Sunday At Ashburnham

We slept great last night and woke up refreshed. It appears as if coming a day early really helped us make the time zone transition a bit smoother. We very much feel on schedule with the actual local time.

Hey, the food here at the center is great. Actually, my breakfast looked a lot like the one I had at Gatwick. Scrambled eggs and mushrooms! But since this wasn't "vegetarian" I also had several wonderful slabs of English bacon; which, to an American, is more like Canadian bacon. There you go, three nationalities in one sentence about food! Hash browns, croissants, jam, juice, cold cereal, yogurt, coffee and tea were also available in abundance. Speaking of food and adjusting to the local time zone, we returned to our room and proceeded to sleep through lunch!

Last night we stayed in Patmos Lodge. Today we'll move to Ashburn House to join the other MAF personnel who arrive this afternoon. Here's a shot of St. Peter's Church which is on the grounds.

The past few hours we've been in the West Room Library where I found a 77% wireless signal. I'm afraid we had a few strange looks cast our way as Karen followed me through the hallways of the main building with the laptop open searching for the strongest wireless signal as I mumbled, "4 percent, 17 percent, no signal 20 percent, 60 percent...turn right...enter THAT room..." which turned out to be the library. I'm sure there's already stories beginning to circulate about the crazy American in the Indiana Jones Fedora...please pray.

But we're on line (for now) and will continue to blog as we have the opportunity and the signal.

From the library we overlook the main entrance to the estate, the stone bridge over the pond, and the room is just like you'd imagine a library would look in an English estate house. It's rained all morning but stopped a few minutes ago. Here's Karen enjoying a good book and a great view.

All the personnel from MAF UK and MAF International should arrive over the next few hours. Karen and I look forward to meeting everyone and starting the orientation course tomorrow.

We don't have the camera with us right now so we'll upload some photos later or in tomorrow's posting.

Have a great day and stay tuned.