Friday – Arrival in the UK

Our flights were mostly non-eventful.  No fights on board.  No overbooking dramas.  We left Phoenix on American Airlines 50 minutes late because of a gate hold due to anticipated runway congestion in Boston.  (Really, they knew that hours in advance?)  The prevailing westerlies were blowing hard, and we arrived in Boston right on time.  Virgin Atlantic from Boston to Heathrow left on schedule and arrived about 30 minutes late as the winds were less favorable.

At Heathrow we picked up our brand new Peugeot 3008 GRIP with no issues and by 11:30 AM we were heading south on the three-hour trip to Swanage in Dorset.  We had time to kill since we can’t get into our cottage until 4:00 PM.  So we had two stops planned.  First stop was in Farnborough for a visit to a UK Costco to pick up a few items:  folding chairs for picnics, a cooler for the car, a current UK road atlas to supplement the Peugeot GPS (sat nav to Brits), vodka (!), wine, etc.  Second stop was in Poole at a large Tesco Superstore to pick up groceries for the cottage.

Then, including a short ferry ride, it was into Swanage at 4:30 where we proceeded to Durlston County Park and down the private road to Anvil Point Lighthouse.  It is a working lighthouse run by Trinity House, the British organization charged with running and maintaining all the lighthouses in the UK.  For many years all the lighthouses were manned 24 hours a day by lighthouse keepers.  For that purpose, there are two lighthouse keeper cottages on site.  Nowadays the lighthouse operation is fully automated and is monitored from off site.  So Trinity House had the lighthouse keeper cottages fully updated and modernized so as to rent them out to tourists.  The tourists had arrived!

Then it was unloading the car and getting settled.  Rowena Cottage is beautiful.  It is well apart from the other cottage, and there isn’t another residence in sight in any direction.  We have a beautiful ocean view and watched the Condor Ferry arrive in nearby Poole as we sat outside drinking our cocktails.  It was cloudy and occasionally raining as we drove down from London.  Once here the clouds had cleared, and the weather was beautiful albeit chilly – mid 50’s.

Elaine’s sister Cindy suggested we name our car Pete Peugeot.  That sounded OK, but we made it a bit more French.  It is now officially christened Pierre Peugeot.  The Sat Nav (GPS) has an English accent, and our navigator has been named Penelope.  The 3008 Grip is one nice car.  The dashboard is as modern as possible with button for everything.  And it drives like a charm.  I find driving in the UK (on the left) much easier when piloting a left-hand drive car (like a US or French car) rather than a right hand drive English car.  Pierre is left hand drive since he was born in France and delivered to Heathrow for us.

Some pics of Pierre and Rowena Cottage at Anvil Point Lighthouse (click to enlarge in new tab or window):