Wow. We were gone for three weeks and came home to a new bathroom, a raccoon-attacked kitty and a dog grateful to be in a one-dog family again.

A not-so-brief account of England Part One:

We spent the first week of our trip in jolly old England in Sheffield. Sheffield is cute as a button and home to the fantastically talented and most gracious hosts ever, the McVeys -- Mike, Ali, and the world's cutest, smartest, best baby boy, Cal.

Besides daily excursions to exciting places in and around Sheffield Mike drove us, on September 15, over THREE hours to the hidden town of Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire. Why? Why? Why drive nearly four hours in such a small country where every inch is jam packed with scones and history and lager?

BECAUSE IT WAS ROALD DAHL DAY!!!!

Yes! We were lucky enough to be in England on Roald Dahl's Birthday Weekend. The entire country (schools and libraries all over the place) celebrates his birthday with Roald Dahl themed parties and readings. But we went one step further:

Roald Dahl Museum and Café Twit

The museum is in an old carriage house with a lovely gift shop, the Twit Cafe, a story room, inventing room, and museum rooms devoted to Dahl's life as a child, writer and family man. If you haven't read Boy or Going Solo yet you are SO in trouble, but those books will give you a taste of what the museum covered. There's a courtyard in the middle planted with giant peach trees (each peach has a hole for James and friends) and everything is strung up with flag streamers and little lights. There's a replica of the Wonka Gate and almost every fixture, furniture piece and photo has been touched by Quentin Blake's illustrious illustratorness. I'm ready to move in and eat Snozzcumber sandwiches every day -- Cafe Twit even pumps out the smell of baking brownies CONTINUOUSLY in addition to selling lovely brownies and cookies, too.

Because it was Roald Dahl Weekend the courtyard was filled with balloon animal makers, magicians, face painters, kid friendly games, a fizzy lifting drink bar, candy floss station and design-your-own candy bar making area. I skulked around the candy bar area for a good five minutes, but I think maybe they cut you off at puberty from all those activities.

We ate our Boggis chicken sandwiches quickly at the cafe and then lined up to take a walking tour of Great Missenden.

Our knowledgeable and sprite-ly guide was part human, part illustration -- I've never seen hair more Quentin Blake like and wonder if he's developing a line of hair gel? She was really good and funny and read parts of Dahl's books out loud and took us all over the village.

There she is in the red Dahl Day tee on the left. There we were, on the road that goes towards Dahl's house looking at a railroad overpass. Our guide explained to us that Dahl would time his evening bedtime stories (scary ones to his kids) to the last train of the evening and walk them down to this overpass. JUST as he was getting to the really scary parts -- BAM -- the train would rattle by in the dark overhead. What a great dad!

We also saw the library where Matilda read her books, the window where Sophie sees the BFG and the petrol pump from Danny Champion of the World.

We visited Dahl's gravesite which has a beautiful view of the town. Roald's beloved stepdaughter died a few months before he did and that is her tombstone in front. A lovely tree was planted nearby (upper left) with a bench that contains the names of all of Dahl's children and the last lines from The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me:

"We have tears in our eyes
As we wave our goodbyes,
We so loved being with you, we three.
So do please now and then
Come and see us again,
The Giraffe and the Pelly and me."

People put candy bars and flowers on his grave and it might be the cheeriest graveyard I've ever been to.

After that we did a final walk up to Gipsy House and our wild-haired guide left us to explore the grounds of Dahl's amazing estate. Only a few times a year does Mrs. Dahl open the grounds up to the public and TODAY was one of the few days!

There was a scavenger hunt and a raffle for kids (for kids...) and BBC Radio4's John Waite read stories in the sunken garden.

He's a GREAT storyteller and was reading from Revolting Rhymes which is quite racy by American standards, but Aaron and I ate it up.

I got to hold a rehabilitated owl that can't survive in the wild, but instead lives with a witty Englishman and gets treats and gentle pets from people all day. Owls really are as soft as I always dreamed they would be and I can't believe I was so lucky to be able to hold one. I asked mine if it knew any of the Hogwarts owls and it swiveled its head completely away from me. I guess that was an inappropriate question...

In the Dahl garage Mrs. Felicity Dahl was serving tea and squash and cake. She was very nice and very glamorous wearing a pretty scarf and huge sunglasses and yellow, Roald's favorite color. She spilled some of my tea while pouring it and said, "Oh, sh*t -- I mean, bother." Isn't she wonderful?

I used the "loo" in the Dahl billiard room and saw lots of great framed posters from plays and musicals based on Dahl books.

Here is a lovely tree-covered walk to the Writing Hut where Dahl wrote many of his stories. It is closed up and dusty inside now, but the second photo/poster in this blog post is taken in the hut and it looks much cozier when he was using it.

Here's a poster from the museum showing Dahl when those trees were just babies being trained up.

Doesn't that look like a place where magic happened? The whole estate does, but having a little studio with a yellow door...and a pet owl....and a candy factory. That's my new dream in life.

Still with me? I'll finish up quick:

Behind Gipsy House is the caravan like the one Danny had with his father. (Above the caravan is a treehouse built to cover the caravan in winter, but its also an amazing death defying treehouse that we weren't allowed in.)

And a dog misbehaving.

Eventually we strolled back to the museum and looked around a bit more. Bought some exciting Dahl products and said Cheerio to the BFG who was now manning the museum door.

What an awesome day.

Kudos to England for having such great Days. I'd love to organize a Roald Dahl Day in 2008 in Seattle. Anyone with me?