Where, oh, where has our darling Jonah gone?

June 26: Words can’t sufficiently describe the surroundings in which we find ourselves as June comes to a close. Now living in a two-hundred-year-old stone cottage next door to the longtime home of William Wordsworth, nestled in the heart of the Lake District with lush greenery all around us, we have adorable English villages down the road, public footpaths at every turn, and sheep everywhere, including in our front yard on a morning we forgot to close the front gate.

The beauty around us helps ease the challenges that a UK summer bring. No, not rain, although we’ve had some of that too. It’s the delightfully difficult schedule of the sun. It rises before 5 o’clock in the morning and sets after 10 at night. Fabulous for a young couple on a honeymoon or a retired couple hoping to enjoy long walks in the evening. Not necessarily so for a couple with a toddler who needs a solid night’s sleep, usually of about ten to eleven hours.

The first night we got here, I knew Jonah would go to bed late with his having taken a late nap in the car. But I assumed he’d wake up late too, close to 8 am. When I heard his cheerful chatter at five minutes to 5 am the next morning, I was a bit stunned (among other emotions). Surely this would only last a couple of minutes, I thought, and back to sleep he’ll go. Nope. Some twenty minutes later, Jonah started to call out to us, wanting his day to begin. He’d not fallen asleep until close to 10:30 pm, then up at 5 am, so you can imagine his state by lunchtime that day—a ball of sobs, complaints, whines, demands—enough to drive anyone out of their mind.

This late to bed, early to rise scenario has played itself out everyday since we arrived, although the early to rise time has gotten closer to 6:30 am. He simply cannot go to sleep at night when it is so light out and without dark shades to cover his windows. And so, over the past week, we’ve come to know a sleep-deprived Jonah, who quite honestly is not as much fun as a well-rested Jonah. He’s often neither reasonable nor rational, asking for one thing one minute and seconds later demanding the exact opposite. He has moments of sheer happiness and joy, and within a split second becomes a breathless, inconsolable stranger. At that moment, I want to introduce myself to him and ask him to kindly return the happy-go-lucky boy who I know better than I know myself, whose next move or words I can often predict with near perfection.

We have ventured into a world with which I am not familiar nor quite comfortable, and so I struggle to balance my feelings of deep love with immeasurable frustration, hoping to draw on the former when I see the stones slowly cascading down the edge of the cliff. Thank god for Jeremy. We’ve been rock solid in unifying forces to deal with our little Dr. Jonah and Mr. Grumplestilskins. When one of us senses we might blow a fuse, we step away while the other steps in to try to find some solution to the latest quagmire. I can’t imagine the difficulty of having to do this alone.

Fear not, though this beginning makes it sound like we’re miserable, we’re actually having a wonderful time in the countryside and feeling so relaxed, even if exhausted some days. Jonah has been taking marathon naps (more than three hours each day, often after an hour of talking with his animals and reading a book), which has given us time to sleep, decompress, read, take turns checking email in town, and talk to each other. And it also has meant that we have had fabulous outings and taken wonderful walks in the evening after dinner each night, not getting back home until after 9 pm. Jonah slowly seems to be adjusting to the change in rhythm and sleeping schedule, and so we’ve seen more of Dr. Jonah than Mr. Grumplestilskins of late, thankfully.

Now, let me back up to our travel day and daily activities since we arrived here. Though it feels like there’s much to write, I’m going to keep this next series of entries shorter (if possible), given our single-functioning-laptop situation and my desire in our last weeks of sabbatical to spend more time reading than writing and taking walks of my own.

On Wednesday of last week, Jeremy spent the morning with Jonah at the nearby playground while I packed our bags to catch our flight that evening. Having run out of coffee a few days earlier and not left the house to get one that morning, my head started to ache a bit by about 11 am. At the time I figured it was more due to the stress of getting our stuff together and only realized a couple of hours later that it was due to my caffeine deficiency. I took a quick nap after lunch, hoping this would make things better, but awoke with the beginnings of a migraine headache. We finished packing up our stuff before heading out the door around 3:30 pm, Jonah having only rested in bed for about an hour, never having fallen asleep for a nap. We stopped to pick up a latte for me on our way to say farewell to Granny Doris at her house, but it was too late.

