Putting My Foot In It

For our anniversary yesterday, Nick and I ventured out to a B&B in Oxfordshire for the night.  Rectory Farm B&B was delightful - the bed was soft and comfy, the shower was great, the breakfast was tasty and the host was lovely.  And we left with some cuts of their pedigree beef (it's a working beef farm)!  For dinner last night, we ventured to the pub 'round the corner from the B&B (and the only other business we saw in the tiny village).  Their homemade cottage pies were lovely, and we enjoyed a chat with the husband and wife who run the pub as we were their only customers - how they pay the bills is beyond me, but they said they do well in game shooting season so I guess that keeps them going.  We discussed why we were in Oxfordshire - Nick had a job interview in Wallingford which is a beautiful town of about 6,000 people in south Oxfordshire.  When asked where we might decide to live, I said "Wallingford is a bit expensive for us, but I hope to live there rather than in Didcot (the next town over and much more affordable) - wouldn't want to live in Didcot with that awful power plant to look at!"  As soon as I said it, I cringed inside as, with my luck, though Didcot was a solid 40 minute drive from where we were, the pub owners would know someone who lived there and find offense at my comment.  Indeed, they themselves own a house in Didcot.  Way to put my foot in it.  They were very kind, though, and said that the six cooling towers at the power plant which can be seen spewing smoke from 10 miles away were something that "when you see them, you know you're home" and "they don't run in the winter anyway."

After we had breakfast this morning, we decided to drive to Witney - a nearby large town which seemed somewhat interesting from what we'd heard of it before.  "Would you like to drive?" asked Nick.  Feeling bolstered by my successful venture out on the left side of the road the day before, I took the wheel.  Within 10 minutes, while turning a tight corner with a brick curb, I managed to brush the wheel against the curb, putting a gash in the tyre (or "tire" as my fellow North Americans know it) and damaging the metal wheel on my mother-in-law's Audi A3.  Brilliant.  Nick took over the driving at my insistance and I cried all the way to Witney.  Driving here really is like learning to drive all over again - I feel like an awkward 16-year-old who doesn't know what they're doing.  I don't know what half the road signs mean, I'm not used to driving from the right side of the car on the left side of the road, and roundabouts really confound me.  I should be driving a 10-year-old beater car, not my mother-in-law's 3-year-old Audi.  She very kindly brushed off my groveling, noting that both she and my father-in-law have done similar things in recent months and I'd better drive tomorrow so that I don't get scared off driving.  I clearly married into the right family.

Tomorrow, we're off to Windsor for another interview for Nick.  I'm keen to go as I've heard it's a really lovely town (the Queen spends many weekends at her castle there, for starters).  I might get up the nerve to do a bit of the driving, and I'll remember not to mention Didcot to anyone there.