Honeymoon Take 2 Pt. 2: Sweet, Sweet Sedbergh

After a rather sleepless flight, we landed in Manchester Airport on Friday morning. We immediately headed over to the lost baggage kiosk, and filled out all of the appropriate paperwork. They confirmed that our luggage was going to leave Philadelphia and arrive sometime Saturday evening. Because we had to fly out at 6:30 am Sunday morning (our original flight was scheduled to leave later in the afternoon, but it too was cancelled. Worst. Luck. Ever!), they said it was best to keep our bags in the airport. We were given a number to call, and were told that a representative would bring our luggage out to us when we arrived to check in, as we could not access the baggage claim part of the airport until we had gone through security. And, well, we couldn't go through security until we had our bags. They assured us that they were open 24 hours a day, and that it would be a smooth process to reclaim our luggage. This will be an important fact to remember in part 4 of this story!

Once we had that settled, we went on our merry way to pick up our rental car. The girl working that day was kind enough to put in the location of the nearest mall (Trafford Centre...which is huge!) into our GPS, and we were on our way to pick up some toiletries, sweaters (it was 50 degrees cooler in the UK), and an umbrella. We caught a lucky break on our way into the mall, and immediately stumbled upon a Boots and H&M. One hour, and a Starbucks stop later, we were on our way (on the other side of the car & road) to Sedbergh!

Ready to hit the (other side of) the road! 

Two and a half hours later we arrived in beautiful, sweet Sedbergh. The town is literally the definition of English countryside. Beautiful gardens, crisp green rolling hills, adorable streets and shops, and.... sheep pastures. More on those later. We stayed in a quaint little home called Reader's Cottage: 

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 Our front door. 

We decided to spend the afternoon strolling around town, taking everything in. It's hard not to feel peaceful in a place like this: 

 View outside of our cottage

 Lovely hills

 Union Jack flags!

 Gray and Lavender...one of my favorite color combinations

 I wish my garden entry looked like this. 

Winding roads

 Beautiful old church. 

 Ubiquitous phone booth picture

 I love crooked signs.

Ryan liked this home because it reminded him of Lord of the Rings. 

Eventually we stumbled upon the house where most of the bride's family was staying. Colette & James placed a message board outside to update everyone on where they would be during the day. 

I was outside taking pictures of the sign (not realizing that anyone was in the house), when Colette's uncle came downstairs and welcomed us to the town. He was very, very sweet, and even invited us inside for some cold drinks.  We had a wonderful time chatting with her aunt, uncle and cousins. It gave us a chance to catch our breath, and made us even more excited to celebrate the wedding the following day.

Afterwards we decided to grab some dinner at The Red Lion. The area is known for their sausage, and I can see why. I'm pretty sure it was the first meal we had since lunch the previous day, and it was delicious. Yum!

 Yummy dinner restaurant! 

After dinner, we headed to the Dalesman Inn for a pre-wedding welcome happy hour. We got to catch up with old friends, and make a bunch of new ones! It was a great way to kick off the celebrations!

Me & the Bride! 

p.s. See the blue cloth in the background? That's my airplane blanket. I used it as a shaw. No shame. 

Suddenly, it was 10:00 at night, and since we had not slept in around 36 hours, we thought it would be best to get some sleep to rest up for the big day! 

Random Fact- The sun does not set until around 10:30 PM in Sedbergh. This means that you will think it is 7:00 when it is in fact, much, much later. Eyemasks are a must! 

Next up: Colette & James get married! 

Here are the pictures from our first day: