To England

Up and running at six this morning! We want to catch LeShuttle (the train through the channel tunnel) around nine. We’re taking a trip with family, so we’re a group of three cars, but it’s nigh impossible to coordinate which train to be on, so we’ve agreed to meet up at our first activity in England.

Coming off the train we repeat our mantra for this week drive left, left, left and it goes okay, it’s not the first time we’ve done this, after all. The round points are the most confusing, but we shouldn’t encounter many of those today. First stop is Wisley, right by the M25 south west of London. Not too far, so we should make it before lunch, but we hadn’t anticipated the ungodly frequency and length of the roadworks on the M25. It’s unclear to me what they’re trying to achieve, but about half of today’s kilometers – or I should say, miles – are with reduced lanes at 50 mph. That’s okay, we’re not in a hurry, so we practice our Zen and listen to music. First a current UK hits list and when that gets repetitive after half an hour, we switch to KT Tunstall.

Though the GPS should be navigating, we find it very helpful to find out which road (M25, M3, ..) we need and what the next big town is, so that we can also follow the road signs and sort into the correct lane early enough. It’s busy, but the drivers are mostly well-behaved, so it’s not too stressful a drive.

Just in time for lunch, we arrive at the RHS Gardens Wisley! We find the rest of our party, pay the entry fee (18,5 £ for adults) and find something quick to eat in one of the food halls. This also gives us time to study the map of this 100 hectare horticultural park and plan our route through it. We’ll have to skip the outer corners to save some time, but we should be able to visit most of the displays. Though the car park is nearly full, it doesn’t feel crowded inside because everybody is spread out over such a huge area. The weather is not too warm/sunny, ideal conditions!

We have a few avid gardeners in the group and they’re keen on the details, so the progress is pretty slow sometimes. All the plants, shrubs and trees are identified with their Latin name on a tag, there are so many varieties to see, it’s heaven. My trick to allow me to use that info later is to take a picture of the plant and then of the tag, so I can always go back to my pictures and check which variety exactly I would like for myself. Fortunately my database of garden plants (meaning the ones in my own garden) is completely online, so I can always double check which varieties we already have.

I buy an Opuntia microdasys ‘Crystal’ in the store as a souvenir and then we set out around five for the remainder of the drive to our rented house. Our GPS doesn’t know the street, but Google helps us out, all the way until the road closed sign right near where we’re supposed to be. I (the navigator today) decide to take the risk , thinking the cottage should be close by and so probably before the road works, but no such luck. The bunch of vans and men is right in front of the cottage, fixing the sewer connection that had sprung a leak. I negotiate with the friendly crew and they move a van, so we can carefully edge past the excitement (I can hear the whine of a grinding wheel from a pothole) and park the cars.

We say hello to the host, unpack and then we’re off to the White Horse Inn in Thruxton, nearby. We had made a reservation – always a good idea when you’re a group of eight – but we’re unlucky with our choice. They’re low on staff so the service is extremely slow (they warned us when we arrived, at least) and they’re out of fish and chips..