Adventures in England

British school system...

2008-09-30T12:46:00.003Z

Since the British school system is different from the one we are accustomed to in United States, I thought I would try to explain how things work here. I did borrow the below graph from Wikipedia.com, where you will find a much more detailed explanation if you are interested. Just type in "Education in England".

This chart kind of shows the age of children based on the year. The middle section shows how Alyssa and Nathan's school district (catchment area) is set up. Children attend primary school until they reach 11 years and then they will transfer to secondary school which they will be required by law to attend until they are 16. Kids won't have any more changes until they graduate from this school. They go into secondary school as 11 year olds and have to live in peace with the 16 year olds! Yikes!

This is different than the US schools where law requires student to attend school until they are 18. However, England is currently passing a law to require students to stay until 17 years of age.

Currently, when students reach 16 years they have a choice of going on to "Sixth Form" College, where they prepare for GCE A-level examinations required for University, or they can stop their formal schooling and attend a trade school, get a job, or do what they like.

Unlike the US where about 75 percent of high school students move on to attend university, it does not seem to be as important to students here. I could not find any statistics to support this theory, but this is the impression I have. Parents here don't talk about their children going to university like they did when we were in the US. I remember parents talking about which university they wanted their child to attend as their child was crawling around the floor in front of them! Here parents complacently state that "you can't force kids to go". I suppose that seems strange to me because a 16 year in the US is still considered a minor and are still under the guidance of their parents.

I still feel like I don't quite understand the school system here, but I am trying. The fact that you have to spend two full years preparing for college entrance exams here seems a bit daunting to me. I am personally glad that I did not have to do that. From what I here about the exams, they sound extremely hard and stressful!!

Going to college...

2008-09-29T12:21:00.001Z

Alyssa just started her final year at primary school, "year 6". In the US, that would be grade 5 because here they start "reception" at age 4 so "year 1" for British students starts when the kids in the US start kindergarten. School started the first week of September and three weeks into the year, I have already recieved a letter explaining that Alyssa needed to apply to the "college" of her choice for next year.

In order to apply, I had a choice of either completing a lengthy application by hand or by going to the county website and applying using their secure application process. Being electronically driven, I chose the website.

Before I began, I had to type in a number supplied on the letter I recieved. The number resembled the codes Microsoft uses for product activation in that it was ridiculously long. After this, I found I had to verify Alyssa's age, current school, address, and any medical history that might have a bearing on school related activities.

Finally, I managed to get to the screen that gave me the opportunity to pick our preferred school. Our "preferred school" is 3 miles down the road from the Hardwick Primary School. It is the only public school in our catchment area. It is a very well regarded school and many families move into the village in order to attend the college. As it turns out, however, a very large development further west has added a heavy load to our catchment area and it is no longer guaranteed that we will get to attend this school. The form informed me that I was "encouraged" to select THREE schools as there is a possiblity that we won't get our first choice. This means that Alyssa could potentially get sent into Cambridge for her secondary school.

This knowledge does not sit well with the other parents I know who are also applying for the "Year 7 transfer". They have said that they chose Hardwick more for the schools that the location (perhaps they don't like to spend so much time driving behind farm machinery to get home). We all have our fingers and toes crossed that we will get our kids into Comberton College so that we don't have to spend more time shuttling our kids to school activities than we currently already do!

Despite all of the handwring by parents, Alyssa, thinks it is fabulous that she will be attending "college" next year as opposed to her peers in the States who will be ONLY be attending middle school.

English spellings

2008-09-28T18:54:00.004Z

Three things of note in Alyssa's year 6 (5th grade) spelling words. They are "Spellings". Dates are formatted DD•MM•YYYY. Plus airplane is spelled "Aeroplane". (Or "spelt" as they say here)
Aerodrome, I suppose is spelled the same way we would do it.
-Dale

Thank you for your custom?

2008-09-27T08:57:00.004Z

This was a new expression to us. "Thank you for your custom" Does a custom-er provides a business with "custom", or is it our custom to patronize this Hotel? -Dale

Alps

2008-08-23T08:45:00.004Z

This was in Chatel, France, a ski town about 75 miles from Geneva. These bits are called the "Dents du Midi".

-Dale

A day at the beach...

2008-07-25T08:30:00.000Z

To celebrate the end of the finishing of school on July 22, we decided to take a family trip to the beach. We returned to Brancaster, shown to us by some friends that has beautiful sandy beaches that are not overcrowded. We took all of our regular beach gear, awning for sun protection, sunscreen, cooler for lunch and snacks, buckets, shovels, etc. However, we were missing the one thing essential for all British beaches: a wind screen. If you double click on the picture to the right, you will notice all the blue and striped wind screens stuck in the sand. The first thing packed here is the wind screen and a mallet to pound it in. We found that out after our emergency purchase of a wind screen that day. The sand was so packed together from the wind and wet that it was like trying to dig a hole in cement. We spent most of the day righting out wind screen since the wind kept blowing it out since we could not get the wind screen poles deep enough.

After a day at the beach, tradition recommends going and getting fish and chips for dinner. We went to nearby Hunstanton for this. Hunstanton is an established beach town with boardwalks, carnival rides, ice cream stands and all things associated with beach going. The boardwalks were not made of "boards" but of cement and probably served both as boardwalk and protection from the sea.

The best part of our day was that it was nearly 80 F and it did not rain!!

Creative thinking...

2008-07-07T08:23:00.000Z

Alyssa needed to create a costume for a carnival. I thought it was so hilarious that everyone should see it.

Just in case you are wondering, she was a bumble bee.

Royal Albert Hall

2008-06-06T18:24:00.001Z

Alyssa and Nathan had the opportunity to sing at Royal Albert Hall in London with their school choir along with 33 other schools
across England. The show lasted over 3 hours and included over 19 songs! Dale and I were not sure who was going to tip over first, them or us! The performance was a massive fundraising effort for a children's charity, Barnardos.

Royal Albert Hall is absolutely gorgeous! It opened in 1871 by Queen Victoria. Today, it hosts leading artists from all over the world have appeared on its stage. According to Wikipedia.com, each year this venue is the site of more than 350 performances ranging from classical, rock and pop concerts, to ballet and opera, to award ceremonies and lavish banquets. Originally, it was supposed to have been called The Central Hall of Arts and Sciences, but the name was changed by Queen Victoria to Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences in honor of her husband.

The ballerina and the football star...

2008-05-17T18:13:00.001Z

We made it through a weekend of a 5-a-side football tournament for Nathan and an elaborate ballet production for Alyssa. Here are a few pictures of events...

Alyssa in the forest scene...

Alyssa in "The Golden Goose"...

Nathan at the trophy ceremony at the end of the season...

Nathan with his team, the Hardwick Harriers

Brussels...

2008-04-19T20:41:00.001Z

We traveled to Brussels on our way to see the Amstel Gold race in Maastricht, Netherlands. Full of beautiful architecture, a day of site seeing is barely enough time to appreciate all that the city offers. We walked to the famed city square that hosts the City Hall.

We also took a trip through the city to the Atomium, built for the 1958 World's Fair. It is a steel structure (335-feet tall) steel spheres connected together to create an atom magnified 165 billion times.

Finally, we made sure to try lots of chocolate and taste the beer too just to make sure we got the entire Belgium experience.

food

2008-04-17T22:22:00.004Z

This is Lyle's Golden Syrup. I never saw this until I got over here. It's used on pancakes or oatmeal just like Maple Syrup is. It can also be used to make baked parsnips w/seasame seeds. Yum!

I heard a joke the other day:

Did you know it only rains twice a week in Ireland?

Yup, Monday to Friday and Friday to Monday!

-Dale

Oh the rain... !!!!

2008-01-18T11:22:00.000Z

I remember hearing when I was little that if you washed your car, then it would make it rain. I must admit that the superstition stuck and even as an adult I dared not wash my bike the day before a bike race. However, I am starting to wonder if I should wash my bike now. After a week of endless rain and flooding, I looked at the forecast today hoping to see the end of this miserable weather. What I found instead is another week of rain. Even the kids were talking about how they don't ever get to go outside during break at school with all the rain. Alyssa optimistically told Nathan this morning on our way to school that next week they would be playing out again. I don't have the heart to tell her what I have read today.

Gilbralter...

2007-12-23T15:59:00.007Z

The Rock of Gibralter towers over the coast of Spain that touches it on each side. We drove there from our rental apartment in Calahonda, Spain in a steady rain. The low hanging clouds allowed little site seeing, but it did not stop the towering rock from darking the sky a bit more.

Gibralter is a British Territory and once we got past the border control, we felt like we had returned to England. Everything was in English and we had quite a selection of pubs and other English department stores to choose from.

Because Gibralter is very small, everything is smashed into a very small area. As you leave the border control, you drive right over a giant runway. With all the tight security restrictions in the States, I was quite surprised to find myself driving on a runway!!

We squeezed our rental car around tight corners, navigating slowly up the Rock of Gibralter. Many corners were so tight, there was several shades of paint from the side of cars decorating the buildings. The roads wasted little time taking us up and we were soon looking down on the Strait of Gibralter. It was easy to understand why this was such a strategic military location during World War II. At its narrowist point, there is only 8 miles that separates Africa from Europe. As we looked down at the water, you could easily see Africa off in the distance.

We drove up as far as the roads would allow and then we got out and started walking. As we we turned the first bend in the road, we met our first monkey sitting on a wall at the road's edge. It just sat there looking at us giving us no indication whether or not it cared about our existance. It was strange meeting up with a monkey outside of the zoo. It just did not seem natural, but we found many more monkeys during our walk that day. There were all shapes and sizes. Some looked like they were going to grab us around the legs if we got too close, others looked like they wanted to play. We were advised by a lot of signs that the monkeys did bite, so we tried to keep our distance.

We did make it to the top, but the clouds hid any views from us.

Jamón ibérico...

2007-12-22T15:07:00.000Z

We always make sure to get a little Iberian Ham when we are in Spain. We learned about it on our first trip last year. It has a very distinctive flavor and can be very expensive. We tried a little portion this time that cost 60 euruos a kilo. The thing that amazes me is that there is so much of it to buy. Everywhere we go, you can find a corner of a store filled like our picture here. There seems to be an endless supply of it in Spain, yet they cans still sell it for high prices. I suppose the cost is supported by what needs to be done to produce it. I won't even attempt to explain Iberian ham, but I will supply you with the Wikipedia definition. This is much better than my limited knowledge of it and as I researched it I learned a little more about it too.

According to Wikipeida.com...

Jamón ibérico is a type of jamón, a cured ham produced only in Spain. It is at least 75% Black Iberian Pig, also called the cerdo negro or black pig, the only breed of pig that naturally seeks and eats mainly acorns: according to Spain's Denominación de Origen rules on food products jamón ibérico may be made from cross-bred pigs as long as they are at least 75% ibérico.
The Black Iberian Pig lives primarily in the south and southwest parts of Spain, including the provinces of Salamanca, Ciudad Real, Cáceres, Badajoz, Seville, Córdoba and Huelva. Immediately after weaning the piglets are fattened on barley and maize for several weeks. The pigs are then allowed to roam in pasture and oak groves to feed naturally on grass, herbs, acorns, and roots, until the slaughtering time approaches. At that point the diet may be strictly limited to acorns for the best quality jamón ibérico, or may be a mix of acorns and commercial feed for lesser qualities.

The hams are labeled according to the pigs' diet, with an acorn diet being most desirable:

The finest jamón ibérico is called jamón ibérico de bellota (acorn). This ham is from free-range pigs that roam oak forests (called la dehesa) along the southern border between Spain and Portugal, and eat only acorns during this last period. It is also known as Jamón Iberico de Montanera.[citation needed] The exercise and the diet has a significant impact on the flavor of the meat; the ham is cured for 36 months

The next grade of jamón ibérico is called jamón ibérico de recebo. This ham is from pigs that are pastured and fed a combination of acorns and grain.

