September 26, 2007

"Fancy dinner?"

That was the subject line of an email that G got this week, which he forwarded on to me. It was from a new friend, the person who's joined STAG as a full time staff member for internationals. We'd talked about getting together for dinner, so we could get to know each other on both sides, and meet his wife, and his wife could meet us. And so we could chat about the opportunities to help with the work here. But when G forwarded this email on to me, I have to say that I was surprised. I thought, "Well, I wasn't thinking of a *fancy* dinner- I don't even know them that well!" I thought maybe it was a British thing or something. Then, about 10 minutes later I was thinking about it again, and I realized he didn't mean a "fancy" dinner. He meant to ask if we'd fancy having dinner with them. Which is a British way of saying "Do you want to have dinner?" Wow- our languages really are different. :)

Hey pr about this patent issue that has come up with Vonage. Vonage lost their suit against Sprint/Nextel where Nextel said Vonage infringed on their patents. To the tune of $56 million, and 5% of their revenue. Not good. If Vonage goes down, we will out of luck on our service. So will G's aunt and uncle in Thailand, and tons of people living overseas. That's not good news for us.

Today we had our very first TEAM class. TEAM is short for Training for East Anglia Ministry," and it's set up for lay people who would like more intensive bbl training, including giving talks, doing small group studies etc. I was fortunate enough to come from an excellent undergrad ministry where we were very well trained to lead studies of all kinds, and to study the bbl well on our own. So much of the first 2 semester will be review for me. But G and I really wanted to study together, and although he's lead groups as well he didn't have the training I did. We're very excited about the chance to do this. The class runs from 10-4pm every Wednesday, and G had to work some special arrangements out with his work in order to do it.

Some of you who are Chrstns may be wondering about the sprtual state of things here in the UK. Honestly it's similar to Michigan. Except that the Chrch of England is the tradition here, and people are accustomed to the ways that they run their srvces. Most chrch of England chrches are not actually Chrstn. They use the bbl in their chrches, but many people here don't know what it means to be a Chrstn. They think that being good, or doing good things is enough. In that aspect Michigan is similar. There is a growing movement of chrches here, both in and outside of the chrch of England in which people who believe the bbl is Gd's word and believe the importance of applying it to their lives and telling others about Gd. STAG is one of those chrches. TEAM is a program set up by people from these types of chrches. So we're very fortunate to have access to this training, to meet others who are like minded and to hone our skills as well. But it makes for a long day. :)

Tonight is our second STAG home group. The first one was last Wednesday, and it was mostly just getting to know each other. It's a smallish group, and it's almost all engineers. :) The person whose home it is in is a cool guy, but this "home" is actually a mansion. I'm not exaggerating- it's a mansion that they had built 2 years ago. I've never been in a place this big where someone actually lived. They also own a "house" in New Jersey, where his wife is from. And her family has a summer home in Rhode Island. It's hard to avoid thinking that she's from "one of those" families, like Rockefeller or something like that. :) She and their kids were in the US last week. But they also home school their kids, so that says something about the level of seriousness they have in their fth.

I'll be helping co-lead a class for internationals at STAG which starts October 26th. It's a 5 week class, and they needed an experienced woman co-leader. I'm looking forward to it.

Well our home group starts at 8pm, so if we want to be on time we have an hour or so for dinner. I used to be like a time nazi when it came to being on time. But a summer in Cambodia destroyed that forever, and now I'm hardly ever on time. The whole time thing is really a cultural value, and it's one which I felt just wasn't valuable to me anymore. I certainly don't expect people to wait for me before starting something- if I'm late and I miss something that's my problem. But at the same time I wouldn't mind some latitude from people who are from a time nazi culture. :) Whenever we move overseas we'll be all set as far as time goes, but for now I'll get by. :)

Picture update

I finally found that cable, so here are some pictures I promised earlier, plus a few new ones.


Remember the story about the dishwasher salt for a few days ago? Here's a picture of the dishwasher salt bag. It looks like soap to me. :)


These are the Polish pickles- can you read Polish? Are they dill or sweet pickles?


These few are from my walk at Anglesey Abbey. You can see that fall just doesn't look the same here. Although I did find a tree with a few red leaves on it.




So this is a new one- one day at Tesco we were walking around in quest of something which we couldn't find (that's the story of every Tesco visit really) and we ended up in the toilet paper aisle. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw these packages and I turned to G and said "Oh my gosh- can you believe they would put something that says 'Slurpable Technology' on toilet paper? Eww, that's so gross! Who wants to consider that idea when they buy toilet paper?!" Well, G walked a little closer to investigate, and it turns out that these are NOT toilet paper packages! They look just like it don't they? Even the word lotus on it made me think it was toilet paper. They're actually paper towels! We just about died laughing right there in the Tesco! I think both of us were relieved that the UK sense of strange advertising hadn't gone quite that far. :)



Adding to the spider story of yesterday, here is G proudly holding his catch. Imagine going up your stairs at 10pm and finding this thing waiting for you.....

September 21, 2007

The last few days here have been nice and quiet. We've gotten the hang of entering the immobiliser bypass code into the car's computer using the Central Locking button. Do you know what the central locking button is? I had no idea. I couldn't even find it. Well, it's the button you push to lock all the doors. :) Funny thing is if you have a door open and use the button, it automatically unlocks the door when you shut it. I suppose that helps for potential lockouts. Anyway we eventually found said button, and you push it and hold it until the red light starts to flash very slowly, and you count out the number and then release it. You do that for all 4 numbers and presto- the immobiliser is turned off and you can start the car. It's not that much slower than what we were doing before, because the immobiliser receiver inside the car is finicky, to the point that you stand outside the car for 5 minutes pushing the button and pointing the key in various directions before it unlocks. :)

After reading the Cat Confidential book we've started doing some different things to make Nelly's day more interesting. She caught on to the forage for your food in the house thing, and she also quickly learned how to get treats out of the egg carton. Now she's bored with those things. :) So I've started hiding really tasty treats in hard to reach places around the house, and now she really does have to search for them. That's been keeping her busy for about 4 hours a day- 4 hours she would have been otherwise just sleeping. She seems much happier, and not so lonely when we come home.



