Jun. 4, 2007 - House-Hunting in England!
So, finally some news from us.
Now, to tell you about the houses. The first two on Friday were just absolute duds. D.U.D.S.
Saturday we went to downtown Cobham by taxi and toured a grocery store and bought some peanut butter and same "digestive", uh, that would be crackers and cookies to us.
Later a friend of D's from BP (forkmer Napervillian), Mark, picked us up and took us to: a Tesco's (similar to Super Target), Marks and Spencers (dept store feel, with produce and such.) He also took us around several towns and to see a leisure center at which a couple of his daughters swim. It was lots of fun. Everything was a blur from town to town though. After being dropped off at the hotel we decided to walk back into Cobham, about two miles...ended up at the Old Bear. Had fish and chips in the back garden. They even brough a baby chair (high chair) out for Miss GillyGillyShortbread (her new nickname for her new favorite cookie/digestive!)
On the way home from the pub we stopped in at a wine shop and bought a bottle of shiraz and a bottle opener. Walked back to the hotel, about 1 1/2 miles.
Sunday morning we got a taxi to a local church, a non-denominational, international church in Hersham/Walton at a local British public school. It was nice. Lots of kids of all ages and a new female children's pastor. Interim pastor, after the former pastor of 12 years left...they've had over 225 applicants! There are between 100 and 200 families in the church depending on how many are in the country at the time. I have an online friend who uses curriculum, Jane, who attends there, so we met them at the church that morning. After church they loaded us into their van with their family (daughters ages 19 and 15 and son 12) and took us to Pizza Express for a nice Italian lunch.
We took a taxi back to the hotel. Sunday evening, after an unsuccessful nap we were picked up by David's friend Mark. He took us to their home in Esher. We had a lovely evening. Their daughters are 18, 12 and 9. The 12 and 18 yr olds begged to keep Gilly while we two couples went to dinner at the Prince of Wales pub, a local favorite. We had a great dinner. D had beef wellington and I had pork schnitzel with pineapple sambal, a little spicy. I had apple pie with custard for dessert, which we split and really enjoyed. When we arrived at the pub, at the entrance, Mark and Anita and we ran into friends of theirs, Jan and Rusty and their teenaged sons Matt and Alexander, so we had dinner with them!
Monday morning it was REAL house hunting!
I will attempt to attach our very anal house-hunt-rating guide! Right now we are leaning toward a home with 6 bedrooms, 3 full and 1/2 bath and a phenom back yard from which we could easily walk to a train station! 74 Hurst Rd East Molesey
Today we saw about 8 houses I guess. Tomorrow we see about 5 or 6 more and we have a short appointment at a local private school, ACS Egham. We hope to narrow our search down to a final home for which we can make an offer. Tomorrow we are to see home that sounds interesting, in Virginia Waters. I will give information for that later.
Tonight we went to Jane and Leo's home. They had a friend visiting whom they had met in Quattar. (sp?) She home schools their 8 yr old son. They are on their way to work with the embassy in Albania!
We had a lovely dinner and talked about our house hunt and enjoyed visiting again.
We are now back at the Cobham Hilton and eating dessert and readying for bed.