The third type of jamón ibérico is called jamón ibérico de pienso, or simply, jamón ibérico. This ham is from pigs that are fed only grain. The ham is cured for 24 months.

Trip to Ronda, Spain...

2007-12-21T13:18:00.000Z

Our first outing in the south of Spain was a drive to Ronda. We turned north from the beaches of Marbella and started our ascent to one of the most breathtaking towns I have ever seen. The road to Ronda was a very winding two lane road plagued by slow moving dump trucks and fast moving cars passing the trucks on the inside of every turn up the mountain. The road had random stretches of guardrails and short stonewalls, but nearly every one had a missing section or was seriously damaged. Neither this nor the steady rain seemed to put any concern into the minds of the passing drivers. The fact that we were traveling up a steeply graded road did not seem to slow anyone but us. Perhaps it was chorus of whimpers from his three passengers that made Dale slow to a crawling speed. I would have taken pity on the fact that Dale had to crawl along the mountain roads, obviously wanting to go faster, if I had not been so nervous myself!

We arrived to a village perched on the side of a cliff. The view was amazing. From the edge of the village you look down on crumbling walls, dirt roads, olive groves and abandoned stone ruins that made you imagine times past. We wandered the streets in the steady rain taking stock of the beautiful doors that decorated every building and home. There were no doors put on buildings simply for use. They all were strong, heavy beautifully made doors beautifully carved and nearly all carefully tended. The doors are one of my favorite things to look at in Spain.

Ronda is well known for the impressive bull ring built at the edge of town. Within the complex is a small museum and horse training center. We saw people working with horses, the bull ring and all the gates and ropes used on the day of a bullfight. To see a bullfight must be a statement to society as well because the cheapest tickets to be had were 50 euros per person. We had to settle for sitting in an empty bullring, but even that was fun.

Early flight to Spain...

2007-12-20T13:10:00.000Z

When you are sitting in front of a computer making travel reservations, anything seems possible. As I made our flight reservations for our trip to Spain, I looked at the cost grid and decided that I was willing to get up really early in order to save some pounds in airfare. However, as I struggled out of bed at 3:30 am this morning, I declared that there actually is great value in the time you spend sleeping and have thus declared that I will never again try to catch a 6:25 am flight.

The good side to this story is that we arrived in Spain at 10:30 am despite it being one hour later in time zones and we had an entire day to unpack, explore and enjoy a nice dinner. The bed was quite comfortable when I finally crawled in at the end of today.

Thanksgiving...

2007-11-25T17:05:00.000Z

I now have a much better appreciation for all the Thanksgiving meals that I have enjoyed at other peoples houses. After years of being spoiled by the wonderful cooking of all my fabulous relatives and friends, I decided it was time that I held a proper Thanksgiving feast for other people. This idea led me to host a Thanksgiving dinner for some neighborhood friends this past week. I must say that it is a little more difficult to celebrate Thanksgiving here since we still have work, school and after school activities on Thanksgiving Day and the day after.

The run up to our Thanksgiving dinner was a test of our organizational skills. If I did not have my dear friend Michele Bote to help me every step of the way, I am pretty sure I would not have been able to pull it off. In fact, if you read her blog, Michele's cycling blog noted under "My favorite Blogs", you will find her own account of her Thanksgiving week here. We did our best to pack in as many site-seeing trips as possible in between our cooking sessions. However, time was against us since I had to pick up the kids from school at 3:00pm each day.

Despite the fact that we were spreading ourselves thin trying to see the sites, fit in bike spinning classes, and eat meals other than the big one we were trying to prepare, Michele and I managed to present a lovely feast to our guests from England. They were all gracious and enthusiastic about our tradition and made the day even more special.

For our dinner we smoked a 20 lb. turkey on a Weber along with as many traditional dishes as we could create. This included sweet potatoes, stuffing, oyster dressing, green beans with bacon, cranberry relish, a big salad and mashed potatoes with gravy. We had pumpkin pies and apple pies for dessert after which we all had to roll ourselves out of our chairs.

The hardest part of our wonderful feast was the next day when everyone had to get up and go to work and school. Because it was a workday, our Thanksgiving meal did not commence until 6:00pm. After a late evening on Thursday, all I wanted to do was curl up under a blanket and do nothing on Friday. However, when I showed up at the school grounds Friday morning to drop the kids off, I was greeted with wide smiles from all my guests who expressed their great hope that I would host Thanksgiving again next year.

The rising and setting of the sun...

2007-11-07T09:01:00.000Z

Our clocks turned back from BST (British Summer Time) on Sunday, October 28. The main reasons given for the use of summer time are the saving in power given by the longer hours of daylight in the evenings and the increased useful daylight leisure time available to those who work. This differs from the US where (starting in 2007) the time change does not take effect until 2 AM. on the first Sunday in November. This is a change from past years due to the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Now the US time changes are different that the rest of the world. When the US time changed prior the the UK back in March 2007, I remember hearing a great deal of concern, voiced particularly by the financial markets, that the time difference will create problems.

The reason the US opted for a longer period of daylight savings was stated by the authors of the
Energy Policy Act of 2005. The amendment to shorten the winter, lengthen the summer and save energy by extending daylight saving time by at least four weeks, was, proponents claimed, going to save "the equivalent of" 10,000 barrels of oil per day. It remains to be seen how much energy will actually by saved, but hopefully the US will actually "save" that much oil, not simply put it to use in some other mode.

I have not quite adjusted to our time change here. The sun rose at 7:05 AM this morning and will set at 4:20 PM. I have been scrambling to get dinner on the table, thinking that it is later than it is with the darkness closing in on us so quickly at night. By November 30, the sun will rise at 7:42 AM and set at 3:56 PM and by December 22 (the shortest day of the year), we will only enjoy a mere 7 hours 50 minutes of daylight when the sun rises at 8:04 AM and sets at 3:54 PM. At the rate I am going now, by December we will be eating dinner at 4:30 PM and be in bed by 7:00 PM! I am sure I will adapt, but I don't think I will ever quite get adjusted to quickened pace of the setting sun here in the UK.

Accents

2007-10-19T08:47:00.000Z

I came across something interesting today while reading the British newspaper, "The Guardian" http://www.guardian.co.uk/. This paper is the UK's equivalent to the left-leaning Washington Post. In the Financial section there was an interview with an American named Jules Kroll. He was described as having a "refined east coast accent." What does that sound like I wonder?
Further reading reveals that he was born in Brooklyn and currently works in Manhattan. Ahhh... so that's what "refined" sounds like to the Brits.
-Dale

Life according to the exchange rate...

2007-10-11T15:22:00.000Z

When we first moved here, we thought that the exchange rate of dollars to pounds was pretty sad. However, I had hope that it would improve. After looking at the steady decline of the dollar over the previous year, I thought that it would have to end at some point and start to improve against the pound eventually. My thoughts were that it could not possibly continue to get worse.

Now, we have been living in England for a year and I can say that I was absolutely wrong. To give you a feel for the state of the dollar against the pound, here is a graph of how many dollars it takes to buy one pound (notice how the bars keep getting taller) since the beginning of 2007.

I try hard not to think about the dollar cost of everything when I buy it. However, it certainly can put a damper on the fun fare food when you realize that the candy floss (cotton candy) that you just bought your two children cost you $16.

Cycling in England...

2007-10-03T08:54:00.000Z

During group rides, if anyone gets a puncture the group will stop and wait for them. We do this because the route changes every week and the route is invented by the ride leader as they go. Also, the rides are usually quite long and riding by yourself for 60+ miles is no fun especially if you set off to ride with a group. As we stand on the side of the road and wait, I take the opportunity to look at everyone else's bikes. I find it interesting coming from groups rides full of Orbea, Trek, Litespeed, Cannondale, Specialized, Scott, Colnago, and Lemond bikes to here where you see primarily Trek, Dawes, Ridley, Ribble, GT, Scott, Bianchi, Pinnacle, Saracen, and Ridgeback with a few Cannondales and Specialized bikes thrown in. I had never heard of half of these bike brands until we moved here.

A more recent popular item on road bikes here are compact crank sets. These are cranksets that have smaller front chain rings (34/50) that enable you to pedal in an easier gear as opposed to the standard sized chain rings (39/52) that come with road bikes. What is interesting is that this type of gearing is good for hill climbing or better yet mountain climbing and in Cambridgeshire it is difficult to find a decent hill. This made me wonder why compact crank sets are becoming so popular here. The reason given to me is because most people here like to do audax and sportives.

Audax are long-distance cycling events, using a system of timed checkpoints used to record a successful ride. "Classic" audax events are 200km, 300km, 400km and 600km (200km is approximately 125 miles). However, the events can have unlimited mileage depending on the organizers. I have heard a lot of talk within the group rides about events lasting several days. These events almost always are found "up north" where there are lots of long climbs making compact crank sets a wonderful invention.

Audax events are not races. On the same theme, 'support' - for example a following car - is very much frowned upon. If you have a mechanical or are too tired to continue, you better have your cell phone with you. The organizers don't provide any broom wagons at the event. There are maximum and minimum time limits, which basically decide when checkpoints are open so that you can get your card stamped. Each rider carries a 'brevet card' which is stamped at intermediate checkpoints and at the finish, and which is later returned to the rider as a certificate of their achievement. From what I have heard about the venues for these events, finishing one is quite an accomplishment.

I found a good explanation of sportives at the following website: http://www.kilotogo.com/faqs.htm . The sites states,

A sportive or cyclosportive is a mass-participation bicycle
event that combines elements of road bicycle racing and long distance bicycle
touring. Many cyclosportive events attract a wide range of riders, from
dedicated racing cyclists to leisure cyclists wanting a challenging ride, and
allows them to test themselves over a race-proven route. For example, l'Etape du
Tour is held annually in France and allows amateur cyclists to race over the
same mountain roads used by professional riders in the Tour de France; the Gran
Fondo Felice Gimondi uses roads near Bergamo that test riders in the Giro
d'Italia. Some cyclosportives offer a choice of routes of different lengths or
difficulty.

A cyclosportive falls between a traditional road race and
a non-competitive randonnée or Audax event. Riders sometimes carry a number and
the time they take to complete the course is recorded, and there is sometimes an
upper time limit within which the course must be completed (unlike many
randonnée events, there is no lower limit constraining riders from completing
the course quickly). The routes will usually be well sign-posted and/or
marshalled (some cyclosportives in Europe take place on roads which have been
closed to motor traffic for the duration of the event), riders will be able to
use feeding stations positioned at intervals along the route to replenish their
food and drink supplies, and mechanical and medical support may also be
provided.

Some attract thousands of participants - since 2000
l'Etape du Tour has offered places to 8,500 riders each year.

You have to be very fit to do sportives and audax events require you to do a lot of mileage. All of the people with whom I do weekend rides do these types of events. They are not interested in racing, but they certainly have the fitness for it. With so many non racing events available to anyone with a bike, it is no wonder that the average fitness level of cyclists in this country is high. The only thing keeping this country back from producing an unending supply of great cyclists is the weather.

Two bicycles per person...

2007-10-02T08:04:00.000Z

In the States, we have two car families. You rarely see families existing with less than two cars. In England, you will find two bike cyclists. In the States, I never had more than one "active" bike. There was no need for one. The weather there gave you more than enough days in a row of dry weather to compensate for the occasional rain shower. On those rainy days, only the truly devoted went out riding and those of us who avoid getting wet at all costs, look at these people as if they might have a little water in their brain for displaying such crazy behavior. In England, it was pointed out to me from the beginning that if you did not ride in the rain, you would not spend much time on your bike. Group rides are not cancelled due to rain here. In fact, it does not even seem to diminish the ride numbers. I know this, not because I like to turn up for rides in the rain, but because I am a ride leader now and it always seems to rain on the weeks I am slated to lead.