Those of you who have facebook have likely seen the Capturing the Giant Spider video I put up last night. On my way upstairs to get ready for bed I discovered an enormous house spider wanting to use the stairs to come down. Anyway I wasn't expecting it, and it was very big- way bigger than those Halloween spider rings. I screamed (well for me it was a scream- no one heard me but me) and then called G to come look at this beast. So he grabbed at glass and caught it, and we videoed it in the glass trying to escape. And I have a picture of G with it in the glass right next to his face! I'm working on getting them up here- the camera phone uses an unusual video format which I haven't figured out how to convert for Blogger yet. Needless to say I didn't sleep very well last night, and I think I woke up 5 times with my flashlight in hand thinking I'd seen a spider. Of course I didn't- it's pitch black in our room. :) But it's hard to tell when you're dreaming. Anyway the flashlight makes me feel better because I can shine it around and remind myself that there are no spiders. :)


Emmaus House is having a 50% off sale on all their second hand goods tomorrow, so we'll be heading out there when they open at 8:30am because we've had our eye on getting a dresser and a desk for the spare room, but just haven't been willing to pay what they're asking. They are a wonderful ministry here- there are 30 formerly homeless men living at their complex, and some of the stories on their site are very interesting, from many of these men who were addicted to serious drugs and alcohol and things. If you get a chance check it out at www.emmauscambridge.org. We're happy to support their work there by buying furniture and other interesting things from them.





Sunday is GK Holiday (we got engaged on March 23rd, and we celebrate the 23rd of every month and have named it GK Holiday) so we might go out to one of the manor houses to walk the grounds and pick up more buckeyes. It's buckeye season here, and Anglesey Abbey has some great avenues of them (see the picture above) far away from the house, where no one else wants to walk. I went yesterday and had a great time sitting under the trees and watching the buckeyes fall when the wind blew. it was great. They're so beautiful- the buckeyes themselves- that I wish i could think of some way to make them into Christmas ornaments or something. Maybe people used to do that- if you have done that let me know how it's done.



It seems like our Vonage line is working well- I got a call from an Army recruiter at 10:30pm the other night. :) And some other folks have called from the US and the reception is incredible- there's almost no delay at all! And no static! We'll for sure be taking this thing all over the world with us.

I hope you are all enjoying the fall there- even though the leaves aren't stunning, they're still falling off and there's nothing like the sound of leaves crunching under your feet, and the wonderful smell of autumn.

Arrrh, it's international talk like a pirate day!

Hey all- did you know that today (Wednesday) is international Talk Like a Pirate day? If you want more info here's a web link:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2007-09-18T125236Z_01_L18887120_RTRUKOC_0_US-PIRATES-1.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-R1-MostViewed-3

Also the official website:

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html

Just thought I'd remind you all. :)

Arrrh!

September 19, 2007

There's just never a dull moment here in Swavesey. Last night we had planned on having dinner with a couple from chrch who are in charge of the international student outreach. They just moved here, and were working in Kenya before they came. Very nice couple, and we want to get involved since they are way under staffed. More about that later. I took G to work as usual, came home, planted the garden in the cold, blah blah. At around 7pm I was going to go pick G up from work. There was only one problem though- the immobiliser wouldn't disarm. Many cars here have this thing where your key shoots an IR beam to this circuit inside the car, allowing the car to start. If you don't turn that off, the engine won't start. Well, ours conked. So our new friends were kind enough to give us a ride. This morning I've been researching all the potential problems with immobilisers, and the current best guess is that water is leaking from the sunroof (trickling or just appearing is more like it) into the immobiliser circuit area. So I took out the circuit and as recommended put it near the radiator to dry out. I hope it works. If not, we'll have to get the immobiliser code from the dealer and enter it in manually until we can get the car in to a shop that can fix the thing.

Other exciting events of the day include my losing track of the cable to connect my phone to the computer so I can't put images up today. Also, we finally have deodorant again. :) I can't use anything that has aluminum in it, because it irritates my skin. So I use Tom's of Maine in the US, which is all natural ingredients, and I love it. Tesco had it when we first arrived, but then stopped carrying it. So I had to go online and order from a natural food place. Anyway Tesco only had one type of non aluminum deodorant- Japanese Spa Minerals it was called. I was desperate so I tried it. Unfortunately it does not really deodorize- it just makes you smell like a Japanese man. I don't mean that in a derrogatory way, because every culture has it's own smells and things it thinks smell good. But it just didn't work for me. :)

I hope the immobiliser will dry out on the radiator and work again. Tonight is our first chrch home group which we were both very excited about attending, and although I can take the bus in, neither of us will be able to get home because the bus doesn't run at night.

In other news we finally had our first real sighting of Cat Fiend. He is a brownish sort of cat, about Nelly's size (Nelly looks much bigger due to her fur), and afraid of us. But he tried to wander through this morning, and when he saw us he hightailed it behind our shed and out a hole that we didn't know was in the fence back there. We're currently working on a plan to shut the cat hole in the garden gate so that Nelly can go outside at night without worrying about Cat Fiend. He really seems like a nice cat- too bad Nelly hates his guts. :)

Blocking the hole up was a good idea anyway because we've been thinking about getting a rabbit or 2. The animal shelter mentioned that people who have empty garden sheds (which are about 6 by 5 by 6ft) have a good home for rabbits to live in. They need a covered run to keep them safe from urban foxes and neighborhood cats, but they actually get along well with pet cats. These rabbits are big- as big as Nelly at least. Anyway we haven't decided, but I've never had rabbits and I'd like to have some. :) We're investigating the policies about rabbit importation into the US, and then we'll decide. House rabbits are the most popular pet here- they go in a litter tray and just hop around the house like any other pet. I'd be too concerned to leave Nelly with giant rabbits hopping around the house, even though everyone says the rabbits and cats get along fine once they recognize each other as part of their group. So these rabbits would live in the shed and have their own run (the shed is heated by the way) and when I was outside I'd let them hop around in the garden. The shelter has 2 rabbits which would prefer that sort of life to living in a house, so we may adopt them.

There's a pet shelter near here that is looking for volunteers 4 hours a week, in their vet office. I've always thought it would be interesting to learn more about what vet assistants do, or nurse assistants. We'll see about that as well. It would be nice to interact with the animals without having to take them home with me. :)

Oh, and we think we've discovered why the dishes weren't getting clean. G discovered it really. I'm usually the one starting the dishwasher, and the previous guy left a bag of dishwasher salt under the kitchen sink. Everything here has a strange name, so I figured that was their name for dishwashing detergent in powder form. I've been loading that up in the dishwasher to wash the dishes with. Well G actually read the bag (bonus points for him) unlike me, and discovered that it isn't detergent at all. It's for softening the water in the dishwasher, and it goes in a special place, sort of like Jet Dry. All this time the dishes haven't really been being washed with soap- just hot water. Oops. :) And the drying element in the dishwasher works when the heat in the house is on- we have hot water heating, so there's some kind of link there.

I hope your week has been less eventful so far, and that your cars are all running. :)

Update: I was just able to get the immobiliser to deactivate! Praise Gd- I had to go to 5 different websites, download and use this diagnostic tool which is for renault mechanics, figure out where the "central locking button" was, which I got wrong the first few times I tried this, and then I had to push the button in and out to enter this code to bypass the immobiliser. Whew. The car started right up. This may be a temporary fix, at least until I can discover why it stopped working in the first place. But I did learn how to tell if an IR device is working- point it at your digital camera (one that has a viewscreen) and push the button. The camera can see the IR light coming out of the key, which we can't see with our eyes.

