Kim & Duane & Andrew: November 2009

Most of this half of the year I have been working on a Regulatory Intelligence project with my director. It's pretty important and part of a huge strategic initiative backed by the VP of QA. I was both excited and nervous when I learned I'd have to make a trip to our Basingstoke office to do a consolidated project called a Kaizan.

I getting over a slight cold that I had the 4 or 5 days prior to leaving on November 1. I got to the airport, hung out in the British Air lounge and watched the Phillies with my colleague. We boarded the flight and I got comfortable in business class. It was nice, the seat went to a full bed, and it was a "sleeper service" flight leaving at 10 PM. I was able to fall asleep pretty fast (we had a busy Halloween party the night before!) and woke up with the chills. This wasn't very unusual for me, I'm always cold on the plane. That is of course why I wore my long johns. I pulled my quilt up higher and went back to sleep. I woke up with about an hour to go in the flight. This time I was hot (not surprising, I was sleeping in my jacket, with long johns and a quilt), felt achy and had a headache (not surprising, I just slept 4 or so hours in a "bed" that turns into a airplane seat) and nauseous (again not surprising, I was probably hungry). I got up and went to use my freshen up pack and brush my teeth. I felt a little woozy but figured I just didn't have enough sleep. I took some Motrin and had a Fruit bar and juice. My ear gave me a lot of trouble with the entire descent, it was very painful but I figured it was because I was just getting over that cold. We landed, used our Business class passes to breeze through immigration and customs and met our driver to take us to the Four Seasons Hampshire. The drive wasn't spectacular, just the "motorways" as they say in a van with the steering wheel on the right.

The Four Seasons Hampshire is however very spectacular, in a tiny village in Dogmersfield about an hour outside of London city limits, close (about a 20 minute drive I hear) to the Shire Basingstoke office. Set in huge green open fields, looking down upon a pond filled with ducks, geese and swans, surrounded by horse farms, cattle, sheep and goats. My room was also great, very large with a beautiful marble bathroom and spacious bedroom area. I got a little bit unpacked although I was distracted by the outlet situation. Never once did I consider that the electrical outlets would be different but they sure were. I had to have housekeeping bring me this box that converted the output to the plug size for my stuff as well as the correct voltage. Once I got that figured out I was feeling pretty lousy so I figured I'd take a short nap and still have time to go back into London as planned to take a bus tour. Our flight was super fast and did arrive almost an hour early so I had time, right?

I woke up feeling awful. All of a sudden my previous feelings of discomfort hit me and I feared the worst - I had the flu. I didn't know what to do so I pulled my chilled body out of bed and called the concierge after looking up flu symptoms on the internet. He was able to offer me a hotel visit for at least 150GBP, a taxi to take me to a medical center or a phone call from a doctor. I chose to have a doctor call me already pretty much knowing what they would say. A nice woman doctor called me about 10 minutes later and after describing my symptoms said "sounds like you have the flu, doesn't it?" Oh and we were pretty sure I had conjunctivitis (pin eye) too but that was the least of my worries. Without a thermometer we weren't able to confirm I had a fever but I had all the other symptoms and was 99% positive I had a fever as well. She was able to have the office call and get my details then call in a prescription for Tamiflu. The hotel sent a taxi to pick it up and deliver it to me.

I broke the news to the team I was working with and they were more than understanding. They all felt horrible that I was poorly (the British way of saying feeling sick) and wanted me to just rest. By this point the entire hotel staff knew of my condition and were sending me get well cards and calling to check on me. The Four Seasons staff is well trained to give superb service and they were all able to pretend that they didn't fear for their health when delivering me things, although I did have one guy let up on the service act and act as though I had the plague (although I guess I did!). I literally slept from Monday through Thursday at 3 PM, only getting up to have room service once or twice a day and play on the internet a bit.

By Thursday at 3 I knew I had to get out of there and see SOMETHING of Britain so I went for a short walk around the grounds to take photos. I obviously was still very poorly as most of the shots are out of focus but I did manage to salvage a few that you can see below.

Although all my colleagues at the Basingstoke office were concerned I wouldn't get out of the country (our admin was calling to find out about the heat seeking cameras and trying to get a doctor clearance for me, etc) we had no issues. I'm pretty sure I had the illusive Swine flu but we'll never know. It took about 2 full weeks for me to finally feel somewhat back to normal again.

I'm thankful I was able to get Tamiflu and lots of rest while I was away. Although having so little distractions made me miss home more I was glad to keep my germs on the other side of the ocean and not pass them to Duane or Andrew. I hope I get another chance to go back to Britain to see more than Heathrow airport, the motorways and the grounds of the Four Seasons!

In this one below, if you look close you can see the bonfire that was lit for their annual Guy Fawkes night where they all party around a bonfire to celebrate the downfall of the Gunpowder plot on November 5, 1605.

We waited and waited for a weekend without rain so that we could go to the pumpkin patch. We thought we missed our chance but the Sunday before Halloween turned out to be beautiful despite the washout the day before. Duane was coming down with a bad cold (that Andrew and I would go on to catch) but we decided to go anyway. Merrymead farms was our first choice but when the traffic stopped long before we could even see the silos of the farm we went onto Plan B which was Northstar farm in Trappe on Rt. 113.

North Star Farm is a fully functioning farm with cows that make milk for Land O Lake's butter! We parked at the school across the street and the hayride took us over to the farm. We looked at the apple launchers and cows then took a hayride out to the field to pick our pumpkin. It was a fun afternoon!