Stockport, England Visit -9 degrees

". . . the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways."  Judges 5:6

Ho, ho, ho, as old Santa might say.  I would love to have the highways unoccupied as in the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, whomever he was in the record of the Bible.  Stockport is a busy part of what they call greater Manchester.  I'm glad we don't have to deal with that traffic and don't dare say anything about hoping not to be transferred there or we'll get jinxed.  We spent all day looking at flats there and feeling claustrophobic with vehicles closing in all all sides.  Luckily, we do not have to go back there because we found a flat!!  We skidded into the real estate office about five minutes before it closed (early of course because of "the weather and the holiday season").  The average work week in England is 36 hours.

The path to a flat we didn't rent.  Lovely little place away from everything.

This cat's body language says, "I can spot a cat hater a mile away.  Elder Blain cannot be my neighbor unless I can rub all over his pant legs and stick my tail in his face" (which is what most cats do at homes we visit--always targeting him).

Looking out our window at 7 a.m--lovely.

We walked out into a rather cold morning at -9 degrees Celsius today, and the temperature fluctuated all day between that and zero, depending on where we were driving.  It was a lovely day with a drier, crisp cold that is more like Utah, and NO wind.  I didn't mind it at all until I walked in it for 20 minutes without my gloves or hat on looking for a real estate office.  Such is the job of finding and renting flats.  There is a lot of walking around trying to figure out where the places are on the streets, though it wasn't at all miserable like it was in Rhyl the other day.

It isn't even funny how things get closed down around here if there is an inch of snow.  Trucks didn't get deliveries into the stores Saturday, so the grocery store didn't have much food in it.  This was a place the size of a Super Wal*Mart!  Today, one agent cancelled on us due to the weather.  The sun was out all day and the roads were clear.  Go figure.  Oh, and one letting agent stood us up.  We were early to the appointment and waited for someone to show up.  When we called the office, the lady said he couldn't wait any longer in the cold for us.  What really happened is his appointment before us didn't show and he left early, telling his office we didn't show after he waited for us.  We actually showed early and there is no way he was there for our appointment.  If we weren't representing the Church, I probably wouldn't have been quite as nice to the lady about that incident.  Terrible, aren't I?

Oh well, we found a decent place and I'm glad we didn't have to deal with a lier.  I am NOT feeling exactly charitable towards certain people after a day of trudging through snow packed, icy walkways.  I did redeem myself by graciously forgiving one agent who called to cancel because another company had the key.  We had fought traffic across town to meet that appointment and were sitting in front of the place waiting for someone to show when we got the message they couldn't let us in to see it.

Another one of those amazing steeple churches that I never get tired of photographing

This building was seen over the tops of some trees but I didn't get close enough to see more

 Hum, I AM laughing over all the silly things that go wrong within a span of a few hours in this flat hunting business.  It really has been a fun day being out and about and accomplishing our purpose.  We gave out a few pass along cards and a Christmas video.  One person from our own apartment building even took a Christmas video, so we are enjoying the Christmas season.  Plus, the snow makes it holidayish!

Tomorrow is going to be a very special day for a Zone Conference and all of us will go to the Preston Temple together.  It will be an amazing spiritual experience.  We will be giving our zone leaders a lift because they wrecked their car a couple days ago.  Thankfully, no one was hurt in either car.  We get to leave super early (6:30 a.m.) because they have things to prepare for the 10 a.m. meeting.  This will mean we miss the senior couples dinner that was planned that evening as a farewell for the Isle of Man couple who leaves in a month.  Such is mission life.  There isn't a lot of time to party--ha, ha.