Anyway now we can drive again. To those of you who pr'd, thank you!

September 17, 2007 Our Vonage is now working!

This morning our DSL modem arrived, and G set up the wireless router and the Vonage box! So now, after having been here I forget how long, you can call our US cell phone numbers and it will ring right here in our house in the UK! G's number is 734-646-8594, and mine is 734-915-5344- both will ring here. I should remind everyone that we are 5 hours ahead of you, so unless there's an emergency (or it's a weekend) don't call after 5pm Michigan time, because we'll be in bed. :)

It is definitely getting chillier here- last night the high was 6 degrees. So something like 42 or 43F, as an estimate. It's cold outside today too, and cloudy. The trees are continuing to turn brownish. It definitely feels like Fall here, although it doesn't look like Fall. And it feels different from fall in Michigan. There's a Clint Black song that I always think of around this time of the year in Michigan, and it goes, "I can't explain, there's something strange about the early fall. It's a comfort leaving me without a care. I remain, while everything around me hears the call, and tonight I feel a change in the air." I used to listen to country a lot in the mid 90s, before it got progressively more and more about cheating on people, nascar, and other stuff that I don't care to listen to. If you want to hear true country, look for Chet Atkins. True old school country is very popular here believe it or not- I see lots of CDs and things, and I listened to a station which played Dolly Parton right after a very old Willie Nelson song. There is a definite interest in all things American here, right down to country music. :)

I thought today I'd put up some pictures of food labels- I found them interesting, and they are very different from the US ones. Here is a box of soy milk, which they call Soya drink:


If you look at it, you can see a big V in the corner of the box- that is to indicate that it is Vegan safe. They take being vegetarian (and all forms of it) very seriously here, and they label everything so that vegetarians don't have to ever consume animal products of any sort if they don't choose to. Sometimes where that V is other products will have something that says Gi or other things if you are Gluten intolerant, have diabetes, or are allergic to nuts. All products are quite clearly labeled to help those people navigate products. The 5 other boxes are supposed to convey some sort of nutritional information, but I think the US system is clearer and actually tells you something. The back of the box is different too:


It's color coded so you know where to find the relevant info that you need. The pink at the top is for allergies- they have to tell you about whether there were even ever at one point nuts in a factory where this product was made. it's very thorough. They have the standard vitamins and minerals stuff on there too. And very detailed directions about how to store it and take care of it.


Even Pepsi has to make their bottles fit into the teeny fridges. This one was still too tall to fit. It's a 1.5L bottle, and yes, it does in fact taste like real Pepsi. :) We don't drink pop much (hardly ever) and this one lasted for about 2 months.

Sometimes the funniest things here are not the foods themselves, but the labels. Here's a good example:



In case you can't read it, it says, "Volvic, fills you with Volcanicity!" Now, G and I found this hilarious- the main aspects of volcanoes are that they are really hot, they erupt, and spew gases and big chunks of molten lava all over the place. Why would anyone want to buy a product with such a negative implication about the effect it will have on your GI track? It seems like bad marketing. But in fact, they are trying to say that "Volcanicity" is like some type of energy- drinking our product will give you more energy all day long. Hmm. The picture of the person jumping into the air just didn't add to their concept of this product.

Another favorite strange label of ours is the toothpaste and tooth product series called Retard-ex. I don't have a picture- we discovered that one on a previous trip. :)

September 16, 2007

I always wonder what day to day life is like in other countries. Maybe some of you wonder what day to day life is like here. How is it different from the US? What things are the same? What do the electric plugs look like? Are the cars the same? Over the next few blogs I'll be putting up pictures of various things which are either the same or different, so you can get a glimpse into what daily life is like here. Ah the benefits of a crazy tricked out cell phone! :)

For starters, although houses aren't too different here, household management can be, let's say interesting. :) Certainly not as interesting as living in a frontier village, or in a village in a 3rd world country. But there are some differences.


For instance, although most (I think just about all) households have a washer, many people here don't have a tumble dryer. Most people around us hang their clothes to dry. Which isn't too big of a deal, if it isn't raining. Or in my case if the landlord doesn't turn on her sprinkler causing water to shoot over the garden wall. :) We're only 2 people, so our laundry is maneagable to hang dry. But at least one American family that we are friends with has 4 kids, plus the 2 of them, and they went out specifically to try to locate a tumble dryer to make the wife's life much easier. Here is a picture of our washer- the washers here are very small, but ironically this washer is the most tricked out washer I've ever seen. It has an LCD display, and although it isn't a touch screen it's pretty close. The options are overwhelming and sometimes not understandable. It does not talk to you, although it seems like it should. :)

Most people here have a dishwasher. Our dishwasher has been around the block a few times, and I think the heater element is broken because although it purports to "wash" the dishes, after the whole cycle is done, I open the dishwasher and not only are some of the dishes not clean, they are all sopping wet, and some of the plates have mold growing on them! The cycle is only an hour long! That's some very fast growing mold.



I don't think people here have garbage disposals. At least not in Cambridge- it just doesn't seem to be as common as it was in Ann Arbor. Maybe in London more people have them- I don't know. We take our compostable stuff out to the compost pile which our landlords have.

We do have a trash collection service here in Swavesey, although the northeast villages (of which Swavesey is one) are generally considered to be the least desirable to live in because their "services" aren't as good. And people here would rather live in brand new built homes for some reason. Anyway our trash pick up is every other week- black bins for normal trash one week, green bins for paper and organics the other week. We don't put out the green bin often since we don't have a whole lot of paper to go in it, and our other compostables go on the pile. We share our trash bins with 3b, the Indian couple who lives next door. It can be quite annoying if you forget to put the bins out, because you have to wait a whole 2 weeks, and with 2 households they can fill up. Plus the day to put it out isn't always consistent. :) The garbage trucks here are cute and small compared to ones in the US. That isn't because people here have less trash- in fact the packaging here is even worse than the US if you can believe it. Everything has at least 3 layers of plastic on it. It's ridiculous.



