13-20-27 October 2003

Coming to England

Note:  For the next couple of weeks I will be writing about our move to England.  I have lots of things left to say about life in France, and I can tell from my time here already that my fondness for my life in Senlis will color my thoughts in the next few weeks.  So stay tuned…

As I look back on it I can see that I was terribly naive.  The whole idea that I could get us packed in France, moved across the English Channel, and safely settled into a tiny 700 year old house in Hadleigh, England just didn’t seem to be that big of a deal after getting us all to France two years ago.  It is possible that I conveniently forgot that Jay did most of the work on the last move.

The first clue could have been the mover’s estimates of $5,000 ($1,000 in tax) to haul hardly anything the 550 miles from our 11 room French house to the tiny dollhouse in England.  The next clue of the impending doom, which I ignored, was the two trips it took to England to find a house.

House hunting on an island is tough.  The rental agents (real estate folks) are totally unmotivated to help, even though they are handling a good amount of property for rent.  Once we decided the general area where we wanted to live I just called up the agents and tried to find out what they had for rent.  I gave up asking them to show me the property.  All I did was ask for directions and got myself around all on my own.

Foolishly I thought I could find a house by searching the rental agent’s websites but it seems that England is still stuck in the last century when it comes to the World Wide Web.  I finally gave up on that idea. 

Every house I found was almost the size of one of the bathrooms in our French house.  Plus the rooms were painted purple, or orange or blue with matching carpet.  Some of those places made me seasick.

The day we spied Holly Lodge on Benton Street in Hadleigh we knew we were destined to sign on the doted line of the rental contract.  It was absolutely the only house for rent that was fit to live in.  I do not exaggerate!

But I digress. 

The very moment in early March when we decided we were moving to England I raced our two cats, Lucy and Christopher to the vets for their “chip”.  All cats and dogs entering the UK must have a chip implanted in their necks to prove that they are free of rabies.  This is conveniently called a “pet scheme”, and they are not kidding.  Apparently rabies was a big problem here years ago so being British, and prone to creating a whole city of buildings to deal with one law they created a new section of government just to handle cats and dogs entering the country.

The part I forgot to tell you is that not only do they need a chip, but also they must have a shot against tapeworm within 48 hours before they enter England.  BUT they can’t enter the country until after they’ve had the shot for 24 hours.  Even though we are all college educated (the veterinarian, Jay and me) this time of 24 to 48 hours completely went over our heads.

The day of the move we put the cats into their little traveling boxes, and gave them a tranquilizer to help them through their day in the cage, the ferry ride and adjusting to their new home.  Christopher cried all day and tore up his box to make sure that I knew just how miserable he was at being caged.

At the ferry in Calais, a mere 2-½ hour drive from Senlis, the first ticket taker told us to park near the terminal and wait because we were too early to board the boat.  When we returned, the new ticket taker said, “Mon Dieu” (my god) when we announced we had two cats to go on the ferry.

Maybe you are thinking, “Why did she pay $99 for the privilege of being stressed out like this?  Why didn’t she just get on the ferry and pretend she didn’t have any cats?”  Those are good questions, but I think you will have to ask my darling husband Jay because he is the one who announced I could not do anything illegal because he didn’t want to have to visit me in jail.

After a lot of arguing with several levels of ticket takers we were told that we were five minutes too late (it was 48 hours and 5 minutes since the cats had received their tape worm shot) and we could not transport the cats to England.  At first I was calm, but after all I was still jetlagged from the US trip, exhausted from packing, AND my brain was frantically trying to figure out what to do since we couldn’t abandon the cats.  To add to the stress the movers would be waiting for us in Hadleigh in a few short hours.

Eventually I started to cry.   Now that I am rational again, I can see that I cried because I knew we were saying goodbye to France, and to the cats.  I cried and cried because there was nothing I could do to stop what was happening. 

Eventually we found a cat hotel and left the cats temporarily so that we could get onto a later ferry and meet the movers.  We needed time to think as well.  I knew Jay was thinking we should find the cats a new home.  The “real” devastating news came when I called UK immigration from the ticket taker’s office, only to find out that the cats would not be allowed to enter England until November 14.  The only alternative was to apply for an emergency import order and then pay an outlandish fee for someone to transport the cats to quarantine somewhere near our new home.  What to do?

As we boarded a later ferry, which was over another hour late in departing to Dover I was completely drained emotionally.  I kept thinking that my distrust of the British, even though this is half of my heritage was growing by the minute.  At one point I announced, “If I have any bigotry in me, it is for the Brits!” and I wasn’t kidding.  All those rules, all that fear of everything, all those cameras constantly watching…my mind was shut tight to any hope of loving my time on the island.

