October 2001

Much has happened since our last update, not least the infamous events
of
September 11th. Our reactions to those events made us realize how
strong the
bonds of marriage are. During that terrible time Steve was in
California.
All Lisa wanted was to have him home, and he desperately wanted to be
home.
We were extremely lucky that he was able to fly back as scheduled but we
really missed each other that week.



In the meantime however, Lisa started her course in Real Estate at
Brunswick
Community College. She has classes on Monday and Wednesday mornings
from 9
until 1. So far it has been bearable, although the 2 hours of
mathematics
each week reminds her of kindergarten. Some of the people are unable to
convert fractions to decimals, calculate percentages or change feet to
inches. How have they got through life so far?



Lisa has also been to England to visit her parents. It was an even
shorter
trip than usual, just 4 nights, one of which was spent on a plane. The
weather was good to her though, and she had some great food too. All the
flights departed early and arrived even earlier. The return flight from
Manchester to Atlanta was so early that she decided to try her luck and
get
on a shuttle to Wilmington instead of hanging around at the airport for
3
hours. So she went to the gate just as they were getting ready to board
and
was told that the flight had been delayed because of a fuel problem so
now
only 26 people could get on the plane. 27 people had checked in so they
were
wondering what to do and were certainly not going to take Lisa
(especially
since her ticket was to go to Myrtle Beach, not Wilmington). She had
nothing
better to do so she decided to hang around and see what happened. When
they
started boarding the plane was at the wrong gate so everyone was told to
hand over their ticket and then walk as a group with a steward to the
new
gate. As they left she asked again if they could fit her on. The
stewardess
told her she would put all the tickets in the computer and let her know.
Then she made a final boarding call for 3 passengers that had not shown
up
and told Lisa she could go but she had to find her own way. She called
the
plane to tell them Lisa was coming. Lisa ran to the gate only to find
that
there were really 4 gates, all for other flights and all with lots of
people. Finally a stewardess took her under the barriers and out onto
the
tarmac and they walked around a whole load of little planes until they
found
the right one. At this point the flight was about one hour late. The
crew
were very apologetic and finally announced that the plane would leave
without ice because they could not wait any longer. There were two large
guys with a big case that would not fit under the seat. They were
foreign
and refused point blank to allow the case with computers and papers in
it to
go in the hold. They strapped it to a seat and one went off to sit
elsewhere. Lisa thought the other looked familiar. They took off.
Fifteen
minutes later the captain announced he had good news - the engines were
fine
- and bad news - they were going back to Atlanta because a dial was not
working. In Atlanta an engineer climbed on and changed the dial and
they got
ice. Meanwhile all the bags were taken off the plane and exchanged with
the
ones from the plane next-door. Half an hour later the plane took off
again.
Meanwhile Steve was in Wilmington where the monitors indicated that the
plane had arrived. But no one came out - because it had arrived back in
Atlanta! He finally found out that we had turned around but no one knew
why.
After all of this Lisa arrived in Wilmington about half an hour earlier
than
she would have arrived in Myrtle Beach on the scheduled flight. When
she got
off the plane a police escort and group of men in suits were waiting.
The
foreign guys with the case went off with them.



The next day Lisa could not park at school. Then she remembered that Lec
Walesa was giving a talk. He was the guy sitting across from her on the
plane, whose companion refused to give up the case.



Lisa is still missing her friends at Jazzercise but this month she has
been
taking some long walks with one of our new neighbors. Maya is
definitely the
youngest resident of Brunswick Plantation and her mum, Tina, is
probably the
second youngest. Maya is only 5 months old so she goes in the stroller
with
Tina pushing. They take a short walk first to wear Bertie out, then
drop him
off at home and head off with Heidi to circumnavigate the plantation.
The
walks have been a lot of fun. Tina is great to talk to and she is a
local so
she knows lots of good stuff - like what a storm door is for! There's a
great picture of Maya on the web this month.



Our other news that we have is that OUR SOFA ARRIVED. It is great to
have
something soft to sit on and to be able to watch TV sitting down
(instead of
in bed).



Just before Steve left to go to California this month we went to Farm
Heritage Day nearby and watched pigs races.



Pictures



Next month we hope to have news on the house.