The rainy season is upon us as we enter the month of October. On last week's ride I noticed people have started to get out their "winter" bikes. The faster, road bikes are being hung up and the second bikes are showing up for the group rides. Winter bikes are usually built on heavy, steel touring bike frames complete with mudguards. Last week, a guy asked if I would switch bikes with him at the tea stop. Continuing the laugh, I went over to his bike and moved it off the fence where it was leaning. I immediately noticed that the bike must have weighed at least 50 lbs! I think that if I could manage to ride such a heavy bike all winter, I would be much better for it in the spring.

Despite the weight, the winter bikes serve a great purpose. They protect all the money you sink into your good road bike. After nearly a year on the road in England, my one bike shows all the reasons why people have two bikes. The damp, wet conditions corroded my brake calipers and I am replacing my rear brake caliper for the SECOND time since I got here. My bottom bracket is being replaced after only a year and a half of riding. I have to use oil the consistency of molasses to protect my chain and cassette from rust. Our training wheels are complete with slime liners, a strip of plastic that acts as a barrier between your tyre and your tube to prevent punctures. We did this after suffering several punctures a week caused by the wet pavement and sharp stones. Our heavy duty tyres have so many cuts in them that they look like we rode them over a bed of nails (but the slime liners work!!). I even have a new set of mud guards for the winter riding (I have not put them on yet because I stand the thought of adding so much weight to my bike).

Up until now, I spent my energy trying to keep my bike as light as possible for the group rides. Now my time is spent waterproofing and trying to keep all the squeaks away. One of these days I am going to have a winter bike and it will probably weigh nearly 50 pounds too. But if I make it through winter without giving up, my OTHER light, road bike will make riding up hill a cinch!!

Driving in the UK...

2007-09-24T13:32:00.000Z

We have been driving in the UK for nearly a year now. It is legal for up to a year using a valid foreign driving license. After a year, you must obtain a British license in order to continue to drive legally. Thus, I come to my current blog entry, about getting my driving license for the UK.

I feel like I have a good grasp for the rules of the road and if in doubt I have always asked someone for help. Today, Dale and I went to a driving class and we had to pass a written test in order to get a British license. As we went through the material for the test, I found my confidence waning a bit as I realized that I was not absolutely sure what several signs meant. I feel rather defensive about it because if you looked at some of these signs, it is not immediately obvious what they are meant to state. Therefore, I want you to look at several signs and see if you can figure them out.

Here are a few of the signs that you would need to know the meaning of in order to pass your driving test in the UK,
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

The first sign... hmmmm. A blank circular sign. Seems obvious, doesn't it?

The second sign you see all over the place. It means don't do something, but the question is what is it you are not suppose to do?

The sign with the red "X" you see on all the divided roads and motorways. They are commonly at the end of the ramps as you merge onto the roadway. I panicked the first time I saw one worried the road must be in someway closed!

One would think that the pictures on the fourth sign means that cars and motorcycles are allowed.

Finally, the last sign is often posted at the end of villages and towns. Hmmmm.... what could it mean?

Well, a few of these signs I had to look up, a few I had to ask other drivers about and one (the first one) I never knew what it meant! I feel so much safer now that I know the meaning of these signs! Just in case you are curious to the meaning of these signs, they are as follows:

1. No vehicles except bicycles being pushed

2. No waiting

3. No stopping

4. No motor vehicles

5. National speed limit applies (30 mph in developed areas, 60 mph on back county roads and single lane, 70 mph on divided highways)

All, I can about the national speed limit is that is a base to start from for most drivers here. As for the road signs, I am constantly learning. :O

As a parting note to all, I would like to leave you with this sign which you would encounter at least thirteen times if you had to drive to work with Dale (26 times round trip). Notice the direction of the arrows.

Yes, these are cows...

2007-09-11T10:10:00.000Z

In honor of my favorite blogging friends, I am posting these pictures of the "Highland Cows" that I pass regularly on my bike rides. Since my friends think pictures of cows are blog material, I had to get in on the game!! :) Actually, I love passing these cows on rides and I must admit that this is definitely one of the reasons I like riding my bike (too)!

Colorful girl...

2007-09-10T09:39:00.000Z

Alyssa attended her first "pamper party" held by one of her friends from school. The results were quite colorful, so I had to get them on film. :)

School started on September 5th after a six week break. Alyssa is a 5th year this year (4th grade). She is excited that this year she gets a locker all for herself. Her class is "mixed" meaning that the class is made up of 5th and 6th year students. This is the case for all the classes at Hardwick Community Primary School. The school is only half the size of our previous elementary school in Maryland, so they mix the years in order to achieve proper class sizes. The younger classes are much larger than the older classes, so Nathan's year 3-4 class is nearly 30 students!! However, both kids seem happy with their classes, so we are off on another year of English education.

billboard in Belgium

2007-08-29T11:47:00.000Z

This was one of many billboards on the way to Brugge. It's in Flemish... "Te snel rijiden blidjft je achtervolgen" means driving too fast will always haunt you.

-Dale

Blackpool

2007-07-25T22:07:00.000Z

Blackpool is the UK's answer to Atlantic City and Wildwood, New Jersey. You take the M6 north passing between Liverpool and Manchester to get there.

Folks in northern cities have a noticeably different accent to those in East Anglia.

The sea was angry that day, my friends...

Big Sporting Weekend

2007-07-19T17:02:00.000Z

I was in the vicinity of two big London sporting events over the last two weeks... Wimbledon and the Tour de France. Wimbledon was a tube stop on the way home from a day at another work site in Feltham, a bit southwest of London. It was 30 minute walk to the walled tennis compound. I was surprised to see a world-famous tennis center right in the middle of a very nice residential neighborhood! It had rained on and off the entire day and when I got there (around 4:30 pm) everyone was streaming out. Payed £2 for a cab ride back to the tube station.

The whole family went down to London for the Tour de France prologue. My strongest impression from the day was that bike racing is probably better viewed live on a really nice TV at home. It was very crowded over the entire 8km course. Cory somehow managed to find a very nice spot in front of Buckingham palace. Although it required constant vigilance to keep people from sliding in front of us. One funny thing did happen while we were watching... There was a young Australian couple next to us and they had a big inflatable hand that they waved when the riders came through. Seems pretty normal. Near the end of the day a lady stormed up to him and said that he should not be waving that hand because it's probably scaring the riders! "Not to worry" he said, "They are professionals and they are really good at tuning out distractions." She seemed OK with that.

Just so you know, the kids' last day of school is Friday the 21st. I have actually enjoyed having more frequent, but shorter breaks throughout the year. I'm not sure what the kids will think when school starts in 6 weeks!

The first game of the Premiership football regular season is less than a month away!

-Dale

English education...

2007-06-30T08:23:00.000Z

Alyssa and Nathan are nearing the end of their first year of school in England. July 20 marks the end of term and the kids are looking forward to their summer break. I have watched them adapt throughout their school year. Alyssa talks with her friends with a full British accent, but speaks to us using her usual American phrases. Nathan feels changing his accent is not true to his character, but he uses a lot of English phrases not used at home. However, what amazed me most was the writing project that Alyssa brought home from school today. It was if a British child had written it. It uses words that no American child would even know. So, I have pasted a copy of it in the blog so that you can see for yourself. If nothing else, the story is very entertaining. Amazing what a little international influence can have on a child.

It's raining AGAIN!!

2007-06-29T19:50:00.000Z

I spent over four hours last Sunday riding in the rain. I did not want to go. I knew it was going to rain, but I made a promise to lead the Cambridge Cycling Club's Sporting Club run. The ride is usually 80-90 miles and I had laid out a route a few weeks ago as I was a little nervous about leading the Brits around their own country. I found myself wishing as I rode into town in the light drizzle that no one would be fool enough to come out in the rain, but I knew that the wish was futile. Everyone rides in the rain here. As someone explained to me shortly after my arrival to the UK, "if you wait for it to be nice out, you won't do much riding".

I arrived at the starting point of the ride to find a crowd of people ready to ride. Not only that I had most of the regulars ready for my ride. They were all curious as to where I would lead them. I think they were there for the novelty of the American leading the ride. Thus, I was not going to be able to duck out of the ride.

When we arrived at the tea stop, I could have watered the plants with the water held by my gloves alone. The rain was steady and the streets offered inch deep puddles to ride through. When I finally returned home after the ride I could not feel my toes they were so cold. It was June 24 and the temperature was 56 F. In Maryland, it was in the 90s! Now that is summer!

It is now Friday and it has rained every day since Sunday. I have spent a couple days in it on my bike trying to keep up my training, but after today I don't think I can do it again. They are calling for heavy rains tomorrow and Sunday. I feel like the ocean around this island is going to fill up and just cover up England and that will be it. Everyone here is tired of the rain. It has been unseasonably cold and rainy for June. However, someone else told me that July is the rainy season. Yikes! I think I am going to find out where I can get a boat. It may come in handy in July!

Bike racing is all about my friends...

2007-06-24T19:21:00.000Z

I love to ride my bike because it offers so much to my life. It gives me my health, my peace, my space, and best of all some of the best friends anyone could wish for. I returned to Maryland for a quick look at our home away from home. I got to see my close friends and I got to do a few bike races too. I saw so many wonderful faces and I was sad only because I could not talk at length with all the people whom I miss.

Racing bikes brings together people with great discipline and patience. Discipline for the huge amount of training it takes to be a successful racer and patience for the time it takes for the training to take hold. Everyone suffers in bike racing no matter how fit they are. Everyone has really strong days and equally bad days. Yet the seasoned racers continue to put in the time, the energy and the hope that one day the strong day will hit on a race day and success will finally be found. It is funny how when you suffer next to someone, respect comes in naturally to the friendship. I find myself looking forward to everyone else's success just as they would pat me on the back for any success I might find for myself. These are the friends that I miss the most. They fill my heart with happiness and laughter. They always make me smile no matter how tired I am from bike racing.

Fun friends...

2007-06-09T09:19:00.000Z

Having good company makes any experience a fond memory. This was definitely the case during our trip to Prague. Daisy, Grant and Emma made our stay truly delightful. Emma found herself sandwiched between Alyssa and Nathan from the moment we arrived to the day we departed. The kids were so happy together it was contagious. Daisy and Grant were very gracious hosts. They took us to a weekend picnic where we got to meet their wonderful friends and enjoy fabulous food. We saw life outside the city of Prague in a beautiful neighborhood. In addition, Dale and I each got to take a bike ride with Grant. He showed us each the countryside in Prague which included a 14th century castle, open countryside complete with rocky hillsides covered in pine needles and the dachas (country homes and favorite summer retreat for the upper and middle classes of the Russian society) that were given out during the communist occupation of Czechoslovakia. When I saw the dachas, they looked like tool sheds but they were surrounded by immaculate gardens. Grant explained it is still tradition for people to empty out of the city on the weekends and they come out here and tend their gardens and stay in the dachas. It was evident that they spent a lot of time on their gardens as there was not a leaf out of place. You can see the dachas on Grant's blogsite. Grant has loads of great Prague pictures on his site. To get a real feel for biking in Prague, you must read it! You will notice that his blog I have referenced begins with a snail picture. We stopped twice so that Grant could rescue the snails off the trail. The first time he stopped so quickly I nearly rode over him! The wildlife in Prague will be protected while he is there.

The Czech language...

2007-06-01T18:18:00.000Z

I have studied Russian, French and Latin (when I was in fifth grade and I did not know it was an extinct language), I know a little Spanish and I feel like I am catching on quickly to British phrases, but when I entered the little market near our flat in Prague I felt like I had never spent a minute in a foreign language class.

A visit to Prague...