The electric plugs here, as most of you know, are 220V instead of 110. They also have a different plug type, as you can see. They are obsessive about grounding all plugs. Nothing here comes without a ground. Also, all the wall plugs have 2 little switches, which you use to turn off the electricity (which they call the Mains) before you unplug the device. I don't always do that. :) But the plugs are designed so that there is definitely no yanking on the plug to pull it out- you need an adult sized hand and adult strength fingers to pull that thing out. If you look at the open plug on the right you can see that it looks like the 2 bottom holes are not completely open. This is a slightly older plug- newer ones are shut like that, and you have to push very hard to get the plug to go in. Some are set so that the ground has to go in slightly first or else the plug simply won't go in. Did I mention that the government is very serious about regulating everyone's safety here? :)


Wondering what this crazy devise is? That huge box is the phone jack. Instead of being recessed into the walls, they stick out like this. The phone plug itself is different from the US ones, and this little box makes it very difficult to push the plug in, because it has a spring loaded piece to prevent anything from being pushed into the phone box. Including phone cords. :) The dangling thing is our router "dongle" which lets us plug the router and DSL in to the BT line. Oh, also this little box is not near the floor, where you'd expect to find a phone box...it's 3 feet off the ground, in a very prominent place in the living room. I don't know why. :)



Here is a picture of our refridgerator. It looks like a dorm room fridge doesn't it? Well, it's basically that size. Actually less wide, although a little taller. Fridges here are notoriously small, which means that many items sold in the supermarket are sized for these teeny fridges. Our at least has 2 drawers for veggies at the bottom, but a cucumber won't fit in there. Asparagus is about the largest thing you can put in a drawer. Below the fridge is the freezer:


The interesting thing about our freezer is that there's a guide on the door (which you can't see) telling you what foods to put in which drawer! Very interesting. We don't have much to freeze, so it mostly just sits there empty.

I think that's it for the appliances and jacks and things. :) Next up- interesting foods and their equally interesting (and ambiguous) labels. :)

September 12, 2007

Although it is football season, maybe you thought I was just oblivious to the UM football happenings. I wish I was- I'm still in shock. :) Anyway being football season, my nephew has started his first year in flag football! He's 7, and in 2nd grade this year, and my dad sent me some pictures of his game that I'm putting up here. I can't decide whether the boys seem small in their uniforms, or big- they seem awfully big for 7 year olds! Pretty soon American is going to be a land of giants at this rate- I'm already the shortest in my family by 6-9 inches, the last thing I need is everyone in the US to be 6 foot tall. :) G doesn't have nearly so many tall relatives as I do, but someday maybe we'll end up with really tall kids anyway. :)

It's hard for me to believe that 6 years ago today we were still reeling from the 9/11 attacks. The time goes by so fast, and it's easy to forget. 6 years ago G's contract with the Marine Reserves was up just before the attacks, and he decided to extend it since it seemed likely that his unit would be deployed, although that would have meant just about starting over on his research for his PhD. As most of you know he did not in fact go to Iraq- he kept extending and extending his contract, and finally when it seemed like his unit was not going to be sent he got out as he had planned. Several months later his unit was sent, and fortunately none of his group was killed in that deployment. Just after we got married we had a wonderful dinner with his staff sargeant and his wife, and he showed us his pictures from his Iraq deployment. Funny how the soldiers on the ground have such a different account of events than our news and politicians. I grew up looking at soldier pictures- I always loved seeing my dad's pictures when he got back from "playing army" (that's what my mom always called it) in the field for weeks on end. And of course hearing the stories that go with the pictures. Anyway it's good to think back on events like this and be thankful for our lives now.

On a less somber note, it's a beautiful warm sunny day here in Swavesey. The weather here seems to be improving, even though it is fall almost and many trees are turning brown or yellow. Alas no sugar maples with their beautiful green to red, no lovely golden quaking aspens. The horse chestnuts have been the first to have their leaves turn brown and shrivel up, and the lindens (which they call Limes) are next, with their leaves turning dingy yellow and dropping off. There really is no where like Michigan for a stunning fall, and an equally stunning spring.

Nelly has gotten over her little cat cold- I noticed that she was acting a bit strange last Monday, and decided to keep an eye on her. She didn't want to go outside, or play with anything, and she just stayed on our bed most of the time. And she sneezed cute little cat sneezes. :) But she's gradually gotten better- I guess here she's exposed to more cats and more likely to catch things from them than she was in Ann Arbor. Anyway she gradually improved and yesterday she was back to her normal self, sleeping in the sun in the garden, chasing away "cat fiend," and going outside and playing at night. About "cat fiend," who has not featured in a blog as yet. :D At least I'm not sure. Anyway about 2 or 3 weeks ago we started having visits from a strange neighborhood cat who appeared to be always famished, and was eating Nelly's food. But of course at night. I suspected it was the neighbor's cat, and they were on holiday and had been for some weeks, so I started shutting the cat flap at night and putting food outside until they got back. Anyway, Nelly didn't seem to care about this cat, so we had been calling him or her "cat friend" which is my normal monacher for an unknown but friendly cat. G saw the cat and it wasn't Miu Miu, the neighbor's cat, after all. After I read Cat Confidential, especially her section about how cat flaps can allow foreign cats in which disturbs the peace of your own cat, and after Nelly snuck down stairs one night and attacked said cat with much hissing and yowling, we determined that a better name for the cat intruder from Nelly's perspective was "cat fiend." So now that's what we call this unknown cat. Cat fiend occasionally comes and tries to mark our garden as his/her territory by going in my flower beds, which Nelly always counters by going there too, and diligently watching to be sure he/she doesn't come into her area. Well now you know the story of cat fiend. :) Cat fiend hasn't been around much recently though so I think he or she got the message. But we do still shut the flap at night, which Nelly hasn't complained about.

Yesterday I heard the most awful commercial on the radio. I honestly can't believe they put this on the air, especially on a radio station which has mostly "conservative" listeners. But you don't need to be politically conservative to be offended by this ad- here I'm using conservative in a much wider meaning. This ad is for a text message service of some type, which is perfectly innocent in and of itself. But the ad is made to sound like 2 men talking about a prostitute. If you text to the name Maureen you can get whatever service, the weather or whatever it was, texted back to you for 10p. However the ad blatantly sounded like a conversation where one man is discussing the "cheapness" of said "Maureen," who is made to sound like a prostitute with various "services." Their ad tag line is "Maureen, she's so cheap." It's horrible. I'm going to email the radio station to ask them to take it off the air. Perhaps they think it's funny, and I know British humor differs from ours, but this is beyond the bounds of that and is into the "highly improper" realm now. This is a classical radio station and they don't normally have many ads at all, none that have ever been like this one.

September 11, 2007

Today has been an exciting day so far. First of all, I am actually typing this blog from home, right into Blogger, instead of my usual method of typing the blog and posting them all once a week. We actually have internet now! Yay!!!!!! Nothing is without it's glitch here though- Virgin sent us a DSL modem thing which does not have an ethernet jack. It's designed to plug in to a desktop computer via USB. So although we have an excellent new router which will give signal for a long way (we wanted to be able to use the connection all over the house and in the back garden) we can't plug it in to the modem. :) George is working on this little problem. But until we get that sorted out I'm not complaining about having to sit in our living room with the modem right next to me. I'm just happy to be connected to the rest of the world again!

