Channing and I headed down to the town centre for our usual daily shopping trip which generally starts with a stop at our coffee shop. Rick discovered this place a couple of days after he arrived. They made a decent cup for cheap. We have decided that the Canadian concept of coffee and Uk’s is quite different. I have to say that Canadians are nuts about their coffee and there is no shortage of places to go to get a good cup of Joe. The guys in this particular shop were quite fascinated by our accents and when they asked where we were from and they tried to guess, one of them said Russia. Russia?! We let them know that we were from Canada and they thought we were just visiting. So we told them that no we had in fact moved here. Then when it came time to pay for our coffee, they gave them to us for free.
Today when we made our stop, I got tea for a change. Then off to the library we went to use the internet. However, Channing was trying to hand me my tea and the lid was not secured to the cup, and the entire contents spilt onto my hand and wrist and scalded it. I dumped the last bit of liquid from my water bottle but I knew this wasn’t going to help my wrist that was now most definitely on fire. I ran to bathroom in library only to find it is occupied. Between my sobbing and my accent, the girl behind the counter wasn’t sure what I was asking for. Another lady, I will call her Amanda the angel, took me to the staff bathroom and ran cold water on it and gave me directions to the Boots Drug store to get it looked at. When I told Amanda that I had just moved here on Monday, she said, “Welcome to Dartford.” She was such a sweetheart and really tried to help me.
Walking to the counter at Boots was like showing up at a walk-in clinic. The pharmacist was amazing. She whipped out these cooling pads and gauze and together she and Channing bandaged me up. Not sure that I would have received that kind of service at a drug store back home.
Back in the town centre, I had to collect my thoughts and rethink our plans for the day. As we stood outside in the square a group of at least five uniformed men and one woman suddenly marched past us. “What the heck? Is that the swat team?” Channing asked. But as they continued on their way, I could see that they had “UK Border Agency” written on the backs of their black vests and they were heading into, oh my goodness, our coffee shop.
Lesson for day four of living in another country; give soda a try.
