Toured Houston and El Campo and still no shipment from Scotland...

Labor day weekend has been and gone. We drove to Houston on Saturday after a hearty Scottish breakfast arriving with time to go and do some wedding related shopping before going for tea at an Irish pub in the Woodlands with Chris' folks (it is actually an Irish pub, the interior was bought as the building it was in was being demolished for housing, and shipped to Texas). We took a wander along the Woodlands Waterway and scoped out how to get the wedding troupe about on foot between the hotel and the mall (well, it's more like a town really ;) ).

Sunday was the Derrich-Berckenhoff reunion in El Campo so we drove in in the morning armed with food and beer (mainly of the Shiner variety of course since it's my favourite Texas beer) for a day of me meeting a lot of family and not doing a very good job of keeping track of who was related to who (well, everyone was kinda related, but you know what I mean!). Everyone was (well, Nathan, Chris and me mainly...) excited to find out that a member of the Berckenhoff family helped found the Shiner Brewery in 1909! Cheers to that!! I knew there was a reason I was marrying into this family! :D

After a day of games of washers, horseshoes, spades (I was merely a spectator as I didn't want to embarrass myself!) and an obscene amount of cake we drove back to Houston and bet our pennies (literally) in family game of Swick (an old Czech card game). Bruce's Balvenie 12 year Doublewood definitely helped my card playing (or helped me see the funny side of losing!) ;) Oh, and I also won a prize for being the 'furthest travelled' at the reunion...ha ha ha! A bag of goodies for the trip home including some his and hers coffee mugs (as modelled here by Christopher). And no, we didn't eat the whole box of Fiddle Faddle (butter toffee covered popcorn with peanuts) on the drive home. That did not happen.

After staying Sunday night in Houston, we drove back on Monday morning and just chilled out for the rest of the day. Nice for Chris to have an extra day off, even if most of it was spent in the car.

Now, after the holiday on Monday, I was expecting a call on Tuesday about collecting the things I had shipped here, but having arranged a helping hand to collect it all, this never happened.

And again today, nothing...being told by the UK shippers that my stuff had already arrived in Dallas and the agents here in Dallas saying it hadn't. The UK shipping company are still adamant that the stuff is here, but I was told this afternoon that it only arrived in Orlando yesterday and isn't likely to be in Dallas until the weekend! Unimpressed doesn't even cover it! Been in limbo this week waiting for a phone call that was never actually going to happen! Off the hook for the rest of the week I suppose, but still living on a suitcase worth of stuff is not ideal. The shippers estimate of this taking '2-3 days' was clearly nonsense, something I'm beginning to find less and less surprising about them!

To take my mind off all that stuff today, I went for a walk around nearby streets for about an hour, which was nice, though hotter than I'm used to for my on-foot jaunts! I can see why so many other people that I saw walking were in hats or had umbrellas! Can't say I was disappointed to have to walk through some folks sprinklers ;)

And so to this evening...I'm insured on Chris' car and we're heading out for tea with Peter and Kimberley shortly and I'm told I'm driving. US folks, should you wish to remain in your houses, I would understand.

Love
Jenna