Alas, this issue with the modem also prevents us from plugging in our vonage box, which is also ethernet. So it'll be some time longer before we can call out on Vonage. But we can call on skype at least now that we have a connection.

After much deliberation I decided to go with T-mobile for my cell phone provider. We don't have sprint or Nextel here, which I've always used back home. T-mobile will give you a free phone if you have a 1 year contract. So since the phone was free (and after playing with G's phone) I decided to go with a phone that has some more features. The phone I picked has a really good camera and it has video (I'm in the process of uploading video here if it will let me) but I thought it had a stylus pen to navigate with (and more importantly to enter information with) and it doesn't- it just has a little joystick and you have to push the buttons a million times to enter anything in. I've only had it a few hours so we'll see if the camera and video are better enough quality to be worth keeping the phone or if I end up selling it on ebay and getting a different one. (It's now 8pm here, and after having looked at other phones, there aren't any with a camera and the sort of PDA options that G has- so I think I'm sticking with this one. Besides it's growing on me, especially the good pictures it takes and the easy internet access from it. :)

I can't figure out how to get the video onto my computer from the phone, but I'll keep working on that and then you can all watch a video from my view driving through Swavesey and swerving around the parked cars and such on the wrong side of the road. :) Ok, now it's 8pm and I have the video on my computer, but it's a strange format....I think it'll have to wait for tomorrow.

Even though we're in England September 11th is still September 11th. We heard a lot about it on the news, along with General Patraeus' stuff with Congress. Honestly I think we don't realize just how much America is like one of those snow globes- the entire world is watching us. They really are. We hear lots of US news here on the radio, and I don't know if I heard UK news once a month in the US. I got a good dose of the "the world's watching" in Cambodia and elsewhere, but it's always a reminder when new friends here ask us about US news.

September 9, 2007

There's a rumor from Virgin that our internet service might be hooked up Tuesday! Hmm....well we'll see if the router comes in the mail before then, and if it actually works, and if the internet service is actually activated. :) But as soon as it is I will be lighting up the phone lines calling all you guys that I've been missing for the past 6 weeks! Although I complain about it this has been a great experience for me- it's good for me. :D If it was Cambodia I don't think I would have batted an eye, but living in a developed country is deceiving. It is good for me, and I'm honestly glad it happened.

We had a great time at the Willingham Auction yesterday-it was just crazy. There were tons of antiques for really affordable prices. This is a pretty famous auction house- people drive up from London to come to it, even though it is in a teeny village. Anyway anything and everything was there, from antiques to someone's locally made clay pots. We had a blast- we got an oak chest (for me to put my clothes in to prevent spiders from jumping out at me when I want to get dressed), a small desk type thing, and an awesome rug. Now this is not just any rug. This rug is a piece of furniture in and of itself. I've seen some nice handmade rugs before, but never one as nice as this one. When you step onto it, it's like walking on a little cloud. It was made by the Quaqui (spelling uncertain) people of Iran, from wool, and I just love it. It is now hands down my favorite piece of furniture, and if it wasn't for fear of the spiders coming out at night I'd sleep on it. :) It has a beautiful luster, amazing details and colors, and I don't think I'll ever be able to look at a rug the same way again. I'll post some pictures if I can get some that do it justice. It currently has pride of place right in front of the fireplace. :)

Do you have a cat? Are you thinking of getting one? Or know someone who has one? I bought the best book about cat behavior that I have ever read this week at an Oxfam resale bookshop. It's called Cat Confidential, and it's by Vicky.......I forget who. Halls. Vicky Halls. She's a vet and a cat "psychologist." Now I always thought those people were ridiculous- after all, why pay someone to talk to my cat to determine it's problems? Well this woman is something else- basically she has studied cats and cat behavior, that's what she does. People contact her when they have problems, especially strange behaviors, with their cats. Like peeing in strange places, spraying, chewing on clothing, all sorts of things. You should definitely read it. It's a UK book, and if you can't find it online let me know- I bought several copies from that same store. She also has a few others, Cat Detective (about determining yourself what's up with your cat so you don't have to pay someone like her) and Cat Counsellor, which is supposed to be about how your cat actually relates to you. I'm going to buy the other 2 books myself, and I'll let you know. The stories she has are quite hilarious, and she is right on with many of her assessments of cat behavior. She has a great story about a woman who's cat had started stealing wallets and cell phones from her neighbors (against the desire of it's owner who was in shock when she found out).

The painting is still happening- I haven't mentioned it recently because, well, it's just getting done. :) G is liking painting a lot, especially with the rollers, which can be very fun. :)

September 7, 2007 Farewell Pavarotti

I was very sad to hear about the death of Lucciano Pavarotti yesterday. Here in the UK most classical stations changed their lineup and his death was almost as big as Princess Diana. I was first introduced to Pavarotti, and to the world of opera when I was given a CD of the 3 Tenors 1990 World Cup performance, which transformed the opera world and brought in an enormous younger audience. That CD made me more interested in opera, and although I was already interested in classical music it was very impacting on my life. I never thought I'd be studying voice though! :) Pavarotti's voice was simply amazing, and I've never heard a man's voice that I liked better than his. He just had a sort of energy, and his voice was so clear and beautiful sounding. I respect the work that he did outside of opera as well, promoting peace in his time, and the way that he made his family a priority despite all that. If you've never heard him sing I can recommend some excellent pieces of his.

Today we're going down to London to see a Walker Evans exhibit. Evans was a large format photographer who photographed rural life in America in 1935-1936. He's quite famous. Anyway I couldn't pass up the chance to see his work in real life, at real size (they're enormous) as opposed to simply in a book or just hearing about it. That's one benefit to living here- London draws incredible exhibits and things that I'd never be able to see without travelling a long way at home.

PR for Nelly if you would- she's been a bit under the weather, and I think she has a cat cold. If she isn't better by Monday I'll take her to the vet.

The garden is coming along well- I've planted lots of cyclamen, and now I'm actually mulching it bit by bit. It looks way way better already. I forgot to take a picture before I left this morning but I'll work on it. :)

Tomorrow is our first auction! We've never been to one, and there's one in Willingham tomorrow morning. Very interesting. I don't know if we'll actually by anything but the experience should be interesting.

September 4, 2007

As I write this the funeral bell is tolling in Swavesey. On our way in to drop G off at work we saw the hearse, which had transferred the coffin to a beautiful old funeral carriage or wagon, all in black with black horses and glass sides. On my way back, there was a traffic backup going through Swavesey- the cemetery is on the other side of our little village, with the chrch being on the very far end of the village. When I finally made it home the bell began to toll, and because of the backup there was no traffic or noise coming from the High Street. The bell has been tolling for at least 5 minutes now- perhaps it tolls for the entire service. It has put new meaning to me to Hemingway’s phrase “for whom the bell tolls” because I never realized there was an actual bell that tolls for a funeral- that doesn’t happen in the US, at least I’ve never heard it happen. Everyone in town can hear the bell, and likely many local people know about the death. What an interesting tradition- the sound of the bell reminds us all that our lives must someday end, and challenges us to consider the age old question of what will happen to us when we die. It gives everyone an opportunity to consider Gd, and to think about their own faith, whatever it may or may not be. Today I stopped at the doorway to our cottage and said a pr for the family who is grieving, and I thanked Gd for my life and took a little time to remember my blessings. And to remember that though I am young, I can’t predict the day or the hour of my own death.

