Halfway, Evan texted us and wondered if we were still alive, so we texted this selfie.

At the end of the walk was lake Apopka.  At one time it was the Bass Fishing Capital of the US, but orange grove fertilizer runoff polluted the lake.  After many years of work by the Army Corps of Engineers, the lake is starting to make a come-back!

After the walk back, we decided to check out Tucker Farm, another town owned nature preserve.  This one is still in developement and has a playground for children,  We took a little stroll to the primitive camping area and kayak launch but they were closed.  Maybe they are open in the summer.

The camping area among the Live Oak Trees

The walkway to the camping area

After a short walk, we took a drive towards Disney.  There are tons of housing developments & communities crammed in along the road.  Nothing to see here so we started heading home.

When we were at "Meant To Bee Treasures" shop a few day ago, we overheard the owner saying that she had to drop a few things off at Trader Maes.  Hello Google "what is Trader Maes?"  it is another shabby chic vintage store in Apopka.  So om our way home we decided to try to find the place.  Traveling through Apopka was unimpressive. But we found Trader Maes.

The Street Sign

 

OMG, its a shabby chic superstore.  Really, it's a group shop where each vendor's booth is loaded with shabby chic, country coastal or farmhouse decor items and furniture.  I have never seen so much painted furniture in my life.  The owners said that the vendors do extremely well. I think its due to all the construction going on in this area.

Below is just a smaple of the over 100 dealer booths in this 2 building shop.

 We spent a lot of time looking around and then left for a late lunch and the Mount Dora Brewery.

Renninger's Flea & Farmers Market

Renningers has a few markets.  Their Antique Extravaganza, which happens 3 times a year like Brimfield, and the permanent Flea & Farmers Market which is open each weekend. In a previous post, we showed what the Extravaganza was like.  That day we did not go to this part as we knew we could visit it this weekend.

It is in a large building with indoor vendors selling mostly stuff from china, food, their own products and flea market items. It was big inside.  Definitely not an antique flea market.  One of the "legs" of the building was dedicated to the Farmers Market.

Outside to the right in the photo above was the "antique & junk" vendors.  There was a lot of JUNK. If there were ant real antiques, they were priced very high!  And ir was very hot! the vendors were all complaining about the heat.  I guess its supposed to be in the 70's and cooler in February, today it was 85 and hot in the sun.  The weather forecast is for cooler and dryer weather next week.

The junk vendors

The decor window guy was also set up there.

Window frames from Thailand

We also visited a permanent area call "The Street of Shops" where people have shed with real antiques.  Again these items were priced way to high for our tastes.

The Street of Shops.

There was one vendor that had a huge permanent shop with tons of stuff.  the stuff must have been there for years as everything was caked with dust & dirt.  But it was the most interesting shop there.

I guess the glassware market is going downhill, because he has a permanent 50% off on glassware.  His prices were also very high.  For example, a common coffee grinder with a draw was $85.  We can get these in MA for under $25.

This stoneware ovoid jug was "on sale" for $500!

After seeing all we could, we went to Tony's Clam Chowder place again for Soup & Salad.