China Glaze Tronica Collection

This is a collection of holographic polishes that are (I believe) only available at Sally's. I picked up two yesterday in the shades Hyper Haute and 3D Fantasy. Bottom line... I'm impressed! They are opaque, even, and non-streaky in one coat. Although the shades aren't the most complimentary ever for my skin tone, they still work well. Here is my current mani with CND Stickey Basecoat, 2 coats of Hyper Haute, and Poshe topcoat.

The Cabbage, The Cabbage!

This post is devoted entirely to Spindle Cottage, addressed as the cabbage for the whole trip. Angela and Alban own the cottage which was originally built in 1640. They purchased the property in the 60's in horrible shape (holes in the roof, no toilet, etc.).  Alban is an excellent craftsman, so they were able to eventually fix it up and make it the special place it is today. There is detail EVERYWHERE. It is totally true to it's history, with low wood beams and walls about three feet thick. At the same time, it is completely comfortable with modern appliances, electricity, wi-fi, heat. After their kids grew up, they converted a portion of the cottage into a holiday rental. Once they had grand-children, they built playhouses for each one: Ruth's Cottage, Charlotte's Post Office, and Tom's Lodge (I don't think either of us got a pic of the lodge... boo.).

The dungeon door to the toy closet

Charlotte's post office

Ruth's cottage

Purchased in the 60's for less than 2,000 pounds sterling

Photo of Alban from a magazine feature

Going Home

Crumpets

Awful pic of me, but this was the only one in their cute breakfast room

We ate a continental breakfast, including crumpets, at Springwood and then loaded our things into Sue's van (a former correctional officer, go girl). She dropped us at Gatwick and we made our way to check-in. It was a looong walk with all of our bags and there were also several ramps that gave Zale a hard time. One thing I will say in Orlando's favor is that bag drop is right inside the entrance. So after finally making it to check-in, there was a huge queue. I'd checked us in online, but hadn't yet printed our boarding passes, so we had to ask a lady if we needed to use the kiosk. While we were waiting for her, we weighed our bags on the scales they have at the entrance to the queue. All of our checked bags were good, so that was a relief! The Virgin lady was very nice and opened a queue rope so that we could join the line without going the long way around.

Advertising Universal at Gatwick Airport!

We finally made it to the counter and the lady asked how many checked bags, how many carry-ons, etc. THEN SHE MADE US WEIGH OUR CARRY-ONS. I can understand a weight restriction, especially on a trans-atlantic flight, but our bags were not weighed on the way over. In fact, neither of us had ever heard of them weighing a carry-on, only of a size restriction. Mom happened to pack probably 8 hardback library books in her carry-on, so she was about twice the allowable weight. My bag was significantly overweight, as well. We had to scramble and rearrange our stuff. Fortunately, we had a little bit of room in our checked bags, so it all ended up okay. We rattled our (practically empty) carry-ons over to security, which wasn't too bad. Then once we got to the gate, we had to wait in another line and have our boarding passes checked, just to get in to the area with the seats! I'm not sure if they always do that or not, but it was a weird setup. We walked straight through to board after that. The flight was thankfully uneventful and the kids were very, very good. We all watched Tangled, the kids watched Megamind, I watched The King's Speech. Mom read quite a bit. I also made the kids do some schoolwork. We got home and breezed through customs/immigration. Then Daddy picked us up!

Kids took this pic

I am blessed to say that it was an amazing trip but also an amazing feeling to be safe at home.

Leaving Spindle Cottage

We planned to spend Friday night in Horley, so that we would be close to Gatwick for our flight on Saturday. We decided to leave Spindle early, so that we could make a day of it. We bought advance train tickets for the 11:15. Angela and Alban came over around 10 to collect the key and say goodbye. Rob was right on time at 10:10. The Bath station doesn't have an elevator, so we asked Rob to go up the disabled ramp area that we used when we arrived. We got out and unloaded everything only to find out from the "customer service" agent (truthfully he was a little rude) that our train was leaving from the other platform. We wouldn't have had time to drive around, so we had to go down a flight of stairs and up another to get to the other side. Poor Rob was kind enough to help us with all our crap. Boy was he huffing when he was done. Anyway, we made it right on time for the train. We had to change trains two times on the journey and, wouldn't ya know, each time we had to go to a different platform with all our bags. Fortunately, the two stations we used to change had elevators.

We arrived in Horley knowing that Springwood B&B was only about .5 mile away from the station. Well, after nine days of beautiful, dry weather, it was raining. Mom and I were in agreement that a taxi would be a worthwhile splurge (we are so cheap, I swunnee). Come to find out, there's not a taxi stand at the Horley station. A lady working there said that we had to call for one. I thought, "screw it, let's just go" and took off down the street. So there we go in the pouring rain, down some windy, bumpy sidewalks with all 6 of our suitcases. It really wasn't that far, but poor Raine and Zale were struggling with their bags. About two blocks from the B&B, I sent Mom ahead to drop her bags and come back to help the kid with theirs. Picture us standing on this corner in the rain as cars whiz by, hoping they don't hit puddles and sling water on us. You know I LOVE getting rained on, too! Mom made it back and helped the kids with their cases and I continued on with mine.

We found out that they'd upgraded our room at Springwood! It was really beautiful and kinda art deco with black, silver, and red. We dried off our cases and I dried my hair and we tried to freshen up.

Then we went towards town to a Boots and a Waitrose grocery store. After dropping our purchases back at Springwood, we left for dinner at Ye Olde Six Bells pub. The way we were told to get there was kinda craziness. You turned off the main road sidewalk to this public footpath that was through a churchyard and cemetery, but we eventually found it. We had a nice "last" dinner and ate very leisurely. It was dark when we were finished so we had to go back through the graveyard (kinda "keepy") to get home.

Gettin' crazy at the pub with my water!