thirtysomething...

Yesterday started off well. I walked around the village picking up a few things we needed in the house, a few small garbage cans, some plastic food storage bins, and other miscellaneous kitchen items. Toted all that back to the house and went back out to the grocery & butcher. Brought all that stuff back and made a sandwich. FYI, the peanut butter here is a bit different. When the package says "Creamy" it's not like Creamy JIF in the States. Much less oil. Its somewhat smoother than the "Fat Free" US peanut butter. The closest thing I can compare it to would be a "natural" (free range if you will) peanut butter you can get at Whole Foods & the like. Quite tasty, but different.

After lunch I went back out once again to search for a barber or a salon to get a much needed haircut. What I assume is the village center (the street we live on) has about 2 blocks of shops all within walking distance to the house. On the same side of the street there are three different places to get a cut. The first one I came to seemed kinda stylish so I stopped in. They didn't look all that busy, but they had no space for me until Monday @ lunch. I signed up, took my appointment card & left. The next salon I came to was "Women Only" so I kept walking. Right past the George and Dragon there was another shop. I peeked in and saw only the woman at the counter and someone sitting in the back. No customers to be seen anywhere. I thought, "Either they don't know how to cut hair very well, or they're just far enough down the street they don't get hit up as much as the others." I took a chance. The woman, thankfully, can cut hair. At the first salon I had this deep seated worry that I'd come out with some faux-hawk or some silly thing that seems to be all the rage here in Britian. I really had no worry about this last place. Very straight forward, and the woman was quite nice. Well done!

So then with a new, shorter haircut I made my way back home. Checked the phone, it still doesn't work. :meh: On a sidenote, Heather called BT from work and they said there must be a problem on the line outside the house, and a technician will be there Monday between 8 and 12. I unpacked a few boxes, finished the book I've been reading (The Footprints of God, by Greg Iles, the computer geeks should read this one,) and took a nap, which I probably shouldn't be doing until my internal clock correctly adjusts to the 5 hour time change. Anyway, this is getting to detailed before getting to the actual meat of the day's events. It's like a Clancy novel, yeah?...Prepared dinner (chevré stuffed burgers), watched TV until Heather got home, ate dinner and then the fun begins....

Teh Wife said she needed to go back to work to pick up her laptop that was loading some software. Wanted to know if I wanted to come along. Sure, I needed to get on the 'net anyways. Head out to Staplehurst, no problems. :hehe: Right.

We get off the train in Staplehurst, start walking up the street and Heather's patting her pockets. "What's wrong," I ask.
"I can't find my keys"
Staring at her in disbelief, "You're kidding, right?"
She says no, and we both IMMEDIATELY turn to look back at the train station to watch the train we were just on, head out to finish it's route. AHHHHHhhhh! Noooooooo!

On the key ring: Her only work keys and the only house key we had with us.

Guess where the keys are at this point. Yup. On the way to London Charing Cross Station. About an hour away. It's about 9pm. Luckily Heather's cell phone for work came in the day before and she starts dialing the Southeast Rail customer service number conveniently printed on a large poster on the station wall. "If they're found we'll hold them for you at Charing Cross." Ok, great. Cheers. click. We wait 30 minutes for the next train and hop on. About 45 minutes later the Rail CS call back and say the train was searched and no keys were found. Great. We get off at London Bridge (one station before Charing Cross) and wait for the next train back towards Headcorn. At this point we've planned to go all the way back to Ashford International and stay in a hotel. Mind you, Heather has to be back in London the next day at 10am for a business meeting. She still has to ride back to Staplehurst to pick up her laptop and then up to London. Needless to say she's quite panicked. We hop on the train and start walking through the cars asking everyone that is sitting at a table if they found any keys. Most look at us like we just farted on their best suit. BTW, this train is PACKED.

We pass the next station after London Bridge and the Rail CS calls back again. The keys were found by a cleaning crew and turned in to the station at Charing Cross, get off at Tonbridge and "We'll send them down". Ok. Will do.

Get off at Tonbridge and wait. The next train down from Charing Cross is in 30 minutes. We talk to one of the Station workers, who was quite nice & and interesting chap to boot. The next train shows up and the station worker asks the driver about the keys while we ask the conductor. Nope. No keys. Crap. Train pulls away and Heather runs to the station worker. "Would you please call up to Charing Cross, blah blah blah." He does and comes back and says the Conductor on the LAST train out has the keys. They should be here in 30 minutes or so. For Pete's sake... No matter what, we have to get on this train and head back. Keys or not. It's the last train that makes stops where we need to go.

At this point we've realized that one of us has left Heather's hat, gloves, and scarf on the last train we jumped off of. :grumblegrumblemoan: "I'm not calling to get those back," Heather says. Fine we've got more.

Finally the train shows and everyone is getting off. We start looking for the conductor & hear a whistle blow. Turn towards the sound and there's the conductor waving Heather's keys at us. HURRAY!!! Heather runs over, gives the man a hug and we hop on the train for the ride home. By the time we get back to the house, it's 1am-ish.

All said, the people we dealt with who worked for Southeastern were very helpful and quite friendly. Cheers to you all who helped find my wife's keys on a very chilly night.

Cliff Notes: When on a train, DO NOT take your keys out of your pocket and place them on the table infront of you. It will take MUCH longer than you expect to retrieve them, if you do at all.