2007-05-31T17:15:00.000Z

One of the best advantages of living in the UK is that the cost to travel to Europe is very reasonable. We recently took advantage of the low fares and traveled to Prague. The city is absolutely incredible. Buildings throughout the city are intricately carved and decorated. From far away, it looked like the buildings had been painted, but when you moved closer you could seen that the designs were maid by scratchings on the stone. Today, we enjoyed walking around the Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral. We watched the changing of the guard and enjoyed walking through the magnificent cathedral. I am still amazed at the history and how far back it can be traced. When I saw the dates of service of this person, I joked to myself that they made up the dates! This piece of history is most amazing when one considers that Prague has been claimed by various kings and empires, survived occupation by the Nazis followed by the Communists, ending only with another revolution in 1989 and has only been part of the Czech Republic since 1993. As I walked through the streets of Prague, I tried to imagine what it was like living through the last 50 years of this city's life.

English football

2007-05-26T14:37:00.001Z

The 2006-2007 English top league football season has come to an end and Manchester United is the league winner. There are no playoffs and no superbowl... the regular season winner is the league champion. The three bottom teams are removed from the top league and replaced by the top three teams from the lower league. Every year this provides a bit of drama. This year the last team was relegated based on the results of their final game of the season.
English top league teams also qualify for European Competitions based on their finishing place in the English league. The top 4 teams this year compete in next year's UEFA Champions league with the other European top league winners. Teams finishing in 5th, 6th and 7th place qualify for the less prestigious UEFA Cup.
English football teams are becoming very international. Nowadays, as many as half of the players on a top English team may be foreign born.

Stay tuned... I'm going to try and figure out Cricket next!!

-Dale

And now in the center ring...

2007-05-21T14:42:00.000Z

Introducing our fabulous plate spinner!!!!! Nathan performs his amazing plate spinning technique at Hardwick Community Primary School's Circus Day.

My buddy "Phog"...

2007-05-09T13:31:00.000Z

Have you ever heard a pheasant's song? It is actually closer to the sound of sqidding tires than any sound made by birds. It is also quite loud. It is loud enough to travel through shut windows to wake you up in the morning. So, I have attached a picture of "Phog the pheasant" that frequents our back garden. I am not sure it is him all the time as there are quite a few pheasant around us. However, that is what we call every pheasant the ventures into our yard. Phog is now my alarm clock in the morning. Somedays he slacks a bit and I don't get up quite as early as I need to, but most of the time he is very punctual.

Sea of yellow...

2007-04-17T09:21:00.000Z

Here are a couple of pictures of the fields that surround our little village. The fields are full of rape seed and they have yellow flowers. I feel like I am riding through a sea of yellow when I am on my bike. It is amazing scenery.

Springtime in Paris...

2007-04-13T13:11:00.000Z

We spent another week in Paris and this time the weather was brilliant. We enjoyed warm, sunny days that required a jacket in the morning, but by mid-day I would start fantasizing about shorts. We spent this week going from park to park. The gardens were in full bloom and absolutely gorgeous to walk through. We both got a bit sneezy on our second day, but we were happy to take the pollen in exchange for the warmth. I took a few picutres of the trees next to Notre Dame as the kids played in a nearby sandbox. It was a good week to just walk around and smell the flowers.

Registering a car in the UK from the US...

2007-04-11T13:38:00.000Z

Just don't even try... I have never seen so much red tape in my life. At first it seemed straight forward. You just import your car, get it inspected, register it, then drive it. In reality, it goes something like the following steps.

First, find someone to bring your car to the UK that is not going to charge you so much that you are required you to refinance your house. This will take several weeks and mean talking to multiple companies whose fees differ by over $2000.00. This, of course, makes you wonder why the cheapest importer is so cheap and why the others charge so much more. Being that you actually like the car you are bringing over and you don't want it filled with fish when you pick it up, you take another week to decide which importer to use.

Second, you must figure out how to clear your car through customs once it arrives in the UK. You have several options all depending on the length of your stay in the UK. Since you are not sure the exact time you will be spending in the UK, you will have to guess. I am sure major complications will arise if you have not guessed correctly.

Third, after you have paid an additional fee to get the car cleared through customs, you have to find the port to which it has been delivered, take a car, train, and a taxi to the port and then drive it 2 1/2 hours home. In meantime, you have to have another person to drive your car, parked at the train station, back to your house.

In order to pick up your car, you must show proof that your car is insured in the UK, show proof of work status, show your passport, show your car title that had to be submitted to the exporting company, stamped by the US government and a cleared export, and sent back to you, and pay the company in cash since they don't accept credit cards.

Fourth, once you have the car, you have to get a "light conversion". This will again cost you several hundred dollars and will require a shop to change the colors of your turn signals, brake lights, add a rear fog lamp (HUH?!), and redirect your headlights since you will be driving on the left side of the road.

Fifth, now you have to get a "MOT" which is a test to verify the car is road worthy. However, getting the test is difficult since the car does not have the same identification numbers as do cars manufactured in the UK. The MOT service center will refuse your first request for the MOT since they don't know how to identify it. You will then be responsible for finding out the method of identifying cars and then letting the shop know so that they can put the necessary information into the computer and then run the tests.

Sixth, once you have that piece of paper, you have to get another piece of paper from the Customs & Excise Customs House to classify the imported car. This will take several more days and require you to know intimate technical specifications for your car that are not published in your owners manual. However, you will be able to find them on the Internet but it won't prove easy since the car is over 3 years old.

Seventh, you will now submit all this paperwork along with your check for car tax and registration costs only to have it immediately rejected with the statement that you need either a certificate of conformity for the car or another series of tests called an SVA which will cost you another $300. You will call the manufacturer of your car and allow all the representatives to route you to other departments before they finally tell you to call another organization. After making several more international phone calls, you find out that US cars are not issued certificates of conformity. In desperation to avoid another $300 in fees, you go back to the person that told you that you did not need an SVA and ask them what to do. They will insist again that all you need is an MOT and will provide a stamp on your MOT form so that you can send it in to the DVLA again.

Eighth, you will send your paperwork and check into the DVLA again with all the information they requested and they will reject it again, saying this time that the Customs and Excise form you received from the customs service has an incorrect date on it and you have to get it reissued with the correct date on it or they won't process your form. They will also want more technical information about the car which will take you several hours to find. To add to your frustrations, they will also ask for another 2.75 since the registration rates and taxes just went up.

Ninth... you are now current on my car registration fiasco. I am waiting on a response from the Customs department about reissuing the form. I doubt this will come easily. I am probably going to pay the "other" test which means that the first MOT test I had will no longer be needed. I have had a car that I cannot drive for over a month sitting in my driveway and all I can do is look at it collect dust.

I have yet to come across a Department of Motor Vehicles in any country that has any interest in you or your car.

The most wonderful food...

2007-04-05T15:56:00.000Z

I challenge anyone to go to France and not LOVE the food. Admittedly, there are a few delicacies that would make a persnickety person fidget. Escargot may not be your first choice on the menu, but the no one eats that daily. The thing about French cuisine is that the basic staples in their diet are amazingly delicious.

My first love in France is the baguette. It is light, crusty with a soft center. It has all the qualities that make food fun to eat. When we visit Paris, there are at least seven boulangeries (bakeries) within two blocks. Every morning, afternoon and evening, you can purchase baguettes that were pulled from their ovens only minutes before you arrived. The shops are not large, but always have a steady flow of loyal customers.

Then you have the fromage (cheese). This can be put on the baguettes or eaten alone. Any method will do. You can find cheese at the "fromager" or you go to the marche. You will arrive to find such a large selection of cheeses that choosing one seems an impossible task. In the markets the cheese selection fills an entire aisle. The only aisle that is bigger is the one that holds the wine.

As if these basics would not stave off hunger for the picky eater, you can find the most amazing selection of fresh fruits, vegetables, fish, meats, nuts, and dried fruits at the local markets. They set up stalls the day before and the market covers over three city blocks. Not only do they have fresh food, but you can also find a nice pair of shoes to go with your groceries from an adjoining stall. It is such fun to wander through the stalls. It seems like there is one of every imaginable food available for your to purchase by the kilo. The stall workers call after you as you walk past trying to entice you with their deals. My biggest problem is that "my eyes are bigger than my stomach". :)

School lunches...

2007-03-22T09:25:00.000Z

Remember when you were going to grade school and the school lunches? I remember talking with my friends about the revolting things they served. I remember seeing giant cans of peas sitting on shelves in the school kitchen and a giant tub labeled "lard". I could not believe it when I saw it. Even then, the days when the only criteria for what I put in my body was whether or not it tasted good, I was frightened by that tub of "lard".

I continued to eat school lunches through high school and even though I complained about them, there were a few lunches that I actually liked. They were the ones that included cinnamon rolls or ice cream sandwiches. I liked the chili and the tacos and, of course, the pizza. My kids today favor the pizza lunch over all others. In the US, my kids had pizza every Friday for lunch and they never got tired of it.

Now, eating lunches in the UK? This is a bit different. I have attached a picture of the school lunches here. At first, I did not understand half of the items on the menu. Alyssa had to come to my rescue. She decided that she was going to try school lunches (mainly for the social aspect of where you get to sit when eating). I get to ask her each day about the lunches. Some of the stuff she is not too sure about, but others she is able to explain. It is very eyeopening what the British children favor and what they don't like. Apparently, Shepard's Pie is top notch.

Take a look at the menu now (click on it to look at a larger version) and decide what YOU think is good. However, don't expect to find tacos or chili on the menu.

It's spring in the UK!!

2007-03-17T09:48:00.000Z

Spring is here! I have attached a picture of the daffodiles that line the street in front of the school. The line runs nearly a mile down the main street of Hardwick. It is lovely!

Amazingly, people are actually complaining about the fact that the UK has had the warmest winter since they started keeping records in 1635. Amazing! In all truth, it has not been THAT warm here this winter. Unlike the January in Maryland, we have had a pretty steady stream for 40 degree F days until March hit. We had some lower temperatures, but it rarely was below freezing during the day. In March, we have had 50 degree days until this week when Mother Nature did her usual move for March and it snowed. The daffodiles have been up since the beginning of March and the crocuses too. The flowering trees are starting to lose their petals now and the leaves are starting to fill in. The rape seed fields surrounding us are making my nose run like a hosepipe. However, I am not complaining! I welcome a warmer winter.

The part of the winter that the complainers did not mention was the fact that here we have had higher than normal rainfall. Now for the UK, that is something to talk about! There is not a week that goes by where it is dry for more than three days in a row. The football pitch (soccer field) at the top of our street has spent most of the winter under an inch of water. The only thing that keeps the water from standing too long is the constant wind gusts that have done their best to dry things out. It seems there has been a battle this winter between the wind and the rain to see which element can cause the most havoc. I think they are tied!

New playground idea...

2007-03-10T10:08:00.000Z

Now here is an idea! They have slides here that don't have ladders! They build a big mound and then put a slide on it. We have seen several slides like this at the local parks. No more falling off the ladder! Brilliant! Come all ye unstable toddlers!

Driving in the UK...

2007-03-06T08:51:00.000Z

I just had a wonderful visit from my aunt, Mollie. She experienced most of the public transportation system in England coming up to visit us from London. She took trains and taxis and then I picked her up at the Cambridge train station for our final trip back to our house. She climbed into the car, sitting on driver's side (except in the UK). I remember the first time sitting in the front seat of a UK car and not being the driver. I felt like there was so much extra sitting space since you did not have to deal with steering wheels and brake pedals.

On our way home, we squeezed by doubledecker buses and parked cars. We went through half a dozen roundabouts and made at least seven turns before arriving at our house which is only six miles from the train station. You see, there are no straight lines in England. The only way you can go from point A to point B in a relatively straight line is on the train. The problem is that the train is a bit expensive. However, it is the most efficient transport. The trains go fast and run on time. Another bonus is that there are very few accidents. Last week, a Virgin train traveling from London to Glasgow, Scotland crashed going 90+ mph. The last train crash in England was in 2000. Considering that there are hundreds of trains running daily in the UK, I think that this is impressive. Of the 180 passengers only one person was killed and she was 84 years old. I don't mean to imply that someone's life is less valuable at that age. I mean to say that an 84 year old person's body is much less able to cope with trauma. Considering the accident, I think it is amazing that so many people survived. The site of the crash saw train cars off the track and the impact of the wreck caused the engine to fly back past the front train. You would not survive a wreck in a car going that fast.

