Two weeks ago I was introduced to the British style of driving.

On the left side of the road.

There had been a mix up with my brother- and sister-in-law and their British driver’s licenses so in order to cart the large group of us around all week, I drove Tiffany’s van.

And I drove all week. Every day. Depending on where our outings were for the day, sometimes several hours in a day. I still needed her to coach me from the passenger seat, but by the end of the week, I’d become proficient at roundabouts and merging onto motorways from the left side of the road. So much so that it was difficult to imagine driving on the right on my California streets back home.

I know that sounds strange. But it became normal to me.

So much so that I got a little scared when proposed with the idea of resuming normal right-side driving when I got home. Would I be able to switch my brain back again? How long would it take me? Sounds like I’m exaggerating. I’m not.

Tuesday morning back in the US, I had to go to the market: staples like eggs, bread and milk. I strapped the kids in my car, buckled my seatbelt and said a little prayer. I backed out.

By the time I reached the end of my own street, no more than 15 houses worth, I had it all back. England’s roundabouts became distant and I needed no time to adjust.

It was so difficult to learn a new habit (left side driving), but so simple to revert to an old habit (right side driving).

Its like anything with me. Breaking old habits are nearly impossible, it seems sometimes, because it is so easy and slippery to slide back into them. Eating poorly, becoming lazy with housework, speaking with tension to my kids. Whenever I try to break these habits, I am only successful for a short amount of time. One tiny mess-up and then I’m back to bingeing on peanut butter toast and bowls of Lucky Charms.

Erasamus said, “A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.”

In order to break a habit, I can’t ever revisit the old way of living. Whatever it is, eating right or being productive in my writing or in my housework, I need to create new habits and then allow them to replace (not overlay) any old way of living.

So I’m stuck here, driving on my right side of the road. An old habit. But this old habit is a good one.

My three-year-old woke up at 3:48 am.

I know because I heard her singing “B-I-N-G-O, And Bingo was his name-O” in her room this morning. Like all of us, she’s still adjusting to the 8 hour time difference in coming home from vistiting her cousins in England last week.

“Mama, can we go back on the plane to visit Madelyn, Josiah again? Next week?”

Apparently she quickly forgot the 24-plus hours of no sleep, the 3 hour bus ride, the 12 or so times we had to produce our passports at Heathrow, the 90 minutes we sat in the plane before we took off from London, the nearly 12 hour plane ride home and to top it all off, the LA traffic as we left the airport.

But she also doesn’t understand the sacrifices that were made to get us there and back cannot simply be reproduced so quickly or easily. Time spent off from work, from Hope’s school, the mail, the cat, the postponed bills, the canceled appointments, the LAUNDRY! All of these are sacrifices. The mental, emotional and physical energy from all of us to take four of us across the ocean is enormous.

And her sweet, focused three-year-old mind cannot comprehend that.

And that’s alright. That is what her parents are for.

To make the sacrifices so that her and her sister can spend 11 days playing with their cousins during pajama mornings and pizza dinners. We make the sacrifices so that she doesn’t have to worry. But she still doesn’t understand.

In some small similar way, we don’t understand the sacrifices of Christ for us.

Our minds are too small and too bound by earth to begin to understand what it took for God to move heaven to create redemption for us. It cannot be reproduced or even fully understood; just accepted. And we can be thankful.

We spent our last afternoon here at the Orchard Tea House in Grantchester.

For me, Monday will start at 3:45 am.

But 3:45 am here in the UK. We’ll be taken to the coach stop at 4:30 to catch the 5:00 am bus to Heathrow. That’s a three and a half hour drive.

Then we’ll board the plane at 10:15 in the morning, take off by 11 (if we’re lucky) and then spend 11 hours on board. Somewhere aroud 10 pm our time (3 pm local time) we’ll land in Los Angeles.

And then we’ll try to keep everyone up as late as possible to get a head start on returning to the Pacific time zone.

Don’t call me on Tuesday. I will be in a constant dream state.

But for Sunday, we’ll take one last excursion to Granchester near Cambridge with the group of nine that has been our constant family for the last 11 days:

• Tiffany: sister-in-law and mother extraordinaire. homeschooler, children’s ministry coodinator, and maker of an amazing cup of Yorkshire tea.
• Joey: brother-in-law and pastor. teller of stories, friend of everyone and purchaser of convienience store flapjacks (like brownies, sort-of)
• Madelyn: age 8, beautiful, quiet, and lover of all things related to ballet, princess gowns, and gardens of flowers. can switch in and out of an English accent depending on who she’s talking to.
• Josiah: age 5, loud with laughter and the image of my own husband at the same age in appearance and action. can also switch accents without thinking.
• Jordan: 22 months, happy, hungry and the one who can’t stand to be left out of anyone’s playtime. Love’s to touch everyone’s ears. I know. Cute, huh?
• Chad: my husband and consumer of his new find, salt and pepper bread. needs more sleep and alone time after this week.
• Hope: age 7, mine, admirer of her older cousin, sensitive and would sleep on the floor of her cousin’s room for the rest of her life if I’d let her.
• Naomi: age 3, also mine. mixes in well with both the older and younger, until her younger cousin antagonizes her for no reason at all. was enthralled with the “castle church”.
• And me: I’m known here but you may not know that I’m currently a driver on the left side of the road and don’t know how I’m going to switch back. I am addicted to sleeved biscuits here called “Digestives” by McVities. Believe me, they aren’t as wholesome as they sound. And I never did get down to London. But I’m alright with that. I did span 4000 years of artifacts in 12 hours on Thursday.

So, think of me Monday when I take two spent children and one exhausted husband on the longest day of their lives. We’ll be home soon. And I’m very glad.

England is an island.

And a relatively small one too. We did more traveling on Thursday around the island than most English people ever to. We drove a little over 300 miles and we covered a LOT.

Someone I spoke to on Friday night asked about our holiday week, what we had done, what we had seen. I told him about our prehistoric/medieval marathon tour on Thursday.

He said, “England is small. But here, its all in the details.”

And he’s right.

The beauty of England is not the vastness of the American plain states or the largess of an Alaskan glacier. It is the Gothic detail on Ely Cathedral and the tulips poking through, almost past their prime in all the neighborhood gardens.

The gates to Kings College in Cambridge, the spiral steps up a medieval tower, the eagle flying to the arm of a falconer: details. The glass of cider at the pub, the daffodils on the bank of the Cam, and the hidden bridge in the country park, the herbs for sale at the market: details. The purple-pink seeping through the stained glass this morning, the intense greenness of spring grass and the fields of yellow flowers across the street at the farm.

And most of it is actually being able to see the details. Its about not speeding by too quickly in a car or motor coach and missing it all. Its about not worrying about the kids fighting with each other so that it robs me of the beauty I’m walking by.

Noticing.

I’m working on it.

I haven’t done much running since I’ve been in England.

The first 2-3 days I was still recovering from a night without sleep and waking up in the morning 8 hours earlier than I’m used to.

And then I got sick.

I did manage two different jog/walks in there before I got too bad, but by Thursday afternoon, I felt like my head was squeezed between two of the Sarsen stones at Stonehenge. I tried to tell myself it was just spring allergies and that I was sneezing because of the acres and acres of flowers in bloom. And then I began to cough. So I’m sick.

I’ve felt a little less than normal everyday since I got on the plane in LA last week.

And through it all my sister-in-law has been amazing.

I haven’t been helping much with the cooking or laundry or dish washing. Nine people can produce a lot of dirty dishes and muddy socks. When we got back from our day trip yesterday (I’ll post pictures of Stonehenge and Warwick Castle later), she had washed and changed our sheets, folded our clothes and cleaned the house.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel more up to running or washing the dishes, but until then I’ll just thank Tiffany for taking care of me.

Today we took the girls into downtown Cambridge for the afternoon.

Our trip to Mountfitchet Castle in Essex this afternoon was enlightening.

It was a sort of Ripley’s Believe it Not Wax Museum set on a true historical spot with bits of the real Norman wall peeking through from beneath the thatch huts built in the 1960s. Half museum/ half eleventh century village, our kids wouldn’t have had any better time at a real fairytale castle.

“Where’s the castle?” They kept asking as they darted into the museum huts with various scenes from Norman life (including a baron’s house and hall, a church, a bathing hut and a “discipline” hut complete with torture chamber).

This is the castle. Apparently in 1066, a village with a wooden wall around it built on the top of a hill is a castle.

The kids ran, chased the ducks, learned (on accident) what happens when someone stole something (hence the fake chopping off of the hand in the “discipline” hut), and played “castle” in one of the siege towers.

I learned a lot too about family rearing in 1066 ad:

1. When your sister would like to hit you on the head with a wooden club, wear chain mail. It might get caught in your braids but your head will be protected.
2. Be careful not to anger your parents or you might find yourself in stocks, or worse.
3. Be careful not to anger your children or you might find yourself in stocks.
4. Be thankful for indoor plumbing.
5. There are ways around infertility.Joking aside, we had such a good time. But don’t get me started about the toy museum connected to it.

While you all are still sleeping, we’ll be visiting a castle today. (But then when I’m sleeping tonight, you will be having lunch and dinner…)

Meanwhile, I have a series going over at Our Creative Community about my writers conference. Go on over and have a look!

I’ll be posting later about our afternoon excursion!