By the time we got to the airport, I was delirious with pain, felt nauseous, and thought my head might explode or my eyes pop out of their sockets. I was willing to have us pay any amount of money not to have to deal with our luggage from the rental car return, so when two porters arrived at our car door asking to help, I told Jeremy to give them all the money we had left to get their assistance. Once inside, it was all I could do to keep it together. We quickly checked in and made our way through security. We sat down at a restaurant to eat. I couldn’t. I went to lie down with my ear plugs in, jacket on, and eventually a cold paper towel over my eyes. Next thing I know, I’m hugging the toilet bowl and vomiting in the public bathroom. Ugh. But, of all the public bathrooms to have to do this in, I suppose I was in the best one. It was clean. No residue poop and grime, at least not on lucky stall number three. Soon after, we headed to our gate, caught the bus to our airplane, and boarded. Once in our seats, my headache slowly started to subside, a dull throb left in the aftermath for the next twelve hours or so.

I forgot to mention this about our flight from Uganda to South Africa—apparently something that happens when departing any malarial area—the health benefit that we got to enjoy on our flight from Cape Town to London. (Not that Cape Town has malaria, but I suppose this is the airline being extra cautious, emphasis on extra.) Shortly after securing the airplane doors, a flight attendant informed passengers that as a precautionary measure the cabin would be sprayed with an insecticide. “The W.H.O. has approved of this application,” he assured us. “If you’re concerned about irritation to the eyes, please be sure to close them as we pass by your seat.” And what of concerns about harm done to Jonah’s development, neurological impacts, and the like? Thanks, British Airways and all the rest, for your concern about the short-term health consequences. Too bad our long-term prognosis won’t be as certain. The attempt to mask the smell of poison with a flowery fragrance gave us that extra dose of phthalates I’ve been looking for, too. Double thanks for that.

On the airplane, Jonah was amazing as usual. But there were disappointments. With all the build up of the Bob the Builder video, you can imagine our shock and Jonah’s dismay when the video failed to work on our DVD player. Apparently, DVDs sold outside the U.S. are not all compatible with DVD players purchased in the U.S. Amazingly, Jonah was okay with the explanation we gave him about why the DVD didn’t work. We told him he had a choice of three other DVDs instead. He chose Stuart Little (the one about a mouse, he requested), and then he sat there with the DVD player on his lap, mesmerized by the movie for about thirty minutes. From the DVD player to the Thomas the Train cartoons we found on his personal television in front of him, Jonah was well occupied for his waking hours on the plane.

Jonah finally fell asleep at 10:30 pm (England time, an hour earlier than South Africa), was woken by a crying toddler two rows back at 3:30 am, fell back to sleep on my lap an hour later, and slept for two more hours, until shortly before we arrived into Heathrow. You add it up. It wasn’t much sleep, but it was better than nothing. It was no surprise that he crashed for a few hours in the rental car that afternoon on our drive to the Lake District.

The airline failed to give parents their strollers at the gate, so we hauled all of our stuff (that we normally put under the stroller and attach to the arms) and struggled to get Jonah through customs, passport control, and over to baggage claim. (Mental note to send an email to British Airways about this!). Thankfully, we were plucked from the very long passport control line to go to the front with our wriggly toddler. Another incredibly long line at the Europcar rental counter (decided not to go with Alamo, given my last rental fiasco with them here in September), only to learn that there were no automatic transmissions immediately available. Could we take a manual transmission? Uh, no, not unless I want to be the only one driving for the next however many weeks. Twenty minutes later, we took the second, and likely last, Mercedes into our care. It’s nowhere near as nice as our South Africa ride; it drives and looks like your typical rental car with cloth seats and all.

We hit the road and were off! That is, until we realized we were driving in the wrong direction. Minor correction, and then, we were off! As lunch time neared, so did Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare and spot my brother Steve had hoped we’d make it to at some point on this trip so that I could take a picture of Shakespeare's house for my sister-in-law Gina’s classroom at Bishop Alemany High School, where she teaches English and helps direct the school’s plays.

