That is my itinerary for my summer trip to England this summer.  Last August when I went, I blogged that I wasn’t there long enough.  Well, this trip is FOUR WEEKS long.  That’s plenty of time!  Megan and I are planning on going to Paris, and also to Belgium.  The only reason for Belgium is because I looked at a map of Europe and looked at what was physically close to England.  We could also go to the Netherlands, but I’ve already been there!

What else is awesome about this trip is my flight.  The other times I’ve been to England (three times now, I think), I always left at about 6pm, and got to England around 6am.  Everyone was just ready to start their day, and I was exhausted and wanted to go to bed.

This time, however, I leave at 9am, and get to England at 8:45.  I’ll probably arrive at Southampton (where Megan and Mac live) around 11:30 or so, which will be 6:30 my time.  Since I’ve been traveling all day, and probably had to wake up early, I’ll probably be ready for bed soon after I arrive.  Then, I will go to bed with everyone, and wake up refreshed with everyone.

Then, on the way home, I get to spend the afternoon not rushing to the airport, and perhaps can wander around London (or not, since I’ll have my luggage).  Then, I’ll arrive in Boston at 8:35, and home to Fitchburg by 10:30, where I will be exhausted, and again, going to bed with everyone else.  It is the perfect trip, time wise.

Before booking the flight, I asked my parents “Now, I don’t have anything to do this summer, right?  Nothing I’m going to miss?”  After all three of us decided that there was nothing we could think of this summer, I booked the flight!  $717, and my parents paid for it as my early graduation present!  Now, I just need to start saving up spending money so Megan and I can travel while I’m there.  I want to start doing more babysitting, and possibly more hours at Macy’s.  I also talked to Megan about babysitting for one of her friends in England while I’m there, to earn some pounds while I’m there.  I wish there was something I could do for part time work while I’m there, but I don’t think there is.

Now that I’ve booked my flight and I know when I’m going, Megan and I can start to book our trips very early.  That way we can save money!  I’m also going to get a young person’s rail card so that way I can save money on taking the rail.

I am soooo excited!  I also just found out that a family friend’s daughter (who is 15) is going to Europe and is going to be in London on July 15th.  On the 17th, they’re doing a Harry Potter tour.  I would LOVE to do that trip!  They’re going to look into seeing if I can do the trip too, and that way I can check up on the teen.  It’d be fun to see someone I know, PLUS, Harry Potter is my favorite.  If I don’t go with her, I will definitely do a tour some other time.

Their apartment is very small.  It has a living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.  There are two smallish hallways…. but they’re very tiny.  Here is the living room, which includes the futon where I will be sleeping.  I slept there last summer while I stayed at their house for their wedding.

That is the wine from their wedding, but this summer Mac and I will have our own awesome drinking collection.  Megan doesn’t drink so it will just be the two of us!

Hopefully it will be sunny, so we can wear sunglasses every day!

I was reading in the Boston Globe today that living in the city is bad for your brain.  I guess that nature is very beneficial for the brain.  They’ve done studies that say that hospital patients do better when they can see trees from their window.

It says “While people have searched high and low for ways to improve cognitive performance, from doping themselves with Red Bull to redesigning the layout of offices, it appears that few of these treatments are as effective as taking a walk in a natural place.”

They even said that a long time ago, they realized this, and that is why Central Park is in the middle of New York City.  People need trees and nature.

This is why I think it would be absolutely wonderful to live in a tiny little house out in a field somewhere.

This house is only 681 square feet.  That’s pretty little.  It has two bedrooms, and is a little bigger than their teeny tiny houses, which are around 100-200 square feet.  I would want enough room to not feel claustrophobic, and also enough room to entertain for dinner.  I think the first floor would need to be an open layout for entertaining.  I would love to live in South Carolina, and grow my own fruits and vegetables.  I think these houses only cost about $20,000 to build (and $700 for the plans), so that’s a very tiny mortgage!  Also, I think I read that it’s only about $60 in heating and electricity bills.  Even if it is ten times that amount, $600 a year isn’t bad.  I would want a full size fridge, (or almost full size), because I know that Megan has a hard time with a mini dorm-size fridge in England.

If I had this house, and grew all my own food, I think I would only work as little as possible.  With my Mental Health degree, I could see patients two or three days a week, and the other days would be for my enjoyment only.  I think I’ve decided I’d like to live a very minimal life.  I know it’s very hard to believe, because I love shopping, and my Coach bags, and my iPhone.*  I would love to be able to live my days and do things that I enjoy.  I would knit, and I would write, and read.  I would cook fabulous meals, and run, and invite friends over, and drink wine, and eat cheese, and other wonderful things like that.