Driving fast in England seems to be the norm. The speed limit on divided highways is 70 mph. Most people exceed that by at least 10 mph. However, the lorries drive 50 to 60 mph. This causes people to slam on their brakes when one lorry pulls out to pass another lorry on the two lane divided highways. Usually, by the time the lorry pulls back into the "slow lane" there are at least 5 cars stacked up behind it.

The roads are divided up into motorways, "A" roads, "B" roads and then the rest. Motorways are like the highways in the US. They have shoulders and are divided with two or more lanes. The speed limit is never posted on these roads unless there are restrictions posted due to construction, accidents, etc. The understood speed limit is 70 mph. The "A" roads are often divided like highways, but it is not the standard. They never have a shoulder even though many of the "A" roads around us are highly congested and a broken down car or lorry will cause considerable delays. No speed limit signs are posted here, but speed cameras are placed at regular intervals. The understood speed limit is 70 if the road is divided. The "B" roads are like county roads in the US. Depending on what they connect, they can be busy, but usually are used mostly to get from one town to another. Since they do not go straight from point A to point B and are routed through many villages, traffic is not too bad on these roads. However, cars usually traveling on them use the rule that if the car does not roll when you go round a turn, then it is a safe speed. I got passed on a one lane country road the other day by a car that had to have been going over 70 mph. I was afraid to watch him go round the bend up the road. I felt sure that I was going to see the car in the farm field next to the turn. I see a lot of evidence of this happening around us as I have seen may tire tracks going from the road into the field next to the roads.

Despite how fast you drive, you still don't get to go from point A to point B in a straight line and there are always several roundabouts to negotiate. You cannot really cut off much time going fast in the straight sections around here since there are so few of them. However, I guess that there will always be people who try to get to their destination as fast as they can even if they risk their lives to save a minute.

Calpe and siestas...

2007-02-23T10:55:00.000Z

While we were in Spain, we visited Calpe which is just up the coast from Benidorm. It is a beautiful city tucked in between the sea and the mountains. Once an ancient fishing village Calpe now has about 20.000 inhabitants and boasts enchanting views of the rock of Ifach. Ifach rises to 332 metres. The Phoenicians called the Rock of Ifach the "Northern Rock" to distinguish it from the "Southern Rock" at Gibraltar. Today it is a nature park. It was amazing to look down the beach to see a huge chuck of rock sticking up out of the sea.

Another place of interest was the fishing dock. We could see the boats coming into the docks in mid-afternoon. The boat were always trailed by huge flocks of seagulls making the boast look like they were pulling clouds behind them. Once at the dock, the fisherman unloaded blue trays full of sea creatures. There were squid, flounder, eels, shrimp, lobsters, snapper, and a lot of other types of fish I did not recognize. I watched a man on a boat preparing a tray of squid. He had a wooden, cylindrical club (kind of like a rolling pin only without the handles and much wider in diameter) and he would use it to pound the squid prior to putting them in the trays. The squids were certainly alive when they were unloading the trays, so I am guessing that the clubbing was to stun them.

After being unloaded, the fish went into a warehouse, where it was put on a conveyor belt, identified by a man sitting at a computer next to the conveyor belt, then weighed. The trays would travel further down the conveyor belt which ran between two section of seats where the buyers would sit and bid on the seafood. A big board would announce the price per kilo and the buyer who purchased the tray of seafood. The trays moved further down the conveyor belt where a man would shovel ice into it and a machine would drop a ticket into it identifying the buyer. Then the trays were off loaded, sorted according to buyer, packed with more ice and then loaded into trucks where the seafood was taken to supermarkets and restaurants. The whole process was amazing to watch! The kids enjoyed watching the squid try to make their escape. They reached their arms over the edge of the trays and slide out onto the conveyor belt. Many squid were picked up and pitched back into their trays throughout the process.

After viewing this process, we had no doubt that the seafood in our paella in Calpe was as fresh as you can buy.

Benidorm, Spain, Altea and the flipflop...

2007-02-19T09:19:00.000Z

We traveled to Benidorm, Spain during the kid's term break, February 10-17, 2007. Shortly before our trip, we stumbled across a TV show making fun of Benidorm as the home away from home for the British. Benidorm claims to have more pubs than any other Spanish city. This concerned us greatly since we were aiming for an authentic Spanish city, not "Little Britain".

Upon our arrival in Benidorm, we discovered that we indeed had found the British escape. We also found that the average age of the visitors was 60+. We chuckled about this most of our trip. We decided that if ever we were feeling old and slow, we could just nip down to Benidorm to feel young and agile again. There were very few couples there that did not include a walking cane or a wheel chair.

The first item on our travel itinerary was to escape Benidorm, so we ventured up the coast of Costa Blanca to Altea. This is a wonderful Spanish city that is relatively new in Spanish history (Altea's church is only 100 years old). Surrounding the city are mountains, making you feel safely tucked in and safe from the everyday craziness on the other side. The beach (la playa) is covered with rounded, white stones and when the water recedes it makes the sound of water being sucked from the bottom of a glass of ice by a straw.

As you venture into the city, you find that all the houses and shops are pressed together on steep hills. The mountains come right down to the sea, so any direction away from the sea is up a steep hill. We climbed 250 steps to the church placed at Altea's highest point and got a wonderful view of city and the sea below.

Alyssa and Nathan loved playing in the rocks by the sea. I was constantly reminding Alyssa about her shoes and several times she had to run back to retrieve them in the last place she was playing. No matter how much I bugged her, she did not want to wear her shoes near the sea.

After lunch, the kids found some much larger rocks to climb on. They had run ahead to play on them as Dale and I walked slowly behind. Upon our arrival, Alyssa was in a state of great distress because one of her flip flops had slipped off and had fallen in between the rocks. The sea was lapping the rocks below and if we had laid on our stomachs on the rocks we would have been able to touch the water. Dale told Alyssa, who was now quite distraught, that the water coming into shore would push her flip flop right back to the rocks. However, we waited and waited, but still no flip flop. Suddenly, Dale said, "Uh... there it is." I turned to see where he was pointing and there was Alyssa's flip flop gently floating on the top of the water, being pulled out to sea by the water. It was already hard to see as it had been pulled away from the rocks a remarkably long way since she lost it. I suddenly had to supress my laughter at the situation because Alyssa had burst into tears claiming that those were "a treasure" to her and now she only had one shoe to get home. Fortunately for Alyssa, flip flops are easy to find especially in a beach town. Once she had the new pair on her feet, the flip flop floating out into the sea was no longer a concern and she was happily prancing down the beach to the next playground.

Now, when I look out to sea I look for Alyssa's flip flop, I giggle at the memory of the loss, and I wonder where it will land or if it will stay out at sea forever.

The pressure to be "green"...

2007-02-05T16:37:00.000Z

Every time I turn on the radio, I hear reports stating,"Humans blamed for climate change" and "Climate change fight 'can't wait'" and "Scheme to cut 'carbon footprint' ". At home, the only time I ever heard such reports were if I were listening to the science section of an NPR radio broadcast at 8:00am. In the UK, you are given the feeling of desperate urgency about the state of our world's environment. It is as if the UK is now coping with serious problems caused by the climate change. The news reports make you feel like the crops are not growing well and the air is no longer clean.

To encourage Britons to be more "green", the government allows each household only one bin for trash and your trash is picked up every OTHER week. The bins are the kind that have wheels on the bottom and a lid on hinges. You must use the county trash bin if you want your trash collected. If you overflow your bin the lid does not close, you will often see you full bin sitting at the end of your driveway when you get home. You are also given a green bin where all organic waste goes. In addition you have smaller recycling boxes where you can put glass bottles and metal cans. We figured out very quickly that unless we do a LOT of recycling, we will not make it to the next trash collection without recycling. We are forced to find ways of disposing of all our waste in the most efficient way possible.

A family we know here in the village has four children. They found that it was nearly impossible for their family to only fill one bin of trash every other week. They had to beg the county council for an additional bin. Finally a woman came to their house and sorted through all their trash with rubber gloves (YUCK!!) to make sure they were not throwing away biodegradable items! It would make the environmentalists in the States quite proud.

Another way that the government is pressuring consumers to be more environmentally conscience is by levying a "green tax" on fuel. A gallon of gas here costs about $6.80 per gallon. Air Passenger Duty currently ranges from £40 (double for dollars based on the current exchange rate) for standard rate flights to a 'discount' down to as little as £5. When I was recently surfing for airline tickets, I was shocked at the final prices. Most of the time the taxes on the tickets were more than the actual fare! The government is now considering a proposal to double the green tax. Their aim is to enforce the "polluter pays" principle.

The good news is that in their proposal, the government is offering a credit to people who CONSERVE energy. That means money in the bank for all those people that ride bikes! :) Hee! Hee! By the looks of the bike parking lot at the Cambridge Train station, I think this city will be in the black! Everyone start pedaling!

A fine thatched roof...

2007-01-29T09:48:00.000Z

One of my favorite things to look at here are the houses with a thatched roof. It is amazing the detail the thatchers can make with what looks likes a big bunch of straw. There are thatched roofs in nearly every village I ride through on my bike. Someone told me that the thatchers have their own design that they make at one end of the house kind of like a signature. He said that you often seen pictures of animals. Now, I always look for the signature when I ride by a house.

Thatched roofs last 50-60 years! In East Anglia (where we live), they use water reed to thatch houses. They also use long straw. There is a definite art to thatching and I guess that it is very expensive to have your house rethatched. Also, against common thought, thatched roofs don't absorb water and due to the traditional steep pitch of thatched roofs they shed water more quickly than traditional roofs.

Overall, it is pretty efficient and definitely looks interesting.

Snow...

2007-01-24T09:58:00.000Z

The kids woke me this morning, shaking me awake with their excited voices. "It's snow, Mom!" The volume of their voices alone made me sit up instantly. I looked out my window to see our back yard covered with a thin layer of snow. It was truly inviting. The minute we stepped outside to start our walk to school, the kids were excitedly throwing snowballs at each other. They were squealing with delight as they dodged each other's snowballs, frantically trying to make snowballs before getting hit with one. On the way to school their footprints covered as much new snow as they could find. When we arrived at the school yard, it was complete chaos. There was no safe place to stand if you wanted to avoid getting hit with a snowball. Usually, the school yard is a quiet place in the mornings. Apart from a few kids stalling off the start of school as long as possible, most kids walk straight to their classroom doors occasionally offering a wave to their parents as they go. Today, no one wanted to go inside. The kids were racing around the playground scooping up snowball remnants on the run. Even the parents were found smiling about the snow. The teachers finally had to dig out a whistle to get the kids to go inside. When the kids heard the whistle, they paused wondering what the sound meant. School was the farthest idea from their minds. As I walked back from the school, I had to laugh. It isn't like the weather is much different today than yesterday. It is just frozen rain. However, I think that sometimes we all need a tiny change in our day to make it feel different. Routine can get a little stale and sometimes all we need is a little something to make the routine look a little more sparkly. (Picture: Our back yard this morning)

Turn, Turn, up, down,2nd exit out of the Roundabout

2007-01-17T14:52:00.000Z

Dale does a club run on Saturdays and I go on Sundays. I have ridden with two different clubs, St. Ives Cycling Club and the Cambridge Cycling Club. Both clubs run a different route each week. The St. Ives club boasts over 28 different routes. I get a detailed route sheet from the St. Ives club every Thursday describing the club run for that Sunday. The Cambridge Club publishes the place where they will have their tea stop on their website. All clubs have tea stops a little more than halfway through the ride. We stop and people have tea and cakes, rolls, beans on toast, or coffee and scones. Then everyone climbs back on their bikes and rides as hard as they can home. The tea stops make the bike outing a long one. Usually we will leave the house before 9:00am and return after 2:00pm depending on how many punctures there were within the group.