Let’s take a moment here to ponder the funny and bizarro names some English towns have never shed: Stratford-upon-Avon, Dalegarth for Boot, and Houghton-le-Spring. Hundreds of years later, these towns still sound like a throw back to a long ago time. How about ditching everything after and including the preposition and bringing the towns into the current century? The names are just a mouthful. I suppose to some people the names sound charming, but, for me, these names go in that category of words like pram, husk, and nappy that sound too proper and old school (as in, really, really old school). I suppose they do have a certain charm when said in a British accent. But I come from the country of Toledo, Reno, Calabasas, Boston, and Houston, where the names sound solid and gritty, whether accurately characterizing the cities or not. Our founders didn’t go with Toledo-over-Galston, Reno-on-Tilden, Boston-upon-Braintree, or Houston-full-of-Republicans. Those just don’t sound right.

Okay, but back to Stratford-upon-Avon, where we found a cute café across from Shakespeare’s birthplace. After walking a bit and grabbing a vanilla latte at the coffee cart, we were back on the road. I drove the second leg, admiring sheep after sheep after sheep after sheep on the M6. Before heading to our cottage in Rydal, we picked up the keys and stopped at the mini-mart in Ambleside so we could make dinner at home that night. And so our late nights began, as we waited and waited and waited for the sun to go down.

I forgot how much I can dislike the first night in a new place. Some of our homes have been easier than others to ease into. Each place has its own challenges, its own problem areas in the house or flat that we need to deal with in some way or another to make sure Jonah isn’t getting into things he shouldn’t be. And then there’s the figuring out what the place needs—kitchen towels, hand soap, salt and pepper, toilet paper, and such, figuring out how best to configure Jonah’s room with his crib, wondering how Jonah will sleep his first night in his new room. I’m pretty much over the last question (it will be as it will be), but the others are constants. Perhaps it’s just that I’m slowly growing tired of the move and set-up. I still love the adventure of our new surroundings, but I think I now want someone else to deal with the necessary transitional issues.

The last week has been filled with lots of interesting outings, boats, trains, long walks, and adorable little villages. On Friday, it rained off and on. We drove through the quaint village of Grasmere, where I got a yummy hazelnut latte at a super cute café, before heading back to the main visitor’s center near Windermere to get information on things to do, and onward to the fabulous Booths supermarket in Windermere. After Jonah’s nap that day, we drove over to the Ambleside pier on Windermere Lake (the biggest in the Lake District) to check out the boats and ducks before walking around the adorable village of Ambleside.

It being a drizzly morning on Saturday, we chose the indoor option of the World of Beatrix Potter, an attraction for adults and kids with scenes from her different books. Jonah was particularly thrilled to walk around the place at his own pace, trying to get in a couple of the storybook scenes too. We walked around Bowness for a bit before heading home for lunch.

While Jonah took his marathon nap, I went into town to check email and pick up a few things, including a new wood train set for Jonah to replace the parking garage we did, in fact, end up leaving behind in South Africa for Hanif’s kids. It was just too big to lug with us, even after I broke it down into pieces and stuffed it all in a large, plastic bag. At least the train we can take apart and pack in small pieces in our bags.

After dinner, we set out on foot from our house along the old coffin route, the path pallbearers walked with coffins from Rydal to St. Oswald’s Church in Grasmere way back when. Located just behind our cottage, the trail boasts fabulous views of Rydal Water below, grazing sheep in the immediate foreground, and forested hills in the distance. We started down the path, not exactly sure how long it was but knowing it eventually led into Grasmere. After about forty-five minutes of walking, we decided to take the trail all the way to Grasmere, figuring we’d find a way back on the bus or a taxi if necessary.

As we descended into the outskirts of Grasmere, we passed Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s first house in the area from where he penned some of his most famous lines. We walked through Grasmere and on the grounds of St. Oswald’s Church, the burial site of Wordsworth and most of his family. We caught the last bus back to Rydal, after a lovely chat with a couple and their college-age daughter and boyfriend, who happened to be from the San Fernando Valley. Go Grant Lancers! (No, he didn’t go to my high school but a shout out to the Lancers anyway.)