We ended up driving until 2:00 in the morning in order to get around London and not have to deal with the terrible rush hour the next morning.  In August everyone is on holiday so there was no place to stay.  As we neared Chelmsford we stopped at a hotel just off of the A12.  The clerk called ahead to find us a room.  He even argued over the phone with the hotel clerk at the other hotel to give us a break on the room because it was so late, and it was the only room left. 

The directions to the hotel were impossible but somehow we found the place.  The room was actually two rooms.  We lugged everything up two flights of steps and fell into bed.  Morning came early, but we were like horses headed for the barn…eager to get going.  After a leisurely buffet breakfast (included in the $120 room rent) we loaded up for “home”.

As we drove the narrow road from the A12 to Hadleigh, reality was setting in.  There was no going back.  We had said goodbye through tears one more time to Julia, and Natalie. The Senlis garden gate was locked.  The keys to the Senlis house were returned.  The cats were in France for a long time.  All I could do was look ahead.

The main street into Hadleigh is Benton Street, the site of our new home.  It is so narrow in places that it seems like not even one car could go between the parked cars and houses. 

As we rounded the curve on Benton St. we could see the moving van parked partially on the sidewalk.  AND we could see the two French movers walking back from downtown with their bread safely tucked under their arms.  They made me laugh.

As soon as we got out of the car Barry and Katrina, our new landlord, and neighbor appeared with a tray of hot coffee and enough mugs for everyone to have a taste.  Then the neighbors on the other side of the garage appeared to say “welcome”.  They all spoke the Queen’s English.  I was overwhelmed with their friendliness, and pleased that everyone was so nice to us.

Holly Lodge is the name of our little dollhouse.  The clay tile roof is probably the one the merchant put on it when it was built almost 700 years ago.  The living room and dining room are one room with 10-foot high-beamed ceilings.  There is large tan brick fireplace that does not work (it made a great place for the TV to sit).

There is a toilette and sink just off of the living room, and a front entry hall with a door between it and the living room.  The bathroom with a tub and sink are on the other side of the dining room.  The doorway into the bathroom and the kitchen is so low that Jay has to duck his head down to keep from hurting himself.

The kitchen has been modernized with white cabinets, a convection oven, microwave and washing machine.  The kitchen door opens onto a tiny garden with a circular walkway and a little patio where the sun shines (when it does) all morning.

The stairway to the second floor is rather steep but covered with carpet.  At the top of the stairs is a tiny room on the right that they call the “Monk’s room” because it has no windows and is only big enough to hold two of the clothing racks we brought with us.

There are three bedrooms.  Cat’s room looks out over the kitchen roof and the garden.  It has a window that will open completely or just at the top.  This room holds a child’s bed (smaller than a single bed), two tiny bookcases, and a rack for hanging clothes.

The middle room holds my marble topped baker’s table I use for my desk, a bookcase and a single bed. There is just enough room to walk past the desk to the bed.  The little window catches the morning sun though, and there is a small beam running across the ceiling so the room is pleasant.

Our bedroom holds our queen-size bed, two small nightstands and the clothes cupboard that came with the house.  We have sliding drawers that fit under the bed to hold our clothes.  The little window of this room faces the street, but the room is quiet.  The beams that make up the walls of the house are exposed in this room, and the waddle and daub (the filling between the beams) is painted white.

The single care garage, which we negotiated to use, sits beyond the driveway that is used by us, and the landlord.  We really wanted this building for storage, and we wanted the little patch of grass next to it so that if we decided to buy a car we didn’t have to park on the narrow street.  We’ve had too many bad experiences in England with parked cars being damaged by vandalism.

The first two days in England were spent trying to fit our belongings into the house, and buying plastic storage bins and bookcases before Jay returned the rental car to France.  We had no phone (that’s another story), no bank account (that’s another story), and no way to work out what to do with the cats.  I can’t repeat this often enough…England is still in the last century, unless you want to send a text message on your mobile phone.

Three days later Jay drove the rental car back to the ferry, rode the ferry back to Calais, visited the cats to make sure the cattery owner understood that they would stay until we found a solution, and then he took the ferry back to England to begin the task of finding his way back to Hadleigh by train and bus.  (At one point he did cheat and took a taxi from Ipswich to arrive home by 10 PM.)

At this point you may be wondering what was next for us.  All I can say is that you will have to stay tuned…living pert near London might be quite an adventure.  We will all, including myself have to wait to see what happens next.