For each route I study the possible routes. I look at Google Earth. I look at maps. I look at road names and town names. I keep thinking that one day I am going to know where I am once we depart for our ride. I never do. Once I clip in and have been pedaling for five minutes, we have usually made at LEAST three turns and gone through one roundabout.

The roads are not in a grid here. You have to go north to go south. The roundabouts usually have three possible exits, but I have seen as many as five. Every village has several roundabouts. You go through a lot of little villages and they all have a pub, a church that looks like it is over 100 years old, and a pond. The roads we ride on are sometimes the width of a narrow driveway. They are usually covered with a thin coat of mud and all the considerate participants have mud guards on their bikes. It made me pause the first time I saw mud guards (fenders) on a Colnago, but it became instantly clear within the first mile.

The club runs are divided up into several smaller groups based on speed and distance. The groups range from 8 to 15 riders. The reason for this is you cannot squeeze many more riders through some of the streets. Very often the groups have to squeeze down to single file due to cars rushing at you at high speed. The rides so far have been between 55 and 75 miles. I usually am ready to dismount around the 50 mile mark, but since I am usually lost I have no choice but to hang on. Nothing like a little incentive to finish the ride and hang with the group.

How many stone do you weigh?

2007-01-16T09:29:00.000Z

When I first arrive in England, my first objective was to find a gym. I knew that it was going to take a while to get our bikes, so I needed a gym to get some exercise. I found one about three miles from our house (yippee) so the fact that I had no car during the day did not matter. I could ride my borrowed bike to the gym!

On my first visit, I immediately noticed weight conversion tables on all the walls next to the machines that asked for your weight. The machines measured in pounds, so it was easy for me, but England measured weight in kilograms and stone. The chart read 1 stone = 6.35 kilograms = 14 pounds. The chart went on to show what various weight equalled in stone and kilograms so that people could punch in their appropriate weight into the machine. I decided that kilograms were the way to go. The number you had to look at was not very high and it did not bring visions of large stone tablets stacked on one side of a scale.

Since I have been optimistically guessing my weight since we arrived, I bought a scale a few days ago. I had a feeling that my lack of careful eating was going to be shown in the numbers, but I still had hope as I stepped on the scale that my intuition was wrong. My optimism hovered as I looked down at the number. It, of course, showed my weight in kilograms. The number looked OK as I tried to do the math in my head. "Is it 2.1 kilograms to the pound?" My disappointment sank in when I made the conversion on my computer. However, my optimism made one last appeal tossing out the thought that maybe the scale was wrong.

As I looked back on my first few months here in England, I feel like I can hardly be blamed for my weight gain. The English are not renowned for featuring fresh, vegetables in their prepared meals. What they do well at is comfort food. This is understandable considering the days are usually gray, wet and cool. This is a perfect environment for bangers and mash, fish and chips (fries), steak and chips, and steak and kidney pie. All of it served with beer. I am only trying to adapt to my surroundings and not look like a foreigner. This mentality has, unfortunately, brought me to my current spot on the scale. "No more mash! No more chips! No more beer!" Visions of Stonehenge dance in my head. It is time to get the chisel out and start chipping away at those "stones".

The Flag of England

2007-01-15T09:24:00.000Z

Did you know that the flag of England is the St. George's Cross, not the Union Jack? I just learned yesterday that the Union Jack flag represents the United Kingdom. According to my one minute of research, the UK flag consists of three elements: the cross of St. George (red on white) for England, the cross of St. Andrew (white diagonal on blue) for Scotland, and the so-called cross of St. Patrick (red diagonal on white) for Ireland. The original Union Jack/Union Flag adopted in 1606 was symmetrical: the red cross of St. George outlined in white overlaid on top of a St. Andrew's flag, which was blue with a white. If you go to London, England today, it is the Union Jack flag that you will see flying and plastered on all the souvenirs. Public buildings are suppose to fly the Union Jack flag and can only fly the St. George's Cross if they have more than one flagpole.

Christmas crackers

2007-01-13T19:43:00.000Z

The Christmas cracker is a nifty British tradition totally unknown to any of us before we got here. It's a gift-wrapped little tube that snaps like a capgun when it's opened. Ours contained a paper crown, a prize like you might find in a cracker-jack box and a joke on a little slip of paper like in a fortune cookie. Nathan, looking very sharp in his school uniform, shows one moments before we popped it open. The next photo shows the contents on display.

-Dale

Oh the wind...

2007-01-12T08:59:00.000Z

First thing, I would like to thank everyone for the all the postive comments that I received regarding my first attempt at my blog. I was not sure about posting ALL my feeling about my startup woes here and considered sugar coating things to make things look a bit better. However, I decided that I have to be honest with myself and admit that I was not able to plough on as if nothing happened in my life. That said, I want everyone to know that I am definitely on the upswing. I am becoming familiar with my surroundings and accepting the way things are going to work here.

The wind, however, is something else! As a cyclist, wind has never been much of a friend unless it is behind you. I have learned which way to ride from my house to enable me to have a tailwind on my return journey. The only problem is that I have to face the headwind from the moment I leave the house. That makes getting on my bike a bit more daunting. Yesterday, we had "gales". In the US I think that houses and telephone poles would have been scattered across the state! Here it is just another day. Dale and I were wondering how the double decker buses drive in this weather. It seems that the wind would knock them right over!

Today the wind is less than remarkable which doesn't mean it is calm, but it just means that it is everyday speed. I have posted a picture of our weather for all those to see in the states. I must admit that I am always looking and intrigued with the weather. Perhaps that is because I spend a lot of time outside on my bike. Perhaps I would have been like this regardless. One thing that I find very interesting about the weather here is that it is so WARM considering the UK's position on the globe. The England is on the same latitude as Newfoundland. If you go south to Spain, you have hit the same latitude as Boston. Despite being so far north, England gets little to no snow and the temperature does not flucuate much during day and night. At least we don't have to endure freezing cold here! One small victory! :)

New blog

2007-01-11T09:33:00.000Z

OK. I have finally started my blog as promised. I know I have been a little quiet since my arrival in England. With this blog, I hope to share with you my everyday experiences of living abroad. I started to keep a journal of our stay here, but I stopped creating entries for a while. This was during my really hard adjustment period when weather always seemed bleak and I had no one to talk to. I am happy to say that I have managed to make it over that hill and I am feeling much more adjusted now. I now truly appreciate what I left behind, but my New Year's resolution is to look forward, not back. I also hope to take a more positive approach to life in general.

Living in England is substantially different than a visit or even compared to my extended stay in France during college. There is no built in structure. There is no person available to tell you what to do, where to go or how to do things. I never sought out that kind of instruction, but that it was there gave me a feeling of stability. I am living in a country where everyone speaks English but half the time I am struggling to figure out the meaning behind the words people say.

Words are different here. British use less words when they say things. They don't expand on any statement unless prodded. They describe things differently using words we rarely use for fear of being thought of as condescending or full of self importance. The British seem much more withdrawn and quiet. I guess that is why it seemed so lonely here at first. I moved from a boisterous, noisy world of friends and people to a place where people are much more stoic and reserved. Everyone is perfectly friendly, but I can tell that it is going to take a long time before I feel a connection between myself and any new friends here.

Paris

2006-12-31T12:20:00.000Z

Over the Christmas break we stayed in Paris at an apartment owned by a family from State College, PA. The trip from London to Paris took 2 hrs and 45 minutes on the Eurostar "Chunnel" train. We were in the tunnel exactly 22 minutes.

I have been asked a few times since returning how we were treated in France. We were treated exceptionally well everywhere... in the tourist places, off the beaten path, with or without the kids. Everyone was very nice to us.

The Trocadero is right across the river from the Eiffel tower. We had lunch at a little Brasserie on our first full day (Dec 27th). There were Smart cars were everywhere! Alyssa decided to keep a tally and upon departure she had counted over 50!

On Thursdays and Sundays there is a street market right in front of the Apartment. Lots of nice looking produce and many different kinds of birds to eat. We enjoyed walking through the market admiring all the fresh produce, meats, breads, and cheeses. There is such great food available in France! Everything is fresh and easily accessible!

It was quite a bit colder in Paris than it was back in Cambridge. We were bundled up at all times. We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower and saw Paris lit up in the evening. We explored Notre Dame, Sacre Couer, Montparnasse, and the Louvre. The kids saw the Champs Elysee and we explained the route the Tour de France rides when they were in Paris. :)

The appartment that we stayed in had a lovely view from the 11th floor balcony. You could just see the Eiffel tower to the right of the 59-floor Montparnasse tower. The Tower was lit with lights that flashed so that it looked like it was sparkling when you looked at it from a distance. It was quite a site!

Our trip was a great success and despite all the walking we did, the kids are anxious to return. Since it is so close, I am sure we will go again. Perhaps the next time we go it will be warm and all the "jardins" will be in bloom!

Dale & Cory

December summary

2006-12-25T11:05:00.000Z

December brought with it the distraction of Christmas which was a welcome relief. The kids had lots of school activities. Nathan was in a play and Alyssa was in a school concert. Nathan even got his picture in the Cambridge Evening News for his role as Dr. Clooney in the Christmas play. It was very fun to watch him at work. He was very serious about his part! :)

Another bright moment was that our furniture finally arrived. After ordering it, then having to reorder it since our order was cancelled by the company on accident, we now have a room full of furniture to sit on! No more sitting on the floor to watch movies!!

We had a quite Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We had wonderful presents from everyone! After opening presents on Christmas Day, we started to prepare for our holiday trip to Paris. We had tickets on the Eurostar through the tunnel to Paris. Nathan could hardly wait for the train trip. Even his new Christmas presents were not enough of a distraction for his excitement.

You are stuck with this December summary because I stopped writing for a while. I did not have anything to say. I got tired of people telling me how lucky I was getting to live in a foreign country. All I wanted to say was that it is not as great as everyone thinks! The first few weeks are great since you get a break from life at home. However, that wears off quickly. Soon you are faced with the fact that you are NOT going back. Your friends are there and you are here. There are loads of details you have to work out when you are living in a foreign country as opposed to visiting. Trying to find a doctor under socialized medicine is difficult when you have not lived here long enough an you are a foreigner.

I still have to get up every morning and get the kids to school despite their protests. I still have to do laundry only now it takes a lot more time since I cannot more than one sheet in the washer at a time. I have no dryer so all the clean clothes are stiff from drying on racks that are spread across our kitchen. We have a clothes line outside, but since it is constantly raining, it is useless. My days are now filled with housekeeping, homework, school lunches, and laundry. I have a hard time feeling productive doing housework. Work has never looked so great!

It is a huge lifestyle change. Everyone operates a little differently in life and everyone values different things. I found that a lot of my self worth was based on my ability to provide income for our family. I thought I was doing a good thing by working part time and caring for the kids too. I realize now that I missed a lot of kid stuff along the way. My new lifestyle requires me to redefine my values which does not happen overnight. It is an opportunity given to me. I get to reconstruct my day around myself and my family. I am now faced with the fact that the life I lead is based on my own decisions. If I don't like it, then I have no one to blame but myself. I cannot blame anyone else for my unhappiness. So much for having a scapegoat for your problems! No pressure!

Borrowed bike

2006-11-01T11:04:00.000Z

If I ever was a bike snob, I cannot be told I am one now. I borrowed a bicycle from Judy, Kate’s mom. She offered it and when she opened her shed and presented it to me, I was speechless. It is a Schwinn bicycle made for females with the sloping top tube. I am pretty sure it weighs more than 50lbs with all the bag racks and fenders on it. It is hard to even push around. It has down tube shifters and hand breaks that are very rusty and hard to squeeze. The left hand break is so rusted that it is pretty much useless. The tires were flat when I retrieved it, but after pumping them up they seemed to hold the air. It has the most enormous seat on it plus a gel saddle cover. I think you could seat two racers on it comfortably. Best of all, it has a bell on it that rings with any vibrations meaning that it rings even when you pedal. However, it means I am free to move about the country since I don’t have a car so after looking at it lean against our shed for several days, I decided to take it for a spin to see if it even works.