On Sunday, Father’s Day, I made a French toast and bacon breakfast for Jeremy before we set out for Grisedale Forest, about thirty to forth minutes southwest of our cottage. We took a fabulous long walk through the forest along a path dotted with wood and metal sculptures of animals and bugs.

Jonah walked a fair bit of the trail on his own, including across multiple bridges from which he loved throwing rocks into the water below. He spotted a small, red frog on the path in front of him, much to our surprise, given how small it was. This little guy is a hiker-in-training, for sure.

After a long nap for Jonah and dinner for all of us, we took the three or four mile Underloughrigg walk, which crosses Pelter Bridge, where English artist Fred Yates apparently met Woodrow Wilson, all the way to Ambleside. With a limited bus schedule on Sundays, we planned to catch a taxi in town. Our walk ended at a fabulous playground in Ambleside, where Jonah played for about forty-five minutes before we walked into the center of town, found a restaurant with outdoor seating, and enjoyed dessert (sticky toffee pudding—yum!) and a cider. A quick taxi ride home and to bed for Jonah, with us following by mere minutes.

For the rest of the week, the weather was absolutely beautiful. Monday started out a bit wet but turned into a blue-sky, sunny day. We took the boat from Ambleside to Bowness, switched boats, and continued on toward Lakeside, where we caught a steam train to Haverthwaite. The fun of the multiple modes of transportation was matched by the beautiful scenery around us. We ate lunch at the train station in Haverthwaite, seemingly the only place in the area serving food. Jonah and I had surprisingly tasty fish and chips, and Jeremy inhaled a pork burger. Jonah eventually fell asleep at home at 4:30 pm, sleeping until shortly after 6 pm. We had a quick dinner before heading out for a lovely two-mile hike to a waterfall above Ambleside.

On Tuesday, we drove over a couple of mountain passes to get ourselves to the coastal town of Ravenglass to ride the Lake District’s oldest, longest heritage railway through two valleys to the foot of the mountains we’d driven over to get to the coast. The scenic road we took, while incredibly narrow (with barely enough room for one car, let alone two cars passing) and steep at times, graced us with some of the most stunning views of valleys, mountains, and rivers. Wow. I just kept saying, “Wow!” We made it to the railroad station with two minutes to spare to catch the 11:20 am departure, so we ran to the train and had the caboose all to ourselves.

We ate lunch at the station on the other end of the line. Not great food but decent. We boarded the 1 pm train back to Ravenglass for another scenic ride.

At the train station, we popped into the car for the five minute drive to Muncaster Castle, still home to the Pennington family (from beginning in 1208). Jonah loved the castle’s playground; Jeremy and I loved the sort-of zip line. In addition to playing at the playground for a while and touring the castle—considered the most haunted castle in England—we made our way through a funky, indoor maze for kids before going to the former-stable-turned-café for a snack. I told Jonah I’d share something with him, so when I asked the woman behind the counter for the piece of carrot cake, Jonah piped up, “Cut it in half. Cut it in half, peez.”

Jonah snoozed on our drive home but not long enough to warrant a long evening outing. After dinner at home and some time in our front garden with Jonah pretending to mow the lawn (running around and calling out, “Lawn mower! Lawn mower!”), we walked across the road to the Rydal Hall conference center and gardens, once the home of a wealthy family, now a retreat center for the Carlisle diocese and open to the public for walking. Unlike our previous night’s outings, we had Jonah walk on his own, which, of course, made it more of a zigzag stroll with numerous stops along the way. Jonah spent some time sitting in the grass, picking it, watching the sheep, and playing around. To our dismay, we found a tick on him after his bath that night and checked every inch of his body afterward to make sure we’d found them all.

On Wednesday, we took a boat across Windermere Lake to Wray Castle (now owned by The National Trust and not open to the public), where we enjoyed a four-mile walk down the western shore of the water. Jeremy carried Jonah in our back carrier, trouper that he is. The scenery, particularly with our stunning weather, was spectacular. From the ferry house, we caught a boat back to Bowness and another one to Ambleside.

