Halloween day trip to the dentist

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

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

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

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...

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

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"

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.