Well I have been in tehe Cotswold not quite two days and without a doubt, I have in contact with easily 75 round abouts. They have good directions going into them, you just have to be careful and always yield to the car coming on the right. A lot to learn. In Oxford at the car rental place, they did not have a Ford Focus, which is what I signed up for. What they gave me is a bright red Audi TFS1. There is a geer that is labeled S so that you can jet forward with lots of power. I don't think I will need that. All the country roads are two lane with no shoulders and the speed limit is 50 (much too fast in my opinion) and I have had many passers and many honks if I am not driving over 50. Forget 40, I am not even going there.
My luggage had been lost or delayed or whatever at Heathrow when I arrived on Friday morning. After hanging around the cottage for a good portion of the afternoon, I finally went into get groceries. After waiting most of the evening, a man showed up with the suitcase at 9:30pm. I had almost given up hope of ever getting. They initially said that I would be receiving it around 3pm. Thank you GOd. The first thing I did was thoroughly brush my teeth.
I woke up in the middle of the night and never really went back to sleep, so I was very early to visit Stella and David, friends who have visited Holy Spirit many times. They love our service very much. I drove many miles to their church, St. Barthelmew's in Wootton Bassett, close to Swindon. The people at the church were extremely friendly. I had a delightful day as there was coffee and tea and biscuits after church. I then went with one of the men I met, Stan and he took me to his favorite local pub, which is at the back of the church. He had a quick beer and I had a diet coke. It had a thatched roof and all the locals went there. There was an outside cafe and a game room. It looked like it would be a lot of fun to be a regular there. We then went to the Parish Hall and had a lunch because the church was celebrating "Harvest Sunday". All the members brought fresh vegetables or fruit or canned goods to the altar in Thanksgiving. Then after church, they went up and chose what they liked and gave an equivalent in pounds to have the priviledge to take it home. All the money collected will be used to help the people in Eastern Africa who are starving. What a neat idea! They also had a children's area designated in the church where there were play things for the children to play with as they sat at little tables or on the rug on the floor. This was a very old church and it had beautiful windows.

Wootton Bassett will be visited in two weeks by Princess Anne who will dedicate the village to now be known as Royal Wootton Bassett because of their love of their country. When any deceased service men and women came back to England, they were flown into an airport close to the city. All the town's people would go out and honor them and thier ultimate service by standing at attention. What a great tribute for those corageous men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice. After the most delicious lunch, I went to Stella and David's house and Stella erased all my old pictures from the disk on my camera as it was completely full and would not take any more pictures. That was a tremendous help.

The weather has been outrageously warm, in the high 70's and low 80's. Just perfect weather. The English people are in shock; they cannot remember it ever being this warm and beautiful in October. Coming back from Wootton Bassettt, I passed over the Thames River on a one lane bridge. There was a traffic jam there as there were so many people wanting to dive off the bridge or wade in the water. They were having picnics on the banks of the Thames as well. What a perfect day!