We had a late lunch at home, with Jonah not falling asleep until around 3 pm and waking up after 6:30 pm. We had a quick dinner before heading out for a walk along a river between Rydal and Grasmere. Jonah walked on his own, so it was a more leisurely and stop-and-go kind of walk. Jonah loved throwing rocks into the water, which the ducks mistook for food and flew over to us, gracefully landing in the water as they do. Across another bridge, off of which Jonah threw more rocks, and up a steep, rocky path. Jonah did great, maneuvering his way around the rocks and other obstacles in his path. When not hidden in the trees, the path allowed us to take in stunning views of the hills with the beautiful, soft, pre-sunset light shining on them.

On Thursday, we drove north to the Keswick area, where we stopped at the Castlerigg Stone Circle, one of the oldest stone circles in the country. Composed of thirty-eight free standing stones, the circle is perched on a plateau with spectacular views of the valley below. Last September, Jonah and I visited Stonehenge while Jeremy was in Uganda. That was certainly impressive, but it had too many tourists to allow one to enjoy its deeper beauty. At the circle yesterday, we were among just a few people visiting, and at one point, the only ones. Not only did we get to really enjoy the remarkable setting, I got some beautiful pictures of Jonah playing on and around the rocks. Jonah loved this natural playground, getting chased by daddy through the circle, pretending to ride one of the stones as an elevator, and climbing on a couple of stones.

From the stone circle, we descended into Keswick, a charming town with its one-handed clock on Moot Hall, built in 1813, in the center of town. We enjoyed the Thursday market in Keswick with the streets in the town center blocked off and lined with stalls. Jonah loved walking around the town and was particularly interested in checking out an unoccupied, electric wheelchair and some balloons outside of a store. We headed back home for lunch and an earlier nap time. Jonah eventually fell asleep shortly after 2:30 pm and slept until close to 7 pm. Wow!

That night we took a fabulous walk around Rydal Water, with Jonah strapped to my back in the carrier. The colors from the cloud-covered sun and the light on the hills were spectacular. Saw lots of sheep and ducks. A beautiful last walk in the Lake District.

Today we drove down to Swarthmoor Hall, Swarthmore College’s namesake and the birthplace of Quakerism. (Oh, before we went, we took our usual morning detour to the Esquires Café in Ambleside to quickly check email and pick up a latte. While there, we started chatting with two women, one of whom asked me how I liked London. I thought she was asking because she too liked the city, but, no, she said she'd only been there once. Once! She was asking me, the American, what sorts of things to do in London.) In any event, Swarthmoor Hall is on a pretty piece of property in what is now just another suburb. Still used as a retreat center for Quakers, Swarthmoor Hall is surrounded by pretty gardens and plenty of grass on which the three of us enjoyed kicking around a ball. We took a tour of the hall, learning about Margaret Fell and her husbands, Judge Fell and George Fox, and the beginning of Quakerism. Jonah had his own MP3 player and headset, which he diligently wore for a good twenty minutes.

From Swarthmoor Hall, we drove to the lovely little village of Cartmel. We had a good lunch at the village’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant before checking out the Cartmel Priory. Built in the late 12th century and surrounded by many old headstones, the church is made of beautiful stone and has been incredibly maintained. Jonah stepped on a few headstones, I’ll admit, pretending they were elevators to take him up a few floors.

We headed to Grange-over-Sands afterward for Jonah to have some time to play outside and enjoy the playground on the promenade that runs along the southern coast of Cumbria on Morecambe Bay. There was a play train, which fully occupied his time. Jeremy and I got onboard as well. Jonah only took a forty-five minute nap on the way home, so we attempted to get him to go to sleep earlier—around 8:30 pm—but he didn’t fall asleep (with a great deal of protest) until 10 pm.

Tomorrow we’re planning to tour Royal Mount, Wordsworth’s home for nearly forty years up until his death, and then hitting the road and heading to Edinburgh. We’ll be there for a week, centrally located to walk and take in the city’s fabulous sites.

And now to Jonah with his latest pronouncements . . .

“This table is for food to go on it,” he let us know, when we were sitting on the train with a table in front of us.

“When I’m young, put the seat belt on,” Jonah declared. This was his response to seeing kids with leashes on them. He meant that he’d wear one when he was older, but I explained that this was unlikely to happen. Boy, are there a lot of leashed kids around here!

