One Year Blogiversary

One year ago today I began this blog. I was planning to celebrate by taking money out of a British bank's ATM and then use that money to open an account with the bank. The ATM part worked out but no bank account. Our lack of credit history is a big impediment to getting a decent account here. They offered us an account with basically no services other than holding our money (the sort of account that they offer to people with prior financial problems) or an account with a massive monthly fee. Or if we deposited 50,000 pounds we could have a very nice account. If only they'd let me take 50,000 out of the ATM, we'd be okay.

So instead of bragging about my financial wizardry, I will instead post a bunch of pictures I snapped on the day that I thought was to be the last in the United States of America. They are fun pictures. I hope you enjoy them.

Last [sic] breakfast with Auntie Rosemary

A stowaway!

Riding to the airport in style! Jacob, Lucy, and Jeremiah are ready to go!

Last [sic] supper; actually my last cheeseburger in the USA

One of the best suppers we've had here is fish and chips at a small chain restaurant. The menu was quite varied: regular fried fish, large fried fish, extra large fried fish, double fried fish, and children's size fried fish. They definitely are masters of the art. Check it out from the outside:

Jacob enjoyed this fish and chip place, esp. the potty! He's hiding in the picture, Where's Waldo-style.

Thanks to everyone who has come by to read my shambling narratives and reviews, and especially to those who have put up links to this blog, commented, and/or contributed to our success in other ways I can't think of now. You all are so smart, I bet you have tasty brains. Mmmm....

Another Trip to the Airport

I can't believe I've already gone back to the airport here in England. No we didn't give up on staying; we've brought in reinforcements!

One of Angie's cousins has come to stay with us for a month so she can experience living abroad and help out as we transition into a regular house. She's pretty excited but also very sleepy (she had a much more direct trip than we did but the time difference is still a killer). As I write, everyone else has gone to bed.

This morning, I woke up early to shower and eat breakfast before the early morning departure for the airport (it's about 90 minutes away and her flight came in around 7:45 a.m.). Since we are sharing a room, Jacob woke up and saw me getting ready. I told him he could sleep and I would be back later. As I was eating breakfast, Jacob came out and said he wanted to come to the airport to pick up our cousin. He was so sweet, I couldn't resist. It seemed like a bad idea to bring him along for a 1.5 hour drive each way, but I agreed.

Jacob, for his part, brought along his firetruck. He was really great in the car. He played with the truck. He sang songs to me or himself. He looked out the window pensively and asked questions. He would even make "vrrrmmmm" sounds as we passed large trucks on the highway. He was a surprisingly pleasant rider.

The unpleasant surprise of the trip was getting to the airport and not knowing which terminal was right. American airports always, in my experience, have billboards that list which airlines operate out of which terminals. Not so for the Manchester airport. I knew the cousin's airline and flight number, but not which terminal. I guessed Terminal One. When we parked, I phoned a friend and had my wife check online. She had just gone for a walk with Lucy, so they would call back in a few minutes. Jacob and I decided to go into the terminal in case we had guessed right. WRONG! Her plane arrived at Terminal Three, which we saw on a display just as my wife called back. We got back in the car and headed off to the other terminal.

Strangely enough, Terminal Three is right next to Terminal One. I'm not sure where they put Terminal Two, but it's not in the most obvious spot. I guess it's lost in a SEP field. Jacob and I also had a little trouble finding the right parking lot for Terminal Three. We eventually found a good spot. Jacob was excited to see the airport. No people moving sidewalks were there, but that was okay with Jacob. He enjoyed the lights and the shops. We found our cousin pretty quickly and beat a hasty retreat.

Jacob did not want to go potty at the airport and did manage to hold it in till we returned home, singing and "vrrrmmm"ing the whole way. Our cousin managed to stay awake for quite a long while, so hopefully she will conquer jet lag quickly. And we will definitely be prepared for our next guest by pre-identifying the arrival terminal.

Summertime and the Reading Is Easy

An important way to keep from being zombiefied is to read as much as you can. These first two weeks have been challenging for me because so many other things are demanding my time. But we have been faithfully reading to the children for naps and bedtime and for fun. Luckily, every library we run into encourages the kids to keep it up!

