Random Tuesday: Over the hill and through the dale

Time for more Random moments from life in the UK.

I have photographed our walk to and from school for your viewing pleasure. It is just over a mile and not like any walk to school that I've ever been on...and I grew up pretty deep in the rural Ozarks. I know my country walks, people. I love this walk so much because there are about 20 ways to get there, so you never have to take the same road back or even the same path for a week of walks. It is glorious. Of course, I haven't had to make the walk in an English drizzle yet.... so I might be changing my tune in a few weeks.

It takes about 10 minutes for us to drive the 6 miles into town because the country roads are so winding and slow-going. 40 miles-per-hour has never been so harrowing as when you are zipping down a road that is about foot shy of being an actual two-lane road and is surrounded on both sides by 12-foot hedgerows! Do you see that divet in the hedge about three feet above the road-line? That has been carved out of the hedge by side-view mirrors! Swear to God, I am not making this stuff up.

Where the trees grow over the roads there are square tunnels cut out of them. My husband and I debated for the first few weeks here whether or not hedgerow maintenance crews came through all the roads to keep the hedges at bay and if that is how they remain so straight and trimmed.... After a month here, we know that they are like this from the giant semis (lorries, as they call them here) that zoom through like giant monstertrucks that a have been put down on a Matchbox car playset. They, quite literally, knock branches off trees, trim leaves off overgrowths, and carve their way through anything in their path. Including you, if you don't pull over fast enough. It is terrifying to come across one when coming around a corner because they are inevitably in the middle of the road. The left hand side of our car is already scratched up from the hedges and the tires are all covered in marks from hitting the gravel, sometime curbs, and scraping them against all kinds of roadside debris.


That's all the random-ness I've got for today! Oh, except one more piece of bad news....

We found out that we will only be able to keep Winsome Cottage until next summer! [Wimper.] Hopefully another rental will become available at the right time in this area. I've already started meeting the other moms and they seem like a really excellent crew.

Go see what Keely is up to over at The Un-Mom if you need some more randomness in your life. And check out Captain Dumbass (who won that Kodak video camera I gave away last month)- his random thoughts always crack me up.