When I hopped on the bike, it immediately felt like I was driving a bike version of a Lincoln Continental. The weight of the bike was obvious and the saddle made the need for bike shorts obsolete. It took me a few tries to remember the down tube shifting being that it was not indexed. However, the drive train was smooth and not squeaky and the bike gently rolled up the street. It was actually not too bad. The big, wide tires made riding over rough pavement seem smooth. The roads here are flat so I did not have to lug the bike over any hills. The gym is only a few miles away so no matter the weather conditions at least I won’t have to suffer them very long.

I was happy just be out of the house, away from the laundry and the kitchen. Yippee!!

Halloween day trip to the dentist

2006-10-31T10:57:00.000Z

Alyssa did not sleep at all last night. She was complaining about her tooth hurting. I eventually found myself standing in TESCO at 5:00am to see if I could find some Tylenol or Ibuprofen. I stared at cold medicines, stomach medicines, allergy medicines, but no acetiminiphin. “What do they use for simple pain relief?!” I thought with frustration. I finally found something that looked like liquid Tylenol, but it was called paracetamol. What is this? I later found that this is ANOTHER name for acetiminiphin. Why don’t they name them the same thing?

I came home from my medicine adventure to find Alyssa had finally gone to sleep. Yeah! However, she woke 2 hours later and her lip above the sore tooth and cheeks were very swollen. The swelling even affected her left eye making it look like she had a shiner. I felt so bad for her! I gave her some Ibuprofen and that seemed to take away the pain and she went back to sleep. We got a quick appointment for her up at Lakenheath, but it is about a 45 minute drive from Hardwick. Dale shoved Alyssa and I out the door a little before 8:00am and we headed for Lakenheath while Dale searched for a bus to taken him to work in Brampton. We made it up to the base by 8:59am thanks to Cambridge traffic. We hustled to make our 9:00am appointment. At 9:30 we were still in the waiting room so I called Dale. The 9:10 bus never came so he had to take a bus into Cambridge and then take another bus out of Cambridge to Brampton. I think it took him nearly two hours to make it to work.

As for us, Alyssa’s tooth was in bad shape. It was a permanent front tooth, but not fully developed (as explained by the dentist). She needed a root canal, but they could not do a full one since the tooth was not mature enough to fix. They ended up doing an abbreviated root canal so that they could inject medicine into the tooth and hope it would stabilize enough to mature. When they gave her the first novicane shot, I think the entire base heard her scream and that was one of two. My heart was in my throat and I felt so helpless. I know how much those hurt and I know that her love of the dentist was ruined.

We arrive home nearly five hours later. Alyssa slept until dinner and when she woke up she thought it was morning time and that she had missed Halloween. She cried for 5 minutes before I could convince her that the sun was not rising, it was setting.

Everyone made it out for a little trick or treating. We had a lot of trick or treators and we ran out of candy. We got the kids little Halloween buckets which turned out not to hold much candy. Yeah! The candy they did get was unlike any brands of candy that I had ever seen. It was very interesting.

Search for furniture

2006-10-30T10:53:00.000Z

Two weeks have passed, but it feels like we have been here for months. Today we have to find some furniture for the house since we are getting tired of sitting on the floor. Dale is staying home from work today so that we can continue our search for furniture. We did not manage to find any yesterday, so we plan to go up to another RAF base to try to find a couch and chairs. We also plan to register for doctors and dentistry at RAF Lakenheath. Alyssa has been complaining about a tooth for the past two days, so we need to get dental arrangements made.

Felixstowe

2006-10-28T10:51:00.000Z

We went to Felixstowe, a port town on the east shore of England touching the North Sea. It was cool, overcast and windy, but still a nice day. It took about 1 hour 20 min. to drive there. The beaches were covered with rocks, with about 10 feet of sand leading into the water. This was before the tide came in and it came quickly. We arrived around noon and departed around 4:00 and in that time, the tide had covered all the sand. The town itself was up on a tall hill over looking the Sea. To get there from the boardwalk (actually a cement walk), you had to walk up several sets of steps or go up a VERY steep street. Along the walkway next to the beach, we saw a series of small houses that were probably 8 ft. X 8ft. They looked like little storage sheds and they ranged in colors and had names on them. We guessed that they might contain a family’s beach umbrellas. We soon came upon some old photographs of the beach on a community bulletin board. In the pictures, it looked like the houses had been moved to the beach side of the cement walkway. Each house had a little fabric dividers that stretched six feet in front of each of the houses to provide a private area for the family of that little house. People were sitting on chairs in front of their houses, having picnics and there was room inside the little house for people to get away from the sun. Pretty clever since the beach slopes down to the sea and there is very little sand to play with when the tide comes in.

Day 10

2006-10-25T10:48:00.000Z

Today, I got my ID card to get on the military bases for grocery shopping. We also traded in our rental car for another one. We are still trying to figure out how we are going to manage our car situation since we only get a small daily stipend for a car. Renting cars is too expensive in the long term, so we have to figure out a way to get a long term lease or buy a car. We have no idea how we are going to manage this, so another rental will postpone this process until we have a chance to do a little more research. We are supposed to get our internet access on Friday, so I am hoping that I will get a chance to read up on car options once that happens.

We also got our checking account today! Yeah! Now we can start organizing our life. We can get a cell phone, pay for our utilities, sign up for activities, etc. Everything here requires a direct debit account. Without that, you are stuck paying cash for everything and most of the time that is not acceptable. If we did not have access to military facilities, we would really be stuck. The regular banking system does not allow us to get a bank account until we have 3 months of utility bills and we cannot get three months of utility bills until we have a direct debit set up. Everyone here acknowledges that it is a problem, but no one can offer a solution.

The first bus ride...

2006-10-24T10:43:00.000Z

I looked out onto the patio this morning and it was still wet from yesterday. I don’t think anything truly dries here. The sun has shown its face a few times since we got here, but never stays for long. It rained most of the day on Sunday and has intermittently since we arrive here. I understand now where England gets it reputation of a rainy place. It is cloudy most of the day. I am trying not to let it get to me, but with another day of no car, no bike, no internet, no stuff, no school to look forward to, my outlook is pretty grim. I am going to try to figure out the bus system today and try to find a library for me and the kids. I have a feeling we will be spending a lot of time waiting since I don’t know the bus schedule, but I am going to try!

As predicted…

I figured out the bus schedule for the stop at the top of the street. The kids and I packed a lunch and we went to the top of the street to wait. We waited about 2 minutes and a bus arrived. I was so excited that we found a bus so soon! We waited 45 minutes for a bus when we were trying to return from Cambridge over the weekend. We hopped on and found out that the bus was going to the Tesco in Bar Hill. I knew there was a library right next door, so we happily set off in that direction. As we got off at the Tesco parking lot, I was bombarded with requests for Halloween costumes. Being that we are days away from Halloween with no costumes, I told them we would go take a look before going to the library. They skipped into the store and rushed straight to the Halloween costumes. They both had already scoped out which costumes they wanted the last time we visited Tesco, so in less than 15 minutes we had two costumes selected. Nathan was going to be a sorcerer and Alyssa was going to be an angel with a fluffy, sparkly halo.

We packed up the costumes along with a few more clothes for school and we headed for the library. Upon arriving at the library, we found out that it is closed on Tuesdays. Our disappointment last only a few minutes since the library was right next to a big park and playground. We headed over to the park and the kids played for about an hour.

The weather was windy and overcast making the day a little chilly. Alyssa and Nathan suddenly decided that the park time was over and they were very anxious to try on their costumes. Looking at the time, it was 12:45. I had overheard the bus driver tell one of the passengers that the next bus time was 12:20 which was an hour after our drop off. I assumed that the bus must run hourly, so I explained to the kids that we would probably have to sit at the bus stop for 40 minutes until the next bus. They both were so interested in their Halloween costumes that they said they did not mind the wait. So, we waited… and waited… and waited. It turns out that there was only ONE bus that came back to that stop that went by our town and we had missed it. We asked each bus driver as the buses pulled into the stop if they went through Hardwick. They all said no. We asked at least 8 bus drivers about their routes. Pretty soon, we started to see the same buses again. The kids kept pushing me toward all the arriving buses begging me to ask the drivers which way they were going. I did not want to ask since I did not want to hear them say no again, but I asked for the kids. Finally, I had to explain to the kids that our bus was not coming. It was 2:00 in the afternoon and we had to figure out a way to get home. I looked around the parking lot to see if I saw any taxis, but none were in sight. I walked into the Tesco and sheepishly asked one of the security people watching the exit alarms if they could give me a number for a taxi. The first number I called just rang and rang with no answer. The second, the taxi service said they were not available until 4:00. The thought of waiting for another two hours just about made me cry. I then called Dale at work. I explained that we were stuck at Tesco and that we had no prospects of getting home anytime soon. He said that he planned to come home a little early since we had to go grocery shopping at the commissary anyway. We were saved! ONLY 30 more minutes of waiting! We were so excited. When he picked us up 30 minutes later, I was so excited to leave the bus stop, I was giddy.

Day 8

2006-10-23T10:41:00.000Z

As I typed out this entry, I see that we have ONLY been here 8 days. It seems like FOREVER when you are living in a foreign place with NO STUFF. I am trying really hard to be flexible and patient but it is not coming easy. Today was a sad day for me. The cracks are starting to form and I am not sure how I am going to keep it together. There is still a week, at a minimum, before we get our stuff and my bike. We have five more days with no internet since our phone number got entered wrong for our internet service. I am feeling very cut off from my former life. I am afraid to call anyone for fear of bursting into tears on the phone. I feel like I am being selfish for wanting my life back. I know that if I am just patient everything will right itself and I will feel fine, but this waiting until then is very depressing. All I want to do is ride my bike for hours on end away from this stupid house. I am really sick of picking up, doing laundry, cooking with one spoon and one tiny pot, and just wasting time wandering around the house until bedtime. There never used to be enough time in the day! I use to beg time to move more slowly. How could I just waste time now?! I feel like I am throwing away valuable treasure! Now a minute lasts and hour and days feel like weeks!

I spent my third day out back, this time trying to clean up the patio. The stones are mixed in with pebble details that would be beautiful if they were not covered with mud. I found a stiff broom and started sweeping away all the leaves and moss. I collected a mass of empty pots half filled with dirt and weeds. I moved the moss covered picnic table and chairs out of the way and spent two hours trying to remove all the debris off the stones. I found a severed hose connected to a hosepipe on the side of the house. Apparently there is a hosepipe ban in Cambridge so this must have been their way of cheating. I did the best I could to spray down parts of the patio to wash away the mud, but my range was very limited. I was excited to see different colors appear as the stones started to show their true colors.

The "pond"

2006-10-22T10:28:00.000Z

We live with a swamp in the back of our house. It has green gunk covering the top of it and the trees are overgrown with wild raspberry vines that are growing into “the pond”. The pond has little hoses that run across the patio into a little shed that blow water in it. I cannot see how anything can live in it with all the green stuff on it. There is a plastic bucket in it and a few plastic flower pots. There are buckets on the pavers next to the pond filled with water and green stuff too. The pavers are no longer flat since roots from the bushes surrounding the pond have made them unstable. It is surrounded by a wrought iron gate that the owners suggested we padlock so that the children don’t slip on the pavers and fall into the pond. I cannot even look at it. My dream of a nice garden slips away as I walk across the moss covered patio toward the pond. I don’t have the slightest idea of what to do with this pond. It looks as if it had been a nice place at one point in time. Now it looks like it has been neglected for about 5 years.