The bell has stopped now, and I can hear a few cars on their busy way through Swavesey. Although you can’t hear the bell yourselves, I hope you’ll take some time to think about your own life and be grateful for the time you’ve had, and for the blessings that you have received.

September 3, 2007

We are finally getting all of our miscellaneous tax stuff set up here. G has an official National Insurance Number (it’s a bit like the social security number except I don’t need one) and we recently received a polite sounding bill from the Cambridgeshire Office telling us all about the Council Tax and what the money is used for, and how much we owe. It’s basically a property tax. Our house is Band D, which has pretty low tax anyway. But still it’s $2400/ year. That goes toward the schools, library, roads, garbage collection, police, fire, etc. At least we only have to pay for while we were living here and not the whole year.

Everyone here offers to set you up with direct debit on your bills. BT, the council tax, G’s phone, our rent…. We had to set up the rent that way, it was required. But I don’t like that they debit stuff on different days- how is a person supposed to keep track of their money that way? We’ll see- I think Barclays will let me do online bill paying like I do in Ann Arbor so maybe I’ll set them all up that way.

Nelly has taken her new solemn duty as a cat, that of finding, chasing, capturing, and otherwise disposing (read eating) of household insects and pests very seriously. 2 nights ago we came home and I flipped on the kitchen light and there was a gigantor house spider- a female one this time. Nelly saw it and went straight for it. This is the second one she’s eaten, and since they run so fast I think she likes the chase. She even has a stun technique down where she baps it (that’s a technical term ;) ) to stun it and then grabs it in her mouth. A bit gross, but whatever. One fewer spider running around in the open in the house is a plus in my book. But today I did buy this insect sucker upper thing that an upscale store I wandered into had for a few bucks. I hope it works- it’ll save G from chasing bugs with a glass and a piece of paper.

The fascination of the 4 inch long slugs has still not worn off me yet. They are something- their skin looks like dragon skin almost, but they don’t actually have scales. Just yesterday after my fight with the overgrown vine (see the pictures of me climbing on the wall) I spotted a huge slug between some pots. The big slugs are brown, just like the dirt- really dark brown. The little slugs are that sort of pasty slug color we’re all familiar with. I saw another giant slug last night out front eating a dandelion. Anyway if you look at the picture you’ll see that the one slug was as long as a teacup.

Did I mention that a few weeks ago at the car boot sale we talked with an interesting guy from whom we bought a print of Ely Cathedral? This guy had a cartoon book, called When The Wind Blows. Some of you who were adults during the early 80s (I was too young to understand politics) might have heard of the book. It was a huge to do here in the UK- the book is basically about what would happen if there was a nuclear attack on London. The government “warned” people but the focus of this book is an older couple who just doesn’t really understand about nuclear war. Anyway they are told to build a pointy shelter, and paint the windows white, and wear white shirts and stuff like that, but no one tells them in plain words that when the bomb hits they will basically die within 2 weeks from radiation poisoning. It’s a sad “cartoon” but anyway this guy bought the book for his kids. I thought that was weird. He gave it to us, which was also weird. Apparently the UK was more worried about a nuclear war happening that most people were in the US. Anyway if any of you have heard of the book let me know. It’s very UK focused so I doubt if it made it to the US.

Speaking of the 80’s, I guess I wasn’t totally clueless about politics. When I turned 5 we were living in Texas (my dad was in the army if you didn’t know that) and I remember my grandparents asking me what I wanted for my birthday. 5 is a big birthday you know. Well, I wanted 2 things: a Snoopy watch (which I still have) and a newspaper. I remember telling them that on the phone. They tried to talk me out of the newspaper, and kept asking me why I wanted it and wouldn’t I like something else instead? I wanted to read it of course- what else do you do with a newspaper? I remember feeling bored of all my books, and since my mom taught me to read at like 3 I was a bit ahead of the game. So my grandma and grandpa sent me a newspaper, and I clearly remember the front page- it was an article about Oliver North and the Iran Contra scandal, with a picture of him on the front. Of course I didn’t know what any of that was, so although I could read all the words my parents had to try to explain what the Iran Contra scandal was when I started asking them about it, who Oliver North was, and why all of this stuff was going on. I have to give my family credit for not just thinking I was a silly kid. You never know what your kids will remember- I remembered about Oliver North, and I was probably the only kid in my school who knew anything about the Iran Contra scandal until I was in high school.

On a different topic, I am still looking for a wardrobe to put in our bedroom so we can stop storing our clothes in the cupboards that are in here. Said cupboards having dark unfrequented corners, which of course are ideal for spiders. I went to a resale shop called Emmaus House. They have homeless guys living out there and they teach them a trade. It’s cool. Plus people can call them to pick up their furniture or they can drop it off. So there are tons of interesting furniture sets there, tables, and all sorts of things. They have a lot of wardrobes, but I didn’t find one that was what I was looking for. I did find among their awesome book selection several books about English country houses, the history of the landed gentry here, and what it was like for the wealthy who lived in these big manor houses. I also picked up a BBC Antiques Roadshow guide on spotting a fake antique. That’s been quite interesting too, since I look for antique ceramics and things at car boot sales.

For me one aspect of living here which I find very annoying is that I get stared at a lot. I get stared at in the US as well occasionally, but not like here. It’s always men, and since I dress conservatively and I don’t wear anything American I am sometimes tempted to ask them why they are staring! Most of the guys are sort of polite about it (if such a thing exists) but some of them just stare right at me with their mouths hanging open. Now, I’m used to getting looks in hardware stores or auto parts stores- those places are not places men are used to seeing women in, especially in the power tools section or where the serious tools are. In fact we went to that store MacKays to buy a normal shovel, and it turns out they don’t have them in the store, you have to order them from Germany. But while we were there G decided to have an extra house key cut, and while he was doing that I was looking at the tools, the belt sanders, and generally seeing what they had so I would know for future projects. I’m not kidding that just about every guy in the store openly stared at me, even though I was wearing my “I’m going into a hardware store” outfit. But outside of those unusual stores it still happens, and today at least 3 different men at 3 different stores stared at me as I went into a store.

Planning a visit to Cambridge!

