Awakening

Chapter 3 - Maggie

 "You have GOT to be kidding" I said to myself with a laugh. "Four days notice for a business trip to London?"

"Well, Maggie, at least they finally figured out you needed to be there." Cathy said from outside my office. I checked my calendar even though I thought I should decline purely in protest of poor planning. Nothing during my week was pressing and couldn't be rearranged. Great. They would continue to think they could schedule on a whim.

"Now let's see if they have any logistics figured out" I said out loud. I didn't mind international travel. It was usually an opportunity to make some good work connections and squeeze in a little sightseeing. I searched my email and found no details other than the office address. "Oh this will be fun." I said to no-one in particular. If I remembered correctly, the UK office had moved last year from one end of London to the other and most of the folks I knew weren't there anymore. I crafted a few emails hoping for the best and sent them off not expecting any answers until tomorrow. It was afternoon in Chicago and there would be a 6-7 hour time difference.

"What adventure will you manage this trip?" Cathy commented standing in my office doorway.

"I have no idea. I'm going to see what I can find online." I said as I pulled up the information about Hurley, UK. "From what I remember they said it was in the middle of a cow pasture." She laughed and walked away.

Hurley,UK showed little by way of tourism. It seemed as if it was a town no one had been to which was strange given how close it was to London. The map showed it was about 20-30 minutes west of Heathrow and I remember that was in the same direction of Windsor Castle London was a wonderful city but I'd been several times. My real love was the English countryside. My mom was going to laugh at this one. She always joked that I was born in the wrong century. I had many daydreams of myself in England in the times of queens, horses, grand palaces, etc. Maybe a little too much Jane Austen over the years.

As I scrolled through the websites and maps, I was pleased to see Windsor castle was indeed very close to Hurley. Now the question was if I could fit it in to my schedule. It was strange the workshop started on a Wednesday - but that allowed me to take my flight Monday night and land Tuesday morning. I really disliked going straight from an overnight international flight to a full day of workshops. Tuesday would be a jet lag day and a day of sightseeing including Windsor castle sounded like a fantastic idea.

I checked my email again and was surprised to see I had received a response from Clive and the London office executive assistant.

Dear Maggie, it will be such a pleasure to finally meet you. I've booked you at the Old Belle In in Hurley with the other folks in our London office. We were in luck they had a few rooms open up at the last minute. I'll arrange your car from the airport to the Inn –– you'll be able to walk to the office from the hotel if the weather is nice. Otherwise someone local will give you a lift.

"What is with the extra "e" at the end of these words?" I thought out loud. Time to check out "ye olde belle." Regardless if the extra vowel, I was excited at the prospect of an Inn instead of a hotel chain. I loved places with good character and charm. I pulled up the website and the front page was a caricature type drawing showing a small town and the placement of the Inn. From the looks of the map, it seemed to be spread out over a series of buildings and focused more on the weddings and events and described little about the rooms themselves. The pictures I did see, were of dark wood, white walls and most importantly - cast iron tubs! It seemed as if each room held a full sized beautiful white tub. I spent some more time reviewing the webpage and it indicated the Inn had operated continuously for many hundreds of years. The town looked incredibly small, maybe a hundred houses and it was bordered on one end by the Thames river. A few quick peeks at google maps and it looked as if the town was lined with the small brick walls along narrow streets. At this point I was over my irritation about lack of planning and was ready to exploration. An old Inn, a quaint town, the Thames river – it's as if they planned the trip just for me. Now on to the work of preparations for the workshop. The rest of the tourist planning would have to wait.