Free Taxicab to London?

We both would love to stay in Bath much longer, but we must keep moving.  We have wanted to stay longer at our last two destinations, which must mean our trip is getting better and better...

We woke up around 0800, showered, and had some coffee and fruit for breakfast. Neil has been spoiling us for two days by brewing espresso from East Timor in his perfect Italian coffee maker. To have coffee any other way would seem uncivilized. The East Timor coffee has produced the best and strongest Americanos we've had on this side of the pond, yet.

After packing our stuff I made a sign for London and we headed out the door. Neil drove us about 10 miles or so to the main freeway which goes straight to London. We pulled off the road and Neil walked us to our "drop zone". We said our goodbyes and he informed us that if we didn't get a lift to call him and he would come get us and give us a ride to the bus station, which is in Bath's center. So there we stood...

But not for long:)  A lot of cars zoomed past and then we heard the sound of a horn honking. When we turned around there was a taxi cab sitting there. I remembered seeing a taxi drive by just a moment prior, but I was thinking there was no way a taxi would give us a lift, besides it would cost a fortune! So we ran up to the car, and it turned out, he was on his way to Heathrow...exactly where we need to be. AMAZING! Our new friend Tony (the cab driver who gave us a lift) was working his day off doing a private driving job for a customer. He educated us on how to cheaply travel around here and about heading south on the ferries and such. We accompanied him to his destination, a hotel just N of Heathrow, which was only about 5 miles from our next host's home in Uxbridge. Thanks Tony!! 

What are the odds that an off duty taxi-cab driver would pick us up and drive us 130-miles (for free) to a destination within 5 miles of where we needed to be? There are no odds, it is the way of the universe.  The universe is GOOD and so are the people in it!

So there we were in London, and we needed to find WiFi so we could email our host to inform her that we were way ahead of schedule. Unfortunately the only place we could find is a Starbucks, so we bought a water and used their WiFi for a while. There was a one-hour limit. We decided not to take the bus.  We were going to walk the five miles to our destination.  We emailed our host, Fiona to inform her we would probably arrive  around 1600. Our estimate was bit short. The walk to her house took us an hour and a half longer, and our packs were getting heavier with each step. We rested a lot. We stopped once for a couple cans of garbanzo's so that took up some time too. Around 1730 we arrived at her house, dropped our bags, pulled off our shoes and sat outside to rest and get to know Fiona for a bit. About 20 minutes later she mentioned she'd better get to cooking. Turns out she was preparing an Indian food feast of great proportions. Indian food just happens to be our favorite! We had both been craving it today, mainly because we passed about 10 Indian-food restaurants on the way to her house. After about an hour or more of preparation, Fiona brought out an appetizer and some drinks for us. We chatted for a bit, and then she retreated back to the kitchen to continue cooking. Then, some time later, it was time to eat. We sat down to 7 different dishes of Indian food. We felt like royalty once again. This feast was truly fit for a king, and we ate it as if we hadn't eaten for a week...dish-full after dish-full. We blamed our hearty appetites on our long weight-bearing walk, but in truth, the food was so amazing we probably would have eaten the same amount after a day of TV-watching.  After stuffing ourselves, we retired to our bedroom on the top floor of her cozy home. g-night.....

Our feast...notice the slate place mats:)