April 25 - 26, 2022 - Day 26 - 27 - Cheam, England, and then home to Rostrevor.

 That morning we walked across the street to the Ship Inn and had breakfast. I had two poached eggs on toast with hollandaise sauce and Don had fresh salmon and toast. A tasty breakfast with good coffee.

I have probably mentioned this before, but you will rarely find good coffee in your hotel room in the UK. There will only be little packets of instant coffee, lots of tea bags, and an electric kettle. Sugar, fake-sugar, and skim milk in individual containers also, (in the USA it's usually cream). So it's always nice to get a brewed coffee at a cafe.

Not wanting to be a burden on our friends, who had had a bit of bad news about an elderly relative in Rye, we decided to take a train to their city instead of having them drive us back after we checked out of our hotel, that way they would have more time to stick around in Rye. We also like the idea of a train ride in the country, we had enjoyed the ride we took on the steam engine two days before (yes, we know it's not the same on an actual commuter train). We checked the times and prices and consulted with Jilly on where we needed to go (Cheam) and what would be a good time to arrive there. Cheam is a commuter suburb in the London burrough of Sutton, and where our friends live.

The train stop in Rye directly across the tracks from us, going in the opposite direction.

Looking down the tracks in the direction we would be traveling.

The Rye train station.

Don took this picture because we thought "Ham Street" is funny. We're such juveniles.

We checked out of our hotel, bought two sandwiches at the Mermaid Street Cafe to eat on the train and set off. It was only about a 10 minute walk to the station and the trains are very much on time. We had to change trains twice and it's a little confusing, because your next destination might not show up on the information board, it's the last stop on the line that's listed. You find your train by looking at the time of departure on your ticket and going to the platform that shows your departure time. At London Bridge station we only had 14 minutes to find our platform, and of course it was number 13 and we had arrived at number 1, we quickly hustled across the station!

It was a very pleasant train ride, especially the first part leaving Rye, the scenery was very pretty. It wasn't crowded on any of the trains and we always had our pick of seats. 

Jilly and Luc picked us up at the Cheam station and took us to their home where we unpacked and settled in the guest room. We had a lazy afternoon, we watched a Cohen brothers movie I hadn't seen (I thought I had seen them all!), the remake of True Grit. Later that night Don and I went to dinner with Erica and Paul, I know Erica from when I worked at Manhattan Toy, which is also how I know Jilly, and I wanted to see her and Paul again, it was nice to reconnect. We had a lively meal, talking politics (both USA and the UK) and drinking. 

The next morning Luc drove us to Gatwick airport (where he had to pay another 5 pounds just to drop us off!) and we flew Ryanair back to Dublin, retrieved our car, and then drove home, stopping at the Tesco in Newry to stock up on groceries.