Several people have been asking us, “What is there to do in Cambridge?” I know that some of you are planning a visit in the next year. Well there are lots of things to do here! I decided to do a blog on some of them so you can be getting ideas and look around at some different websites to give you an idea what you might enjoy doing when you come. I’ve sorted the things to do into various categories.

Shopping

Shopping is one of the main attractions for British people to go to Cambridge. Cambridge is considered a fairly large city, and it has a lot of what they call “High Street” shops. Most of which I’ve walked into and walked back out of because they are so expensive. :) I personally thing the best shopping is at the central market in Cambridge. There’s a market everyday in the City Centre which has food, clothing, antiques, bikes, you name it. I often buy veggies and fruit if I’m down there. One of the same sellers sells at the car boot sales on Sunday morning so we’ve been buying from them then instead. There’s a great seller who carried pashmina shawls and scarves. The antiques seller has interesting paintings, small ones which could go home with you, as well as tea cups, saucers, tea pots, tureens, and lots of interesting stuff of that nature.

Besides the market there are lots of charity shops here- if you’re interested in bringing back something truly British, like an antique book or interesting vase or tea pot or something like that these places can be good ones to pick something like that up. I find lots of interesting British books that way. Oxfam has a wonderful bridal section which has great fancy dresses for not too much. Sometimes I poke around in there just to see if I can find a nice white dress for the next Scottish ball. :)

If you’re interested in new books, there’s a seller downtown called Galloway and Porter, and they carry discounted books, ones that were overruns and stuff like that. They have tons of good stuff in there- I buy all my gardening books from them for like $4 or $5.

Of course no trip is complete without a visit to a UK foodseller. Tesco, Sainsbury, Marks and Spencer are all worth a visit because their system is so different from ours. Marks and Spencer has a whole store dedicated to prepackaged foods alone. :) Anyway wandering around a store looking for something suddenly becomes a lot more fun when you have friends with you. :)

In the villages there are interesting Farm Shops, which are a bit like Clinton’s Atlas Feed and Grain. If you’re from Clinton or nearby you know what I’m talking about. :)

Oh I almost forgot about the Arts and Crafts Market downtown on Fridays and Saturdays. There are lots of great photographers there as well as interesting handmade ceramics, jewelry, and tons of other interesting things.

Last but not least Cambridge seems to have a lot of chocolate shops. Enough said there. :)

Historical buildings

Cambridge is an ancient city and is just packed with old buildings. Cambridge University is actually comprised of something like 30 smaller “colleges,” all of which have their own small campuses here in the city. Depending on the time of the year you can walk through most of them- tourist season is not a good time to visit though if you’re interested in that. Most will let you tour through if you pay a small fee, or are free if you go at the right time of the day. I think we can go in free now since we’re Cambridgeshire residents now. All of the colleges have beautiful chapels which are very interesting, besides the greens inside and the flowers and stuff. I’ve been to almost all of the colleges and they are all beautiful. If you’d like a tour I’ll hook you up. :) But make sure you bring a camera and plenty of film/CF cards. King’s College, which is famous for it’s choir, is amazing.

Besides the colleges there are many historic churches here in Cambridge. St Botolphs was built in the 1200s, and there are several others which are worth seeing. There is a round church here in Cambridge (yep, the central part is a big cylinder) which is very old. St Mary’s which is downtown has a stairway all the way up to the top which has the best view of Cambridge anywhere.

Just walking around the city center is interesting- there are all the old buildings with the wood visible, and the white plaster, with the building leaning a bit over the road. :)

Outside of the city there are the following places which you can find online as well:

1. Anglesey Abbey, a nice smallish manor house with very pretty grounds and a nice rose garden. http://www.angleseyabbey.org/
2. Wimpole Hall and Home Farm- I think my favorite- the house is great, the grounds are just beautiful and they have very interesting gardens. There’s also the Home Farm, which was built in the 1700s as a model farm and is a working farm. You can see the animals there, and you can even learn to use the Shire horses to plow and stuff. And you can pet some of the animals, a definite bonus. :)They are obsessed with handwashing too, so no worried about mad cow. :) http://www.wimpole.org/
   
3. Audley End- a very old house with small but pretty grounds and short walks. They have a Snowdrop walk in February which we went to that was really cool.http://www.audley-end.co.uk/
4. Ickworth- This place is huge, like I said. It’s an unusual house, with an interesting history. http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-ickworthhouseparkandgarden/
   

Let me know if you're interested in joining the National Trust and I can take care of that before you come, so that you'll be all set with a card and everything. If you want to go to more than one place it's worth it to join.

20 minutes away there’s St Ives, and also Ely, which is fascinating- they have a cathedral there right in the fens, and you can take a tour up into the top. They also have a stained glass window museum.

Farther out (as in maybe an hour or 2) there’s Oxford, and 3 hours will get you to Bath where you can visit the Roman baths. We’re planning to go there sometime. There’s also LondonJ There is also the Peak District, and the Lake District, both of which are famous places in northern England, famous for their beautiful scenery. If you’ve seen either of the Pride and Prejudice movies you’ve seen bits of Darbyshire, which is at least partly in the Peak District. within 2 hours drive. But who wants to go there? ;)

Walks and bike rides

Swavesey is in the best possible location for nice hikes and walks. We are on the edge of the Fen Drayton National Preserve, and there are tons of small lakes here. There’s also the River Ouse, and there are public walkways through the fields and everything else here. Our village is quaint and so are the surrounding ones which are an easy bike ride. Everything’s beautiful here all day everyday no matter what the weather is. At least that’s my opinion. :) You can really get a good idea what life is like here if you bike around. The villages of Over and Willingham are both within an easy bike ride, and Over is just as small as Swavesey. Willingham is a step up- they have my favorite new craft store (all the stores here are so teeny and quaint) and also some decent farm shops where you can buy all local produce, meat, preserves, etc.

All of the big manor houses have good walks, but Wimpole has a nice Gothic Folly (a pretend castle) that is a nice walk out to.

