People Underestimate the Value of a Good Ramble

Monday, February 17, 2014

The UK Trip 5...Friends and Meds

In case you missed them...here's Part 1Part 2Part 3 and Part 4.

I developed a wheeze in Cardiff. Not sure if it was allergies or the plane ride or just that the air disagreed with me.  I hadn't taken Airborne or echinacea or anything else like I usually would do before a trip. I had just been sick for almost a month, so I didn't see how I could get sicker.  I was wrong, there was even more sick.  

The wheeze turned into a cough. By the time we got to Manchester, it wasn't terrible, but it was building up.  My lungs were starting to feel like they were filling up with mucous. Ugh!  The cough went on for....well, what day is it today? CAUSE I'M STILL COUGHING!! Alright, not like I was in the UK, but still.

Monday night, after dinner, we had to find some drugs.

But more about that later.

When I realized that we really were taking this trip, one of the first things I did was hop on to one of the Buffy-related message boards where I've been talking to some invisible UK friends for years. And years. And maybe even more years than that.  I was really hoping to be able to meet up with some of them and - YAY! - it happened. 

Ditto invited us to her home for tea and DeeDee was able to come up to Manchester to be there as well.  I'm not sure they even realized how exciting it was for me. 

The best part of a trip to a foreign country is really being able to interact with normal people in their own setting. And now I've made it sound like a visit to the zoo. But you know what I mean.  I got to see my friends, for the first time, and I got to be in their home. In their home! I mean, who does that, invites a complete stranger and her crazy husband over? My invisible internet friends are the very best ever. Clearly. 




We had a wonderful visit. Tilly is a hoot and she kept Jeff busy, so that was good, too.  We stayed so long, they were probably cursing us cause they wanted to have dinner and put Tilly to bed, but the British are so polite, you couldn't even tell.  

Love you guys!!!

So we did try to stop on the way back from Ditto's to get some drugs cause the wheeze was becoming an issue.  Our hotel was right next to this giant shopping center so it seemed like it would be no problem. We drove in to the Trafford Centre and thought we would go in for dinner and to find meds.  But the place was ginormous. We couldn't find the door. All we could find were dozens of roundabouts taking us to vast, full parking lots from which we could glimpse the tops of the buildings in the distance. But no doors.

Jeff was all for just parking and finding our way in. At that point I just wasn't feeling it.  No way I was going to hike three miles from the parking spot to the building to have to then wander around it aimlessly looking for a way in, not even knowing if where we ended up would put us anywhere near food and/or drugs.

So we went back to the hotel, ate there...the food was just so/so and I only had a - quite expensive - burger, so we may just have gone across the street to the Burger King or whatever...and then had to ask how to find a store where we could get medicine. They kept pointing us to the shopping mall. Um....NO!! Finally, a nice lady sent us just down the street (through maybe only six roundabouts) to the Asda. Basically, this is a Walmart. I mean, it actually says Walmart on it, but for some reason they call it an Asda. I have no idea.

I was able to purchase medicine, but not before having to explain all my symptoms to a pharmacist or clerk or something behind a counter, because they don't sell cold meds or cough syrup in the actual store. You have to get it from behind the counter. So strange.

We also bought a bunch of random cakes and goodies, cause it was my birthday, after all.

Coming up next....Hadrian's Wall

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh no, I didn't know you were poorly, we could have had a walk to our corner, our doctors is attached to the chemist!

Those photographs are wonderful, I'm grinning ear to ear. It was lovely to see you both. I knew we should have come to the Trafford Centre with you, they have scooters that you can hire, me and DeeDee had a wonderful day out, whizzing round the Centre, so easy on wheels! It is a huge place, but I thought y'all Americans would think it small! :D

Toni said...

I honestly didn't realize how badly I was feeling until we left there. I guess just the adrenaline of getting to meet you all and hang out made me feel good. Until we left, then it hit me!

Trafford Centre was scary big. We have some big malls around here, I guess, but not like that. But then I would avoid them, cause I don't like large crowded places too much anyway.