I wandered to the back shed and found a bunch of rusty gardening tools including a pair of hedge choppers. I tried them out on a dead limb of a tree and found that they were still quite sharp. Hearten by this I headed over to the pond area and started chopping back the bushes so that the pavers could be seen. I created a huge pile of debris as I chopped things back. My hands and legs were covered with scratches from the wild raspberry vines. The vines were over an inch in diameter in some spots and my hands and arms were getting tired. The mosquitoes near the pond were feasting on me making my job that much more uncomfortable. I finally gave in after two hours of work. As I stepped back, I could see the pavers beneath all the leaves, but the bushes at the end still leaned over and touched the pond. I had managed to remove a lot of trash out of the pond and now I had to figure out what to do with all the clippings.

Day 5

2006-10-20T10:27:00.000Z

Today we woke up at 9:20am. If this were a weekend day, I would have felt like I was finally catching up on my sleep, but it was the kids second day of school and it started 20 minutes ago. I jumped out of bed in a panic. All I could think about is what kind of impression our family was making on the “new” school. I silently cursed the stupid hotel since they forgot to put in our wake up call. I dared a hotel comment card to show its face in front of me at that moment. We ran down the hall to grab some last minute breakfast and then jumped in the car to begin our crawl to the school. The school secretary gave me a curious look as I knocked on the office door. I explained our troubles with the wakeup call and still being on US time and she looked like she forgave our tardiness. The kids waved goodbye and I walked out of school once again feeling bad that they are in the whirlwind life. Next week is term break, I reasoned. We will have some nice down time next week. I went back to the house and continued to organize our lives.

New Mattresses and a run

2006-10-19T10:24:00.000Z

We set the wake up call for 7:30am. We stumbled out of bed at 7:25am. It definitely felt like my body was still on Maryland time which would have been 2:25am. The kids seemed to feel the same way, but the prospect of their first day of school motivated them to get up. We were supposed to be at school at 8:45am so that the headmistress could show the kids to their classrooms. Time seemed be running extra fast that morning. We ate breakfast as quickly as we could and left the hotel at 8:30am. The school is only 5 miles from the hotel, but the roundabouts and single lane town entries make travel anywhere much slower. We had never timed our trips to Hardwick from Bar Hill, so did not anticipate how long it would take to get there. We arrived at the school at 8:50am. I dashed in with the kids explaining to the headmistress that I had their lunches and school forms at our house in Hardwick and that I would bring them over after dropping off the kids. I gave Alyssa and Nathan each a quick hug and a kiss and my heart felt heavy as I turned them quickly over to the headmistress for their first day of school. I felt like I was abandoning them in this foreign place to fend for themselves. They reassured me with a cheerful goodbye and they turned to follow the headmistress. I watched them disappear through the door. I wanted so badly to go with them to reassure them that everything was OK, but I knew that reassurance was more for me than for them. Watching them go through that door made me suddenly realize that this whole trip was for real. It was not some strange dream that kept going. We were in England with our everyday life and this was not a vacation to return home from. I wandered over the bulletin board next to the front door. Posted on it were notices about community activities, kids’ activities for the term break coming up the following week, pilates classes being held in the community hall (a room off the front lobby of the school), and “child minder” services. I wandered back to the house making the three minute walk last 5 minutes and hoped the kids were doing OK. I spend the rest of the day staring at the thermostat in our hallway. This is the only place in the house I could find a clock. The minutes seemed to creep by. I passed the time by unpacking suitcases, putting away a pile of kids books left for us by our landlords, and looking through kitchen cabinets trying to figure out what we could use for cooking. I did not want to go back to the hotel that night. I wanted to stop living out of suitcases. We were going on week two for our suitcases since we started the day our stuff got packed up. I think that some little angel was listening because I then heard a truck pull up and it was our mattresses.

The mattresses smelled like glue when I pulled them out of the plastic. The delivery man had just leaned them against the bedroom wall wrapped in plastic. I had to use my keys to cut the plastic since I had no other tools at my disposal. I imagined the lawsuit that would have resulted if the same thing happened in the states. I put both single mattresses in Alyssa’s room to be so that the kids could sleep in the same room the first few nights. I opened one of the glass doors in here room that served as her window. They opened to a railing that looked over that back patio. The cobwebs were thick above the window, but the air smelled good and the smell of glue faded. I continued pulling plastic off mattresses and opening windows until 2:30pm. At this point, I could not stand doing any more house stuff. I put on my running shoes and decided to go for a run. I was desperate. A week of no exercise was making me anxious and crabby. I was starting to hate my new life and I was afraid to eat. My thoughts were piling up on each other and rational thoughts were losing ground fast. I knew running would hurt since I had not run since high school, but it was my only option. It turned out to be more of a hard walk. My legs were not pleased and immediately let me know that I had promised them no more running 15 years ago.

Day 3

2006-10-18T10:21:00.000Z

It is a good thing the kids did not have to start school today. The hotel fire alarms went of at 3:30 am. At first I did not understand why there was a strange noise going off in our room. However, after about 2 minutes of continuous noise I figured out what was going on. I sat up in bed and spent the next minute hoping that the alarm would go off and we would be able to go back to sleep. Alyssa and Nathan woke up and immediately wanted to know why we were still inside the building. At this point, Dale and I figured it was silly to risk staying any longer and we threw on some shoes, grabbed our jackets, our bag with our passports and a blanket to wrap up the kids and headed outside. The parking lot was full of people, some in the hotel bathrobes. Everyone was staring blankly into the dark night air. We headed for our car at the back of the lot so that the kids would have a place to sit down. The fire department showed up 5 minutes later. Nathan was ecstatic about the chain of events and was hoping that they firefighters would be able to use their ladder. The fire alarm shut off about 10 minutes later and we were allowed back into the building. We climbed back in bed and I was just starting to doze off, when the alarms went off again. “This cannot be happening,” I thought. The kids jumped out of bed, threw on their shoes and were ready to head out the door immediately. Nathan was acting as if saw flames, so out we headed for the second time. Once again the fire department appeared in their yellow and orange checked truck. The alarm lasted about 15 minutes, turned off and we were allowed in again. This time the hotel staff was out taking room numbers down and letting us know that there was a malfunction in the fire alarm system. He told us that it was very likely that this would happen again and that we were to evacuate the building as usual. On cue, after getting back in bed, the alarm sounded again. This time Dale stood on the bed and held a pillow over the alarm in the room. This made the noise in the room much more tolerable, but we still had to figure out if we were going to leave for the third time. Then, for some reason, the alarm in our room turned off, but the one in the hall still sounded. The kids had fallen asleep almost instantly when we returned to bed the second time, were sleepily asking if we had to leave again. We waited in the room hoping the alarm would go off. The fire truck arrived out front in record time most likely because it had not gotten back to the firehouse yet. I pleaded silently to the alarm system hoping it would turn itself off. Suddenly, there was silence. I quietly exhaled a breath of relief. The kids were quiet and laid there waiting for the alarm to go off again. We woke up with 15 minutes left for breakfast and once again dashed down the hallway to grab something to eat.

Day 2

2006-10-17T10:20:00.000Z

We woke five minutes before breakfast ended at 9:25am. We raced down the hall to get cold cereal and a little fruit. Today we took a tour of Alyssa and Nathan’s new school. The headmistress, Mrs. French, was very nice and introduced Alyssa and Nathan to their teachers. We decided that Thursday would be the starting day for the kids since Alyssa’s class was having a field trip on Wednesday.

We wandered into Cambridge to find a store to buy beds. As soon as we had beds, we would be able to sleep at the house. We spent a lot of time driving around Cambridge trying to figure out what street we were on. Dale had seen a few bed stores on his way to pick up the rental car, so we were trying to find our way back to them. This proved to be a very difficult task. We kept ending up on streets we had been on 10 minutes before. It was hard enough to make sure we were on the right side of the road. We would make one turn and then have to turn again twenty feet later. After about an hour of wandering, we stumbled across a bed store that we knew nothing about and decided that we would give that one a try.

Dale’s company gave us a small allowance for beds. We were to expense it on his company credit card so that we would not have to pay for it and then get reimbursed later. We found that the budget was not overly generous and that the beds we initially picked would not be delivered for 15-20 days. The prospect of staying in the hotel for that length of time was more than we would stomach. Dale asked the salesman what beds could be delivered ASAP. Our selection was quickly reduced, but we reasoned that three years is not a long time for mattresses so we made our selections. He told us that he could deliver the mattresses to the house on Thursday and the bed frames would be delivered the following week. Good enough for us. We could sleep on the floor until the bed frames arrived. That’s still better than the hotel!

Day 1

2006-10-16T10:18:00.000Z

Travel from Washington Dulles to London Heathrow

We drove to Dulles Sunday afternoon armed with 8 suitcases and four carry-on bags. We had to pay a charge for one bag as we found out that the weight limit per bag is 50 pounds, not 70 (this is what it is on OTHER international flights). After we handed each bag across the scale for the lady to tag we then had to recollect everything and drag them over to the baggage check in line. For WHAT do they use the little conveyor belts behind the counters now? Their paperwork?! After dropping off our bags at the security area, we started searching for the end of the security check-in line. I am pretty sure I have never stood in a line this long in my life! Not even for a roller coaster on a Saturday afternoon! No kidding, the line nearly wrapped around the entire Dulles International Terminal and it took 1 hour and 50 minutes! Along with the rest of the passengers on our flight, we raced to the “people mover” and then we nearly got trampled by the people behind us to get to our gate. We boarded the plane only minutes later.

Safely aboard we started preparing for our transatlantic flight. After the plane closed its doors the captain informed us that we would be waiting about 30 minutes more due to some baggage issues. We took off an hour later. Our flight arrived into London at 7:40am. It took about 7 hours 30 minutes of which Nathan slept zero minutes and Alyssa slept about 30. Tired but excited we arrived ready to stand in more lines. We did the best we could to prepare the kids for yet another marathon of line standing. However, after about 30 minutes of waiting in the customs line, an official took pity on our family and took us to the front of the line. We could not believe our luck!

Our next adventure began with our shuttle drive to the hotel. Our driver “forgot his wallet” so he had to ask us for money to pay for parking. We were too tired to question this, but we were very concerned. Then we proceeded to sit in traffic for the next hour while trying to get out of London. Once out of London, we stopped again to get fuel. The driver had to ask us for money again because he of course had no money for gas! However this time he assured us that this was “most unusual” and he apologized for the inconvenience. I took pity on the guy after he told me that he was taking all of these charges off our fare. We finally arrived at our hotel at 11:00 am.

Nathan slept for most of the car ride and was barely awake enough to get out of the van. He stood precariously in front of me while I checked in at the counter losing his balance several times since he was too tired to stand stably. The woman behind the counter, oblivious to our exhaustion, told me that my room had been cancelled since we were scheduled to arrive yesterday and we did not show up. As I tried to explain the oversight, Alyssa plunked down in the middle of carpet silently laying her head down on top of her bag. The woman must have noticed this because she managed to find another room for our family.

Our room was filled with housekeeping staff when we made it down the hall. They were busy preparing a cot, a hide-a-bed and the regular bed for all of us to sleep in immediately! Yeah! They were no sooner out the door than Nathan was asleep under the bedspread, shoes and all.

As the kids slept, Dale was busy getting the rental car in Cambridge. He arrived about 2 hours later after struggling with the left side of the road and the stick shift on the left hand side. He said that he grabbed the door handle several times on his trip to the hotel trying to shift the car.

Dragging the kids out of bed two hours later, we stumbled down to the realty office to collect the keys to our house in Hardwick. After taking several laps of Cambridge, we found our way out again and drove to our new house. Everyone was very happy about the house, the yard, the proximity to school and the neighborhood.

We reluctantly left the space of our house to return to our little hotel room. We were ready for a good night’s sleep.