Homeless

Arriving in London on April 9, we were to spend the next fifteen days homeless. Cecile and David, our tenants had found another house in the neighborhood, but not until April 25.
Having originally planned to sleep at the workshop, we later found the prospect of setting up a home there too daunting. We didn’t even have a sofa-bed. Also, our friend Laura, who’s been renting it since we’ve been away, had all her installation art there, ready for exhibition.

So, we became vagrants, sleeping at EIGHT different places:
1. The Holiday Inn, Heathrow (pictured) – we got an amazing $36 deal on hotwire.com from the US

2. Emma & Beni’s – and what a warm welcome we had there. Sophia and Rocco didn’t fight at all!

3. Barbara’s in Cornwall – two rooms of our own, delicious food, perfect weather and amazing views of the Royal Albert and Tamar Bridges connecting Devon and Cornwall

4. Mark & Karen’s in Plymouth – Daniel’s school friend, his wife and their supersweet kids, who entertained Sophia all evening and then again all morning

5. Tim & Fiona’s at Lostwithiel – visits to the beach, a monkey sanctuary and, possibly most excitingly, the opportunity to sleep in a genuine Daniel Spring bed (yippee, once you try one, you’ll never go back)

6. Holiday Inn Express, Docklands – a stop-gap the night before school started

7. Liz & Marie’s – They got stuck in Canada due to the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland, so we got to borrow their house, right around the corner from ours. ALMOST HOME! Sophia could not for the life of her understand why we kept walking past our own house but not sleeping in it.

8. Gary & Carole’s in Stoke Newington – they took us in at the last minute, fed us and provided us with boutique hotel-y accommodations

THANK YOU to everyone for giving shelter to a weary family of four.