Before we left for the UK, one of the things we did (which maybe we shouldn't have) was sign up the children for the summer reading program at our local (Maryland) library. The child gets a fun checkoff sheet to mark their progress and a bunch of goodies (like a coupon for free ice cream at Chick-fil-A). The theme was a little irresistable for me--One World, Many Stories. The program encourages young readers to read stories or do activities from the seven continents and five oceans. Jacob has already been working on this as has been Lucy (well, actually I've been helping them along). We will mail our completion coupons but won't be able to choose prizes that the library offers. I will take the kids out for treats as a reward instead. Lucy will probably want ice cream; Jacob a cookie. We might stop at a toy shop too.

We went to the base library here in England and found out they have a summer reading program. They had a bag of goodies too (little toys, a foam shield and sword, and a cool drawstring bag/backpack). Their theme is "Midsummer Knight's Read," which also is a very cool theme. They will have special themed story times, picnics, and an archery class. Alas, Jacob and Lucy aren't old enough yet to learn the bow and arrow. They have a reading log which we will take back once a week to get credit and more little prizes. The library is already a favorite stop on base and this makes it only better.

Pretty awesome swag!

Today we went to the local branch of the Yorkshire library system and found out they have a reading program for the kids, too! Jacob and Lucy signed up for library cards. Every time they take something out from the library, they get a sticker for their tally card. Once they have four stickers, they can turn the card in for a certificate. There's no theme but it is an on-going program. We can keep doing it in the Fall and Winter months. I hope they have lots of stickers and certificates! The library itself was pretty swanky, with a little self-serve cafe area with a coffee machine and tables.

We love reading and are so glad for all the encouragement. If you have tots, I hope you can find a great reading program for them, too!

Cell Phones and the First Pub

Today we celebrated the Fourth of July by doing that most American of things, being consumers. We bought two cell phones so we could be in touch with each other during the day. And we had a nice meal with our sponsors.

After visiting a bunch of stores a few days ago, I decided to shop at the store whose name seems quite old-fashioned, The Carphone Warehouse. Who calls them carphones anymore? My automatic spell checker even thinks "carphone" is a misspelling! They are thoroughly up to date in every other way, rest assured.

They sell unlocked phones (which are very common here) with SIM cards for the various providers thrown in to get big discounts. We decided on pay-as-you-go phones.  We never used up all our minutes back in the States even with the most minimal monthly plans possible, so it made sense. Also, our sponsors gave us a SIM card for Lebara, a popular cheap way to call internationally from the UK. So we will be swapping that SIM card into our current phones when calling home.

The staff was very professional. Well, at least to me they were professional. Some bloke came in asking if they could fix what looked like a USB flash drive. It seemed the cap came off and he couldn't get it back on. One of the staff said, "Oh, so those guys at Carphone Warehouse have nothing better to do, why don't I just bother them?" and the other two guys joined in on some good-natured ribbing. They all (including the hapless customer) had a good laugh. Then they explained to me that he comes in the store all the time and you don't get that sort of service without being an extremely regular customer.

Another of the staff guys said, "Hey, isn't it Independence Day? Happy day." He wasn't very enthusiastic, but what can you expect at 9:30 on a Monday morning from a Brit for the Fourth of July? I said thanks and finished my purchase. It was a great shopping experience.

Later that day, we went to a pub with our sponsors, The Pine Marten. It was very nice, not quite what you'd expect from a British pub. It was more like a regular restaurant, except they had a nice bar and rooms to let upstairs. They had some outdoor seating with a pond containing three water fountains and lots of big fish. The kids enjoyed sticking their fingers in, especially when the bigger fish swam by. Jacob, of course, visited the potty several times, even using the hand dryer when he went with Mommy. The Gent's dryer was too loud. At least he went in the Gent's room with me and did his business without complaining about the dryer. He washed his hands and, don't tell anyone, he dried them on his pants. At least he didn't run out of the bathroom as soon as he saw the hand dryer. Definite progress is being made on that front.

The food was pretty good and we had excellent British desserts--sticky toffee pudding and banoffee pie (banana, cream, and toffee in pie form!). Sticky toffee pudding was a favorite for my wife and me from our last visit to England. It's just as good as we remembered. Our children didn't even want to try it, which was fine with us, because it meant more for us!

It was a great Independence Day, all that was missing was fireworks. I hope your Fourth of July is (or more likely, was) lots of fun, even if you don't celebrate the day.

First Sunday in UK Time

Check out my other blog for our first Sunday Mass in England. It was great!