I think that I am very very worried that I will end up working at a job that I hate.  And I will wake up every morning not wanting to get out of bed; not wanting to go to work.  I figure with a mini house, and growing my own food, I won’t need a crappy job, because I won’t need that much money.  Maybe Megan and Mac (my sister and brother-in-law, who live in England) could live with me, and we’d live on a lot of land, and we’d each have our own mini house.  Megan and I could look into making organic things and selling them… either organic soaps and shampoos, or organic clothes.  We could have our own line, and money wouldn’t really matter, because we’d make anything we’d need.  We could work if we needed to, but what would be the point?  We’d have food, and a house with no mortgage, it would be awesome!

Thinking about that sounds absolutely fabulous, and it makes me wonder why more people don’t do something like this.  Is it because land you can grow on is super expensive?  Maybe we could live somewhere inexpensive, but still warm enough where we could grow things all year round - like Alabama or Tennessee.  We’d have our own land and our own community, so it wouldn’t be like we were really in Alabama, because we wouldn’t be going to the Piggly Wiggly or Billy Bob’s Country Cookin’.  We could still have cell phones and internet, but a TV wouldn’t be necessary (I’m going with Megan on this one - when I get my own place, I don’t want a TV).  We’d also need a good local library, because with a mini house, we wouldn’t have much room to keep our books.  I would say e-books would be good, but I’m reading the final Twilight installment as a PDF document, and it’s a huge pain in the ass.  I’m just clicking the down arrow constantly, and the clicking noise is driving me insane.

You know what else I would have with my tiny house?  Cats.  And a hammock.  Hammocks are wonderful.

I could go on for hours about how awesome this mini house idea is, but I have to go to the gym.  Then, I need to come home and help around the house.  My mom is being really wonderful, and is just letting me lounge around all day without saying anything.  I’m taking some well deserved time off, but I need to get my butt in motion and help out for the second half of the day.

*This past summer, I walked to the local farmers market, and I brought my Chico Bag with me, and I was being very eco, and was buying fresh produce, and supporting the local farmers, and I was walking!  But as I was walking home, I realized that I was listening to my iPhone and carrying a Coach purse.  It was quite the contradiction.  But, I was able to take this beautiful pictures with my phone, and I only noticed it because I was walking:

Today was a beautiful day in England (more about that, later, when I’m able to post pictures)…. and tomorrow is the reception for Megan’s wedding. It is suppose to rain super hard tomorrow. That blows.

Today, we went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of groceries for the party. Everyone is bringing stuff, but they decided it was mostly salads, so they needed more main course items. They bought frozen pizzas, and because they have a small little mini fridge, we had to bake them today, and them we just wrapped them in aluminum foil, and then we will re-heat them tomorrow. Megan thought that maybe we could store the pizzas in the bathtub with ice to keep them chilled, but they decided baking them was the best decision. Then, Mac came home with 18 bottles of wine, and he was like “How are we going to chill it???” And I said “you can just chill it tomorrow when you chill the soda… it only will need to chill in ice for about an hour.” But he thought that it had to chill forever (over night, at least). He started to fill the bathtub up with cold water (I don’t know what is up with them using their bathtub as a faux-freezer…. they just need to get a regular sized fridge! Problem solved.) But then he wondered “How will I chill the bottles without the labels coming off?” So I insisted that he did NOT have to chill them overnight. He didn’t believe me, so then he looked it up on the Internet, and came to the conclusion that “Americans are crazy, because they say wine only needs to be chilled for one hour.” Told you so!! Then, because he had a bathtub filled with cold water, he decided to soak his feet in it, because he didn’t want to waste the water.

Then, he took some outside and watered plants with it, as to not waste it again.

But its going to rain tomorrow, so the plants didn’t really need to be watered.

Oh, and they don’t have a back up plan for it raining. And the reception is planned out in a park. With no tent, or no cover-up. Fuuuuuuuuuun.

In Britain, it’s usually cloudy and dull pretty much every day. We experienced that weather the first few days. It was very chilly for being August - mid 60s maybe? It was definitely long pants and sweater weather! After being in the south west where it was sunny and hot nearly everyday, plus being at a high elevation where the sun seemed hotter anyway, it was a definite change I was not prepared for, nor enjoyed.

But when it DOES get sunny, the British go a bit bonkers. It happened to be really sunny on Saturday, and all morning Mac kept saying “let’s go outside!!!” He didn’t want to do anything; just stand outside. For him, it was important just to be outside and to soak up the sun’s rays. Meg and I were eating lunch, and I looked out and saw Mac just standing in the yard. Then when we walked into town, we made sure to walk on the side of the street that the sun was shining on.

I guess when British people don’t get much sun, they sure feel that it’s important to throughly enjoy it when it’s around.