Today is Poppy Day in the UK, another name for Armistice Day. The poppy became a symbol of Armistice Day from the popular poem, In Flanders Fields, written by Canadian Lt. Col. John McCrae during World War I in which he describes the poppies growing between the graves in Flanders fields. For the past few weeks we have seen these bright red paper flowers pop up on shirts, blouses, lapels, coats, and hats everywhere we go in England. Every news- and sportscaster in the UK wears one. It’s a wonderful way to show remembrance – and respect, gratitude, and optimism.

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Today, the eleventh day of the eleventh month, at 11:00, we were emerging from the Underground station next to Parliament, under the vigilant face of Big Ben, when the clock began to strike the hour. It was eerie to see the people on the sidewalks of such a congested district in a bustling city take a moment to stop, look up at Big Ben, and reflect. And most of them were wearing poppies.

My clothing plan worked! Aside from having to get used to wearing the same six tops every week for weeks on end, with minor variations accomplished through layering and scarves, it’s been virtually flawless.

The plan:

• two short-sleeved T-shirts
• two long-sleeved knit tops
• two heavier cotton turtlenecks
• two sweaters
• three toppers (for layering): a quilted vest, a light drapey sweater, a wool cardigan
• three pairs of nice jeans: one black, two dark blue
• one skirt and tights, for dressier occasions
• three cotton scarves
• two coats: an anorak with a fleece pullover for outdoor activities and a long, dressier raincoat
• three pair of shoes: walking/hiking shoes, dressier-but-comfortable flats, waterproof Wellies

When we first arrived in Scotland in August, I wore the short- and long-sleeved tops, and put on the toppers as required in the evenings or on a chilly, overcast day. Occasionally (in the Highlands or on Skye) I would need a turtleneck. Note: Never hike in a turtleneck, no matter how chilly you are going out; you are sure to overheat. Use more layers instead.

By the beginning of October I was ready to drop the short-sleeved T’s, unless wearing them under the wool cardigan. The turtlenecks were becoming more of a staple, and the lighter of my two sweaters was introduced.

This week I brought out the skirt, as we were meeting friends for lunch on Sunday, and the second sweater. It felt so good to have something “new” to wear, especially at this stage of the game! And the tights were perfect – everyone in the UK is wearing them, even with summer dresses in August.

The scarves were brilliant too. They go with T-shirts as well as sweaters. Some days you just need to feel a little dressed up, even if you’re hiking in the morning, and they’re much easier to pack than necklaces. Less liability too. Even though they’re light cotton, they add a lot of warmth around the head or neck. Long scarves can be wrapped around multiple times for extra layers.

And get this: I got by with only one pair of earrings for three months! They’re my standard silver earrings that go with everything.

I almost didn’t bring the third pair of jeans, and I’m so glad I did. It’s nice to have one pair of black and one pair of blue to wear alternately during the week, and to have the third pair as a clean backup to wear while doing laundry or when another pair gets muddy on a hike. Note: Always wear a pair of blue jeans when hiking so you don’t get your only black pair dirty.

Most importantly, choose colors wisely when packing so there’s more opportunity to mix and match. When I started pulling clothes from the closet to pack, I noticed a pattern – purple, olive, and black – so I let that guide me in selecting everything else.

And take clothes you love so there’s less risk of wanting to burn them when you get home. ;o)

An advantage to waiting until the end of the day to see the cathedral was the lighting. So dramatic!

Love this house we saw in Canterbury! Take a look at the front door. The quote above the door is by one of my favorite authors, Charles Dickens. He may not have written it about this particular house, but all of Kent is Dickens country.

“…a very old house bulging out over the road…leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below…”

If you haven’t read Dickens, or haven’t read him in a very long time, treat yourself. I read Bleak House recently and absolutely loved it (after struggling through the first chapter – don’t give up!). He wrote some of the best characters in the history of literature, and their names are priceless.

During any construction project in this part of the world, whenever you dig you have to do so gingerly. You never know what’s going to turn up – a Roman wall, Iron Age utensils, the bones of Richard III. You gotta love a country with that much history, although I’m sure that the individuals paying for the construction don’t always appreciate it.

We are in our final rental property, a cute little flat on the grounds of a former castle. We are actually in what would have been a gatehouse, just inside an entrance that leads into a courtyard around which are located several newly renovated flats. Very cute!

As we have found with almost every property we have rented, there are shortcomings. There may only be one or two properties out of the 19 we’ve rented that have provided everything we need, but we’ve learned to ask the owner or property manager when we need something. Typically they are very happy to accommodate as a good review of their rental property could ride on it. Occasionally we have been told that what we requested will not be provided by the owner, and that’s okay. You never know until you ask, right? In that situation, we have to make do.

At first we were a little put off by having to make do. How, for example, does one make coffee without a coffee maker? Most places have provided a French press coffee maker, which I use at home. Brilliant! Very easy to brew coffee as every flat has an electric kettle, a British must-have. A rental may not have a TV, but it will have an electric kettle. (A Brit told us that putting the kettle on goes a lot farther toward settling nerves than the actual tea does.) But this flat does not have a French press, nor did the owner seem excited about running out to purchase one. I’m beginning to think that the Brits just don’t understand why Americans can’t drink instant coffee, like they do. If they only knew how spoiled we’ve become with a fresh latte available on every American street corner.

