Author’s Note: I stopped blogging regularly in 2020, but now in 2023, I am using Google Photos and Google Maps timeline to recreate a post about what we were up to each month!
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When August finally rolled around, lockdowns were starting to ease and while there were still social distancing and mask restrictions in place, businesses were beginning to open up. The government also launched an “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme which gave customers 50% off prices at all restaurants (with the government making up that 50% to the business.) So with that kind of deal in place, we did a lot of eating out!
First up was The Waffle Factory, located just outside of Kensington Gardens. I think we were out on a walk and pretty much chose this place at random. [Note: I did not remember the name of this place, but Google used the location date on my photos to show me the place on Google Maps and there it was! Technology is magic.] We tried both a savoury waffle and a sweet one. The savoury one was topped with chicken, mushrooms, cheese, and marinara sauce. I remember it being pretty tasty, but probably would have preferred just a pizza crust over a waffle. The sweet one was topped with maple syrups, pecans, and a dusting of powdered sugar. It was very sweet and delicious!
The next day we went for the all-you-can-eat lunch buffet at a Thai restaurant on Portobello Road. We had walked by it many times and finally, we could resist the tantalizing smells no longer! Everything we ate was so good, and that sesame toast was the best I have ever had.
On the 6th we finally got to do something I had been wanting to do all summer - go to a museum! The Museum of Natural History was open and tickets were free, though you had to book online so they could control the amount of people present at one time. There was a one-way system for walking through the museum and masks were required. With our booking, we got a free dinosaur mask!
The museum itself was incredible, I mean, the outside looks like a cathedral! It is humongous and just stunningly gorgeous.
Inside, my favourite part was the dinosaurs, obviously. Here is my good friend the T-Rex! (He moved and roared and scared some little kids.)
On Sunday the 9th of August, I got to spend my first (and last!) Sunday actually in the sanctuary of Notting Hill Methodist Church. I worked there all summer, but mostly spent time in the food bank run out of the basement. For the return to worship, we spaced out the seating to keep to social distancing requirements - thankfully they have chairs and not pews so that was easy to do!
Here’s a pic of me and my colleague Rev. Mike, all masked up and ready to lead worship. I remember being rather grateful for the mask that day as I had a huge zit on my face, lol. The congregation gave me a white orchid as part of a going-away gift. Three and a half years later that orchid is still thriving! (Thanks to Joel, not me at all.)
The next day we rode our bikes a good ways out of the city and then met Vince who picked us up to take us the rest of the way to their house. We drove with masks on and windows down, then spent all of our time at their house socially distanced out in the garden. It was good to see them again after a whole summer of isolation!
We spent one of the hottest weeks of the summer so far packing up our flat and getting ready to move to Wales. Our manse wouldn’t be ready for another week, but my superintendent in Wales was going away for the week and invited us to come stay in their manse and catsit. We were ready to leave the heat of London (and the mice in our flat) so we took them up on the offer to relive our housesitting days one last time before settling down! We loaded up everything we owned (not much) into a small Enterprise rental van and on Friday the 14th, we set off on our first and only adventure driving in London.
We were a bit scared to be driving a big vehicle in London, but oh so excited to be moving to Wales! (Spot the orchid in the background!)
On Saturday the 15th we finally got to do a visit with all of the churches I would be serving and see our new manse (in which they were still in the process of installing a new kitchen.) This typically would have happened back in April, but didn’t, for obvious reasons. We spent so much time chatting to people at Monmouth that we ended up super late visiting the other churches and I felt really bad making everyone wait! Thankfully they were very gracious and forgiving. I was delighted to see the gorgeous inside of Monmouth Methodist Church for the first time. Check out that pulpit!
During our week at Gordon’s manse in Newport, we explored the area on our bikes and ate out a ton. We also started car shopping online as we knew we would need one as soon as possible for when I started working. We didn’t have any luck with finding a car at this time, though we rode our bikes all over Newport looking at options. There are some cool pedestrian parts of Newport!
Here’s a pic of the adorable floof we were caring for. (I can’t remember the cat's name anymore!)
Finally, after a final week of cat-sitting, it was time to move into our own manse! We were so grateful for a place to call our own that wasn’t temporary, and after our tiny flat in London, the manse felt like a palace. We were also very grateful for church members who gave us some necessary items like a couch (no more futon!) and a bed (no more air mattress!) Steve pretty much immediately came to visit and help us explore our new town! Here we are on Monnow Bridge - the only remaining fortified river bridge in Great Britain with its gate tower standing on the bridge (according to Wikipedia.)
I didn’t officially start work until the 1st of September, so we had the last week and a half of August to unpack and settle in, though I did have to attend some Zoom training sessions. During one lunch break we biked into town to get fish and chips for lunch, and with a few spare minutes I popped into a charity shop and bought a fascinator. So I ended up watching my Zoom training while wearing said fascinator and eating Ben & Jerry’s. (Our internet was unstable so I had my camera off!)
While I had fun on Zoom calls, Joel was busy scouring the internet for a car that we could afford. We got extremely lucky one night when he spotted a new post on Gumtree for an automatic car for only £300! We jumped on it immediately and the guy promised to hold it for us till the next day. My friend and colleague Rachel graciously agreed to drive out of her way to pick us up in Monmouth, and then take us to Bristol to test drive the car. It was the one! For £300 it was nothing fancy (check out the duct tape bumper!) but it was all ours! He had a little Tasmanian devil stuck on the dashboard so we named him Taz, and we drove him until January of 2022.
As a thank you to Rachel we took her for dinner at the Giggling Squid in Bristol. The weather was delightful so we sat outside and enjoyed some yummy and fancy looking Pad Thai.
We ended the month by finally signing up for our Cineworld Unlimited passes and getting to go to the movie theatre again! The passes cost only £15.99 a month each and let us see unlimited movies (albeit only in the one theater chain.) Our closest cinema was in Newport, about a 35-minute drive from our manse, so we always made a day of it when we went. For our first outing we saw three movies in one day and ate at the amazing all you can eat Indian buffet right next door. I also wore my fun movie-themed leggings.
August 2020 was a month of big changes - getting to do more in the world again and finally moving from London to Wales!
XOXO, Bethany