Jeanie, Arminda, and the Long and Winding Road to Horsted Keynes

I've known Jeanie since I was 4 years old. We'd just moved to town, and Jeanie's family lived 2 doors away. Our families bonded, our parents became (and still are) the very best of friends, and Jeanie and her siblings have been like family to me ever since.

Jeanie and her husband Steve live in Monterey, California now, and I rarely saw them even when I was living in the US. But, luckily for me, their good friends from Monterey have a daughter in grad school in London...and Jeanie accompanied her friend Arminda to London on Friday to spend a week visiting Arminda's daughter. Last night, D and I joined the three of them in the city at the Cuban restaurant Floridita. The food was delicious, the atmosphere very hip (lots of impossibly beautiful people!) and the live Cuban music awesome. What a treat!

Today, Jeanie and Arminda came to Horsham for brunch at our house. (That's Arminda on the left, Jeanie on the right.)

We've put our dining table in the conservatory of our new home. But we hadn't yet had a mid-day meal there on a sunny day. Despite outdoor temperatures hovering around 50 degrees F, today's abundant sunshine heated that room to the boiling point! After closing blinds, opening windows, and nearly stripping everyone down to their skivvies, we were able to enjoy our meal at the table. (The ice cold Mimosas helped too...!) No complaints from me about the sunshine and heat though -- I'll take heat and bright sunshine ANY day!

After brunch, we took a walk around town.
We had arranged to drive Jeanie and Arminda to their next stop of the day -- the home of Arminda's friends just 15 miles away in the town of Horsted Keynes. That 15 mile drive took us 45 minutes -- as we navigated up, down, and around some of the notoriously winding and narrow West Sussex roads. After driving quite a few miles on two-way roads just barely wide enough for even one car (thankfully never encountering a car coming in the opposite direction -- although we did nearly take out a slow moving pheasant!) and then driving across a stream (!), we arrived at the home of Arminda's friends Virginia and David. And what a home it was! They own a 300 year old farmhouse with breathtaking views across rolling farm fields to the South Downs hills in the distance. They share their home with 2 very large, very friendly Bernese Mountain Dogs, the most nimble 3-legged cat you've ever seen, and 4 ducks that happily wander the grounds. It was idyllic -- and well worth the drive!

By looking at an actual map -- and not relying solely on our GPS satellite navigation system -- D and I found a longer, but ultimately faster, route home. But we agreed afterwards that the drive home wasn't nearly as much fun as the drive there had been!

We had a great day with Jeanie and Arminda, and we're already looking forward to seeing them again when they return to England and Wales with their husbands in December.