Laundry Shouldn't Be a Zombie's Problem

One of the worst things about being a zombie is the shockingly shabby wardrobe. Generally you wear the same thing over and over again, which stinks both metaphorically and literally. We've been experiencing this for the past week or so as we have traveled to and started living in England.

We started out with five checked suitcases and four carry-ons. The carry-ons had one or two changes of clothes for everyone, necessitating a lot of wash-as-you-can on our crazy trip here. The hotel at home just before we left had free laundry. The Washington, DC, hotel had laundry but it cost quite a bit. New York's hotel had no laundry on site but did have a nearby laundromat that we used during Saturday's naptime. Once in the UK, we were reunited with the five checked suitcases and plenty more wardrobe.

Washer, Dryer, Soldier, Spy--LeCarre

Getting the clothes washed continues to be a challenge. Our temporary apartment has a combined washer and dryer. This machine is not some "dryer on top, washer on bottom" stacked arrangement, but one machine that does both washing and drying in the same tub, neatly fitted under the kitchen counter. Sounds like a miracle of modern convenience, right? Well, it would be if it worked properly (or we could work it properly). The washer part seems to work just fine. The clothes get clean. The dryer part seems non-functional. I say seems because it definitely makes the laundry hot. But the clothes are still as wet as at the end of the washing cycle. After spending five hours of fruitless drying cycles, we started hanging clothes around the apartment to dry. The other problem was how the compact nature of the machine means its capacity is small. The manual recommends four pounds of laundry per load. Another clothes cleaning solution is required for a family of four.

We looked online for local wash and fold places and found a chain that seemed to have reasonable prices. I drove a big suitcase full of our clothes to one of their stores. I waited in line for my turn. At the desk, I explained our needs. The nice lady explained that for eight pounds they could do up to twelve pounds. At first, I thought this was some sort of special, e.g. "Wash 50% extra for the same price!" Even with a zombie mind, I knew that didn't make any sense. Then I figured it--eight pounds cash to get twelve pounds of laundry done. We sorted the laundry into lights and darks and found it would be two loads, so about sixteen pounds.

Then she asked me for my phone number. Our sponsors loaned us a pay-as-you-go cell phone. I couldn't remember the number off the top of my head. It's written on a piece of paper at the apartment, on top of the washer/dryer. So I tried to navigate the phone's menus to find the number. After about five minutes, I gave up and the nice lady said that was all right. She just took my name. I wish she'd asked my address, because I knew that. Or even my email.

Next we negotiated when we could get the laundry back. She said it could be ready some time next week. I was worried about this because the customer in front of me had put her stuff in and was getting them back a full week later. So I asked how early next week. She said Tuesday at 3 p.m. Being Friday afternoon, it seemed to me like a long time to go without but I did not want to find another laundromat or a self-serve place. I agreed, took my receipt and headed home, feeling successful. I put a note in our Google calendar to remind me to pick up the laundry next Tuesday.

So we are back to a little more than the carry-on clothes and have to do another load of necessities in the apartment washer/dryer. As I write, wet clothes are scattered all over the furniture with hopes of being dry by morning. We still have one dress outfit that's clean and dry, so we won't be too shabby for church tomorrow.

A Tale of Two Playgrounds

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...Charles Dickens.

We've managed to visit two playgrounds so far in England. The first one is near our apartment and was so much fun, I had to carry Jacob away kicking and screaming. Well, not literally. Literally he was squirming and whining. He kept trying to worm out of my grip so he could get back. Yes, the playground was that good. Jacob played Ninja Warrior there on the climbing equipment, though he didn't make it to the Spider Climb. Check out this photographic evidence:

Happiness is climbing a yellow ladder!

Jacob slides on the big climber.

Lucy slides on the little climber.

No child was brave enough to climb this web. Where's Spider-man when you need him?

The other playground we found while we were out house hunting. We probably won't get the house we were looking at because it was too far away from work. This particular playground also was not in walking distance of the house. We just spotted it and decided to stop and have some fun. Jacob also did Ninja Warrior here. More photographic evidence:

Behold the Ninja Warrior set! I should have gotten a side view.

Jacob climbs on the small climber.

Lucy hangs out on the small climber.

Lucy to the rescue!

It's hard to play on the swings by yourself.

New integrated sports--soccer and basketball.

Lucy did get to ride in the swings, lest anyone be concerned. Jacob didn't really complain about leaving this playground. Not that there was anything bad about it, he just had his fill and was ready to go to dinner. Timing is everything.