over-loading stella

So...to those of you out there who are actually CRAVING content from my little corner of the Internet, a very sincere apology for the 'radio silence' the past few days. In my defense, it hasn't been without reason.

• Feb 09 was spent in massive house-cleaning efforts in preparation for my current visitors.
• Feb 10 was spent with some new local friends playing pub Scrabble (more on that in an upcoming post).
• Feb 11 was spent on the M25, picking up my visitors.
• Feb 12 was spent with said visitors.
• Feb 13-14 were spent in Aberdeen, sans Internet connectivity.
• And suddenly here we are a Feb 15!

ANYWAY, back to the topic at hand. Stella. My poor little Nissan Micra. You can see that she's not very big from the example below (think Mini Cooper, but smaller on the inside, and note that my Stella is NOT blue).

On Saturday, I picked up Basim (and his two bags) at Gatwick and then we headed immediately to Heathrow to pick up Danny and Steffanie (and their 5 bags). So, for the ride home, Stella was carting:

• 4 adults
• 1 very large suitcase
• 2 medium suitcases
• 1 large duffel bag
• 2 backpacks
• 1 VERY large 'handbag'

The phrase that should come to mind here is: "packed in like sardines". Let me just say that EVERY person in the car (except me) had a bag either under their feet or in their lap or both. AND everyone got to participate in the 'driving' effort because I could not see anything but luggage in the rear-view mirror nor the side windows.

I'm SURE this is what we looked like:



Don't even try to tell yourself that I'm just exaggerating...people were actually pointing and laughing as they passed us on the M25. And yes, THEY were mostly passing US, because Stella's little heart could barely handle the strain and we were in the GRANNY LANE!!!