Our sponsor, the midwife?!

I’ve mentioned our wonderful sponsor, Lanny, and his gorgeous wife Brooke, but I forgot to mention that when we got here she was 8 ½ months pregnant with their third baby girl (and she wanted a natural birth after having to induce the other two).  After doing a lot of research they decided to utilize the British National Healthcare System for their prenatal and birthing care.  (The other option would’ve been to get care at the AF base an hour from here.)  Obviously this was interesting since we’re open to the idea of starting a family here and would have the same decision to make!  Well jump to the day before yesterday – Brooke’s water had already broken and when her contractions were about 10 minutes apart she called the midwife at the hospital.  The short version:

Midwife:  Great, call us back when the contractions get to be less than 5 minutes apart

Brooke (30 minutes later): They’re 4 minutes apart and lasting 30 seconds a piece

Midwife: Don’t come in yet, call us back when they’re each lasting a minute

Brooke (not long thereafter): They’re every three minutes and this is my third child.  I need to come in now

Midwife: Fine, come in

I guess it should be noted that Brooke is extremely calm about everything.  I’m really scared of cows, but that’s nothing compared to how scared I am of childbirth so I just am amazed by her. 

So Brooke and Lanny packed a bag and went to the hospital.  The two midwifes were apparently unimpressed by her contractions?!  They told her she wasn’t in active labor, she should go home ‘and take a Tylenol’, and a midwife would check on her the next morning.  Brooke said she thought she was going crazy so they drove the 3 minutes home, got in the house, AND LANNY DELIVERED THE BABY TEN MINUTES LATER ON THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR.  Thank God there were no issues –baby Ava Kate and mom are healthy and doing great!  Lesson learned – if I am so blessed as to have a child in England it will be delivered at the hands of a USAF-trained doc!  Socialized medicine at its finest – no one was even reprimanded for the mistake!

After studying at Bristol University this past year (southwest England), my cousin Katherine is spending her remaining two weeks in England with us.  What a wealth of knowledge – she’s taught us how to search for the best train tickets, gave us all her old books on traveling, and sucked us into the world of baking.  Since she’s been here we’ve made an apple crisp and apple cake (from our tree!), homemade Reeses, a myriad of cookies, and Kahlua-frosted fudgy brownies.  Next on the docket are molten chocolate cupcakes.  I want to be mad at her for ruining my diet but just can’t be.  There’s always next month to get rid of those extra ten pounds, right? 

Katherine and I have explored some more of the footpaths around the house.  We’ve encountered more cows, (yikes), some cool parks, and lots of wild plums/cherries/blackberries (a quart of which are now in the freezer.)  The blackberries always seem to grow alongside these awful plants called stinging nettles, so you really have to want them.   

Wild plums and cherries

A footpath right through a golf course... funny rules!

Yay blackberries!

Our village church (Brampton)

There's one footpath that goes along a river and leads to The Brampton Mill, a relatively fancy pub.  We went for a drink one evening.  Katherine likes her cider (hard to explain the taste - like a mix between beer and apple juice), Chris had his first Guiness on this side of the pond, and I tried a local brew. 

Pints of the local brew, cider, Guiness

Claire and Katherine at the Brampton Mill

This past weekend we went to Bristol to pick up the last of Katherine’s things.  She was a great tour guide and her friends were absolutely amazing hosts. Her good friend Tanya’s boyfriend John’s mom even gave us some homemade black currant jelly after hearing about how much Chris enjoyed it at breakfast that morning! (And she relayed some cow advice: don’t look at them when crossing a field, just walk in a straight path and look where you’re going.) 

HAHAHA

Clifton suspension bridge (Bristol)

Bristol

On Sunday we drove from Bristol to Chipping Camden, a ridiculously cute town in an area of England known as the Cotswolds.  Basically the Cotswolds are rolling limestone hills that are dotted with idyllic medieval villages built during a boom in the local wool trade.  The threat of rain kept us from doing a long walk but we did have tea time, complete with a scone with clotted cream (tastes like sweet whipped butter) and jam.  It’s really hard to get more English than that. 

Chipping Camden (downtown)

Chipping Camden (market)

Scone with clotted cream and jam

Note about English football (soccer):   there’s the Premier League, directly under is the Championship League, then League 1, League 2, etc.  Every year the bottom three of the Premier league get ‘relegated’ down to the league below (and the top three Championship League teams get promoted).   Good thing that same thing doesn’t happen in the NFL or my beloved Panthers would be in trouble!

The English have horrifically graphic public service announcements.  Mild example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVBfMMMUsGs

Hate:  How they serve their beer warmish and semi-carbonated.  The weather.

Love: Stoplights turn yellow before green so you can get ready to go.