And how does one dry their laundry when the clothes dryer removes only 90% of the moisture from clothes? (These combination washer/dryers we’ve encountered are really not very effective dryers.) You can’t fold them and put them away when they’re still damp. This flat, unlike most, has no clothes drying rack, or clothes horse as the Brits call them, to allow clothes to air dry. Actually, I’m surprised; a clothes horse seems to be second only to the electric kettle in their list of essential appliances. They really are wonderful things. I have several at home, and use them regularly. Mine, however, are not nearly as fancy as the ones here. I’m envious.

But then we came to enjoy the challenge of finding a work-around. This is what happens when engineers travel, as my friend Cynthia so aptly put it!

I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that I was able to simulate the French press process, more or less, with a saucepan and a sieve, and we’ve found that a boiler room makes a great place to dry clothes. We are happy campers.

Last week I reported on a near fiasco with our flat reservation in Plymouth, which turned into a success story in Cornwall. Turns out not all fiascos can be avoided. Here’s a story that lends a bit of reality to our otherwise happy adventures.

We left Cornwall a week ago, bound for the Salisbury/Stonehenge area. Our rented flat was in the remote village of Dinton, adjacent to National Trust land. The property was owned by the cutest looking elderly couple and a brother-in-law – all smiles for the camera in their profile – and it was called Honeysuckle Homestead. Does it get any sweeter than that?

Only the sweet little trio wasn’t there when we arrived. In fact, they didn’t own the property any longer. And the new owners weren’t expecting us, and had rented out the flat to a family of three. They were nice enough to offer us a room in their adjoining B&B at the same rate. We didn’t even know there was a B&B on the property. Or an RV park. And that bucolic scene they painted in their listing didn’t take into account the train track that ran parallel to the property. Buyer beware, especially when it comes to shopping online.

Let me take a moment to talk about accommodation reviews. Of course the listings are going to pump sunshine, so I read the reviews forwards and backwards scrutinizing every word for hints as to what’s really going on. But airbnb reviews are very short and sweet, for the most part, and I didn’t understand why until I got here. One reason is that most reviewers I read were Brits, and Brits are just painfully polite. For the most part, they find it very uncomfortable to say anything negative. You’ve gotta love ’em for that. But it doesn’t help when trying to reserve accommodations. Another reason is that airbnb allows you to write a public review and also a second, private review which only the owner of the property will see. So dirty laundry is not usually aired in front of the airbnb shopper.

In hindsight, there were only four reviews of Honeysuckle Homestead on airbnb – all variations of “Nice place, nice hosts.” A bright red, flapping flag should have gone up.

I don’t really care to relive this in more detail, so I will just say that between the railroad track maintenance that went on from somewhere around 1:00 in the morning until the trains resumed again around dawn both nights – think jack hammers and incessant diesel engines – and no hot water on the second morning, we called it quits after two nights (out of our reserved five). We found two other places to spend the other three nights. It was a bit choppy as far as packing up and moving on so frequently, something we tried to avoid this trip, but it beats the rhythmical hum of a diesel engine in the night.

Now here’s a king of England you don’t hear much about, especially surprising given that he is the only British monarch ever to have “the Great” put after his name. So why don’t we hear about this guy more often? Because he was from the pre-Norman era (Battle of Hastings – 1066, and all that, as the Brits would say). You’ve probably heard mention of the Battle of Hastings, but why? Many historians consider it to be a major turning point in British history. Until the Normans (from Normandy, on the continent, in what is today France) conquered England in 1066, England was pretty much an isolated island without benefit of easy proximity to the more advanced civilizations in the rest of Europe and around the Mediterranean. The Normans literally brought a boatload of know-how to the shores of England.

Not that the Anglo-Saxons were happy about it. Although they yielded without much of a fight to the Normans – perhaps because they didn’t have the same advances in the technology of warfare, such as it was – they resisted Norman culture for centuries. And if the novel Ivanhoe had any basis in historical accuracy, they mourned the death of their greatest king, Alfred, for centuries after he was gone. Alfred was an educated man, and was known for the great strides he made in bringing education and justice to his people. And for keeping those pesky Vikings from invading England. If it hadn’t been for Alfred, the Normans may have had Viking warriors to contend with in 1066, and who knows where we would be today. Good to see that someone still acknowledges his contributions.

If you read my earlier posts for this trip, you know that the seed of it was sown when I was introduced to British literature at about 13 or 14. Since reading about pasties and moors, I was compelled to see them for myself. No amount of reading or research was going to give me the knowledge of experience.

The other day I got to experience something from the eyes of my favorite British author, Thomas Hardy. While visiting the cottage he grew up in as a boy and young man, I sat at his writing desk and looked out the same window he did for inspiration as he wrote about the people and the heath beyond. I was seeing a few more trees than Mr. Hardy did 150 years ago, but it was the same frame from which he extracted the setting for my favorite of his novels, Far from the Madding Crowd.

After visiting his boyhood home, we drove 10 miles or so to the house he built at the age of 45, when he had made enough money as a writer to quit his job as an architect and live off of his writing royalties. I am so glad that he experienced success as an author while he was still alive. In my mind, he deserved it.