While watching a repair worker fix a light at the train station, Jonah exclaimed, “Look it! He’s all the way up the ladder!” Later, after greeting the repair man, Jonah turned to us and said, “I hi-hi’d the worker guy.”

After peeking into a baby stroller and seeing the baby sleeping, Jonah said, “It’s a girl.” “Yeah, it’s a girl,” I responded. “It’s not a girl. It’s a baby,” he corrected me.

After watching a guy get on the boat without any shirt on, Jonah turned to me and asked, “What’s that guy undressed?”

While we were on the boat, I explained to Jonah that he shouldn’t be rolling around the floor of the boat. I explained that dogs sat on the floor of the boat but not people (nearby there was a dog resting on the deck). “You’re a person, so you don’t roll around on the ground here,” I said. “I’m not a person. I’m Jonah,” he replied.

Excited to let me know what he’d done with daddy at a café, Jonah said, “I opened the bathroom door to go in and wash my hands.”

On our way back to the car after one of our walks, I told Jonah, “I hear kitty meowing.” We had left kitty cat in the car. Jeremy said, “Meow, meow,” to which Jonah replied, “Kitty is calling me.”

While watching a car carrier drive by, I asked Jonah, “How many cars are on the car carrier? Help me count. One, two…” Jonah responded, “Three cars, four cars,” his voice trailing off. It was the first time he counted items with the word for the item included.

“Mommy?” Jonah called up to me from inside our cottage. “I’m coming down in a minute,” I replied. “I’m downstairs playing with my train tracks,” Jonah said excitedly. This reminds me that Jonah loves, loves the stairs in our cottage. He insists on going up and down them on his own, crawling up them on hands and knees and sliding down them on his tummy, feet first.

“Eeh, eeh. It’s the sound of the microwave.”

“Dial, dial, dial…” These are the words Jonah says first when pretending to call someone. He holds out his hand, pokes it with his finger, and calls out, “Dial, dial, dial!”

While sitting in his high chair in our cottage, Jonah looked over at the ceramic houses that sit in the windowsill. He said to me, “Look at the houses, mommy. They’re beautiful.” And a minute later, “They’re breakable.”

Playing with Jonah and his train tracks, Jeremy asked him, “Are we going to take that train?” “I can’t take this train, daddy,” Jonah replied. “Why not?” asked Jeremy. “I’m too big.”

While playing with his school bus on his high chair, Jonah pointed and said, “This is the sidewalk where people get on and go in the school bus.”

Okay, you'll hear from me next from Edinburgh!

Picture descriptions: Our Lake District cottage (the large structure actually has three cottages, each with a section of the ground and upper floors); in the front garden of our cottage Jeremy and Jonah shoo the sheep; Jonah's general disposition for significant chunks of time, here on the boat to Bowness; walking around Ambleside; boat ride back to Ambleside from Bowness; tired and aimless in Stratford-upon-Avon; snoozing in the car on the way to our cottage; checking out Ambleside pier and its resident duck family; cheezy, no? finding our way into a Beatrix Potter picture; Jonah hangs with Peter Rabbit and others; walking the coffin route by our cottage; stunning view from the coffin route; Jeremy walks along the wall lining the coffin route; family photo in Grisedale Forest on Father's Day; daddy and Jonah walking together in Grisedale Forest; Jonah and Jeremy crossing the river on the Underloughrigg walk; Haverwaite train stop; beautiful views on our drive to Ravenglass; same; same; sitting on the train and waiting to head back to Ravenglass; Muncaster Castle; enjoying the ride at the castle's playground; Rydal Hall grounds; walking along Windermere Lake; Jonah enjoys the view and watching the ducks along a river near Rydal Water; running and playing at Castlerigg Stone Circle; standing by one of the tall stones on the circle; smelling (more like picking) flowers in Keswick; walking along Rydal Water; the Js at Swarthmoor Hall; Cartmel Priory; playground train in Grange-over-Sands; walking along the coffin route; Grisedale Forest; contemplating life at Castlerigg Stone Circle; Rydal Hall grounds.