Arriving in York.

We arrived in York on Friday and are already happily installed in our great house here. The flight was smooth and uneventful. The first hitch came only when we tried to get through immigration and discovered that we should have obtained a more formal visa in order to stay for seven months; but the very friendly immigration agents finally allowed us to enter once we promised to leave and re-enter the country within six months.

The first two days were mainly spent settling in, setting up phone and computer service, rearranging the furniture (there’s a surplus of child-sized desks in this house, but no decent-sized dining table), and making an expedition to Sainsbury’s to buy food and basic supplies (a family outing involving five backpacks). On Sunday our old friend Mary Garrison came for dinner and very generously lent us her spare bicycle, which Kate put to good use on Monday by stocking up on cheap household supplies, books, puzzles, etc. (Shown above: what £11 bought at the Salvation Army.) The kitchen was pretty well stocked already, but now we now have enough plates to feed all 19 Calvin students when they arrive, and even a few luxuries like a wooden salad bowl. It’s a treat to be in a house full of empty shelves and have an excuse to fill them creatively.

Sunday morning we made our first visit to church. Through the Chuch of England’s website, we found the address of All Saints Pavement, York’s "civic" church, one of the more traditional parish churches in the city. The faithful consisted of dozen or so "Prayer Book devotees", as they described themselves. It reminded of us our beloved St Mark’s Episcopal Church in Charleston, with a median age of about seventy, except that everyone was white. They were delighted to see young new faces, and we were warmly invited to return.

Above: Dinner time at Markham Crescent.

Kees describes his first day at Park Grove School:

It was fun. I made new friends at first recess and at second recess we played a fun game (the details are too complicated to relate). In the middle of second recess we had lunch. After lunch we went back to recess! During math we played games (math-related).We are learning about Ghana. (Today we learned about slavery.) The seating arrangments were confusing.

(Right: Walking to Park Grove School.)