Here we are ... Hello U.K.!

Our plane was a little late - about an hour or so - coming into Manchester International, and Eurocar had already closed shop in the terminal where we thought we were going to pick up our car. Thank goodness, though, they were still open and available for us in terminal 1, and after searching through his system a few times, the clerk at the desk was able to locate the car they had reserved for us - an Astra - in time for us to try to find our hotel before dark.

So, what's an Astra? We're not sure, but the sticker on the window says that it's a GM car. It's pretty nice and it feels roomy enough for our purposes. We're surely glad, though, that we didn't bring any more luggage than we did. We put the back seats down flat so there's one solid open space from the trunk to the back of the front seats, and our stuff fits there more or less comfortably. Had we brought any more, we might have had some problems.

Our Astra is actually an upgrade from the economy size car we ordered - without an upgrade in price - so we've wondered if we would have been able to get our luggage in that car had we received the size we originally ordered.

Our little Garmin Nuvi is a great addition to our travel kit. We purchased the UK map pack last winter when we planned this trip, and Lauren was able to program in all the postal codes. What we've found out, though, is that we needed just a bit more information to get us from door to door. We printed our google and Mapquest maps and programmed the Nuvi to get us from city to city; but once we're in the city, our brains (and our Nuvi) go blank! I spent some time last night and this morning and refined our printed google and Mapquest maps (in pencil) by finding the exact location of our hotels and then entering them into the map search engines. As we enter each city, then, if we haven't gotten it just right on the Nuvi, we can enter another bit of information and get us much, much closer to our lodgings.

Lauren was smart enough to make note of all the postal codes before we left home, and that's a huge help. Both Mapquest and google recognize those codes as locations, and the codes seem to get us, initially, within blocks of our lodgings.

Lauren's doing well driving on the left side of the road while sitting on the right side (passenger) side of the car. We do talk out loud about it while he's driving, hoping that helps him learn to adjust to this new way of doing things. It took us two tries and one bad right-hand turn where Lauren initially headed toward oncoming traffic but caught himself just in time (I think I might have yelled or something) - all on the same loop - to find our hotel in Manchester, but we did it!



The next morning, I was up early, and I came across this little National Trust park at Quarry Bank Mill adjoining the hotel property. I think the hotel and the park shared the same parking areas. A number of people were out walking their dogs or taking their morning run, so it's definitely a park that's used by the locals. We enjoyed a bit of the path, but then it became muddy and didn't look too good for our purposes since we were dressed for traveling to our next hotel and didn't have good hiking shoes on.

The weather is clearing somewhat today, but Saturday and Sunday were days of light rains and over cast skies. Our hotel here in Southport is down in the main part of town, so we spent yesterday walking and window shopping, along with lots and lots of other people. The weather is just incidental to the locals - if it's at all negotiable, they are out in droves. Good for them! We're going to make that our motto while we're here and do the same!

My fingers got fidgety last night, so I looked up yarn shops on the Internet (we have free broadband in our room here). I found one that looked like it was a few blocks from here (The Prince of Wales Hotel). I figured it would be out of business because so many shops like these disappear before they actually get off the ground, but, hooray! We found it today, and I picked up a couple circulars and skeins of yarn! I'll be knitting before sundown! I had debated bringing my knitting with me and had opted out. Mistake! But the mistake is now cured, and I'm a happy camper.

We called the people at the Ellesmere marina to do our required "confirm your reservation" today. The number they had printed on our confirmation was their fax number, so I had to do some looking on the internet to find a number that actualy had a human attached to the other end. Tomorrow we'll head for Chester, nearer to Ellesmere than here in Southport, and then on to Ellesmere the next day. We're getting comfortable with the time change and the driving, and we're getting excited about our boat trip!