Mary Bland. Really does look amazing. I told her she didn't look a day
over 79, and I meant it! She has macular degeneration, similar to my
dad, so Sandra referred to her as blind. Being used to my dad, I could
imagine she wasn't quite so blind as S. had led me to believe – but
hard of seeing all the same. The fun thing for Sandra is that Mary can
remember as a child going over to Sandra's grandmother's home. Wow,
that would be cool to make that connection. Mary wanted us to fill up
on jellied candies, petite fours, cheese puffs (looked a lot like
Cheetos to me!), shortbread cookies, Hobnobs, and this non-alcoholic
light champaignish drink served in goblets. As you can see, she went
out of her way to show us very special attention. Shared some good
stories of her early experiences in the church.
My recalcitrant bag was delivered early afternoon – thankfully as I
was quickly losing power to my computer, on account of all my
electronics and cords being in that second bag. It's a good thing it
finally arrived because I was beginning to get pretty worried as I saw
my power had now dropped to 7%. So this particular afternoon I decided
now that I had all the equipment I had purchased before leaving on
this adventure to charge my computer in hand, there was no time like
the present to get down to brass tacks, no more time for delay, and I
had to figure out once and for all exactly how to do this thing.
Recalling that I am NOT what you'd call a computer person, I was
really beginning to freak out about if I had the right stuff after
all. I had originally checked months before, but only bought the
equipment in the end, just before I left. The more recent person to
help me at the BYU Bookstore computer section had been much less sure
about exactly what was what, what connected to what. And now it was up
to me: Aaagh!! You can appreciate that I was VERY reluctant to take
any actions because the worse case scenario was that I would blow up
my computer and poof! it would be gone forever and I would lose all
resource for being connected to you all. And then there's the expense
on top of that!
As it turns out, Sandra's next door neighbor, Malcolm, who takes such
good care of her and does the odd job happened to be there at the
time, and I, naturally, turned to him for advise on using the
transformer, needed to convert 220v into 110v, American electrical
currency to English. Silly asking a wood-working man about
electronics, but what do I know? I figured, heck, a man's a man – they
know it all! Right?! (He actually ended up taking it to Michael, a
computer man. More about that interesting relationship another day.)
My original computer person at BYU had been right: today's computers
have the conversion built right into the transformer found on the plug
cord and I had wasted my energy freaking out. Whew!!! (Though I did need
my adaptor that changes a plug from three to two prongs that I had brought
and was in my 2nd bag. If you come to need one, Erin, you'll need to
get one for yourself.)
Went to Cleethorpes, the seaside/beach community next to Grimsby. A
short bus ride away, as close as Orem to Provo. Rode on the top level
of a double-decker bus. Yes, they do have them outside of London, in
case you were wondering -- not red, though. Soory if that ruins your
all your built-in preconceptions. They might be green or white or
yellow or whatever -- advertisements all over them just like in
America. We did the leisure lady thing – explored a lot of the charity
shops, looking for whatever we could find. Cleethorpes is right on the
coast, even more than Grimsby. You can smell the sea air and hear the
sea gulls squawking, though I have to admit, so far I haven't seen
much of the English Channel. We looked across one long expanse, and
when I saw land, said, Oh, is that France over there?! Nah, we were
only gazing across to Yorkshire. More English Channel to come in the
future!