Out of country

It is very easy and very cheap to fly to anywhere in Europe via Ryan Air or Easy Jet. If you’d like to hop over to Europe (here known as “The Continent”) you can do that. Jen and I flew to Ireland for a 4 day driving trip, which was great. You could fly up to Scotland easily too. Or if you want to test your foreign language skills and see some interesting sites you could fly to Rome, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna, even as far as Turkey I think. Some friends here flew to Ephesus on Easy Jet. It’s easy to stay at a hostel or a bed and breakfast for a few days and then come back. I think I’m going to visit some friends in Germany in October when they fly over for another friend’s wedding. After all it’s only a 10 hour drive, or an hour flight. :)

Eating

One of the most popular things to do in Cambridge on what they call a “Day Out” is go shopping and eat at one of the good restaurants here. Now, food is one of the most noticeably expensive things here. Everything costs more with the value of the dollar down against the pound, but food seems more noticeable. Anyway there are good places to eat here that aren’t expensive. And you just can’t leave England without having had at least these 2 things- a full English breakfast, and a cream tea. :) We’ll make sure that you get both, and we can even make it ourselves so it won’t be expensive. :)

There are several good truly Italian restaurants here, and at least one good French restaurant. And I didn’t see snails on their menu. :) There is no good American food- none. But we can certainly make something Americanish. Honestly I’m not sure what I would classify as American food anyway- it varies so much by region, and even in one state 2 hours away people eat totally different foods. But there is great English food if you eat at a pub during the day. You can eat in the evenings as well but people drink more then and I don’t like that so much. During the day they are nice and cosy, good food, not stinky or loud at all. One thing to remember- pubs are NOT like bars. They are not at all the same. Pubs are really a place where people go and hang out, which is different from my idea of a bar. :) Oh, one thing to know is that there is absolutely no smoking inside any building in Cambridgeshire. Not even pubs or bars. I’m a big fan of that- it’s a new law as of July 1^st 2007.

There are some good Thai places, one good Chinese place, and lots of good English places. It all depends on what you want to eat and how much you’re willing to pay.

Music

Cambridge has tons of concerts all year round- between the 30 colleges and all the local groups there’s always excellent music. Especially classical, and especially baroque and ancient music. We went to a harpsichord concert at Kings which just happened to be going on after an Evensong (an evening service where the choir sings) and it was phenomenal. The organ concerts there are amazing as well- King’s College Chapel is incredible, and the acoustics are beyond anything I’ve ever heard. Even Hill Auditorium, my second fav after King's College Chapel. :)

My personal suggestions

If you are coming to visit you should plan on doing the following at the very least:

-a visit to Wimpole

-Going up to the top of St Mary’s to see the view of Cambridge

-Taking a tour of King’s College Chapel

-Walking through the colleges which back on the river Cam

-Walking around Cambridge

-One or 2 short walks around Swavesey

-A visit to Ely Cathedral, including the Octogon Tower

-A walk through a car boot sale if you’re here over a Sunday

-Going to at least one evensong service (it’s an interesting experience)

-Catching an evening concert somewhere in Cambridge

Getting here

I’ve fielded a few questions about arranging to come here. So here is some info to help you.

Flights

Northwest flies a nonstop overnight service from Detroit to London Gatwick, which leaves every evening at 10pm. British Airways flies a similar flight overnight nonstop from Detroit to London Heathrow leaving at I think 9pm. Air Canada has a 1 stop flight, Detroit to Toronto, then overnight Toronto to London Heathrow (I think.)

I recommend signing up for Travelocity, which sends emails out every week on the best fare deals. There are often great cheap flights to London on there. I use Orbitz to book all of our flights, and although I know that people used to say you should book 14 days in advance, but I think that’s gone out the window now. I wouldn’t venture to suggest that you wait till the last minute, but, well, that’s what we do. I’m sure you’re not surprised by that. :)

Don't plan on arriving here on a Friday. The traffic is horrendous. If you want to arrive on Friday plan on taking the train to Cambridge (hint hint). :D You will get the best fare deals if you fly out Tuesday through Thursday, and Monday is the next best after that. Also Sundays aren't too bad. But Friday and Saturday are usually more expensive.

Flights over here are cheapest ($350-$450) during the non peak season, which basically means October through the end of April. The absolute cheapest are in January and February. It’s generally in the 40s here then, which is about 40 degrees or more warmer than Michigan at that time. J Most of the National Trust houses aren’t open then except for special events, but the grounds are. I don’t know about the status of car boot sales in the winter. :)

Currently, fall flights run about $700 on Northwest or British Airways if you don’t catch a sale. But Air Canada has flights for $550, which isn’t bad either.

You have a few options about getting to Cambridge from London. 1. You can take the train. 2. We can pick you up. If you’d like to see the countryside and ride the famous London Underground (and you don’t have much luggage) you can take the airport train to Victoria Street station, then take the Underground to King’s Cross station, where you can get on a train to Cambridge. It’s not all that complicated. Or, we can come and pick you up, which might mean some time to kill at the airport for you depending on what time your flight comes in. It takes about 2 hours to go through customs, get your luggage, etc if it isn’t busy. 3 hours if it’s busy. Bring a book or cross stitch or something to do while you wait in line. :) It takes about 2 hours if there’s not bad traffic to get from Cambridge to Heathrow. 3 hours to Gatwick. Now in traffic, you basically sit in the car for an extra hour, so that makes 3 hours from Heathrow, 4 from Gatwick. If you fly into Gatwick you might want to consider taking the train in to Cambridge, because it will shave 2 hours off your travel time.

Now, we can either come pick you up when you arrive, or you can take the train to Cambridge from London, especially in morning rush hour traffic. If you fly into Gatwick you can take a train into London center and then out to Cambridge, or you can take the train to Heathrow, where it will be easier to pick you up. The train and Underground experience is worth having I think, but that’s up to you. :) I’d even be willing to take the train in and meet you at the airport and help you through the underground and the train system. and we can pick you up at the station. If your flight is coming in very early, like before 10am, the train is probably the best option because it takes so long to get to London.

August 31, 2007

I am happy to announce that G in all his perseverance finally won out over the horribly inept BT staff and managed to get a phone line! Seriously, every time he called no one seemed to know which department could set up an account. But now we have a phone! I don’t recommend calling it unless there’s an emergency, but hey, at least you can call now if there is one. Speaking of which, here is our info:

G’s office number: ( 4am-1pm EST) 01223-326-737

G’s cell phone: 07979-998-312

Our home phone: 01954-232-006

G has a cell phone now- he bought a barely used one off ebay.uk, and amazingly enough it came 2 days later! I guess the Royal Mail is moving faster without the strike. :) His phone is something else- it’s a Sony Walkman phone, so it has an mp3 player in it, it has some PDF functionality (including checking email and going on the internet) and some other cool stuff that I don’t even know about yet. That email checking feature was great today when G needed to see if his advisor had emailed him regarding this paper he’s submitting on Tuesday, and instead of having to drive 15 minutes in to G’s office he just checked it right here! I’m not one for gadgety phones, but I have to admit that that feature has caught my eye. I’ve always just had a plain old phone, but since it’s against the law to hold the phone handset while driving you need Bluetooth if you want to use the phone in the car. Given how many times I call G because I got detoured (which they call a Diversion here) and am lost, I think I’ll be getting a Bluetooth enabled phone.

So I have the funniest story in the world to tell everyone. When I heard this I laughed so hard for about 20 minutes. As you know, BT turned our phone on yesterday. We lost no time in choosing an internet provider, Virgin. I went in with G and checked some email quickly and then went to do some errands and get some cross stitch supplies (more on that later) in Willingham. When I got home it was about 4pm, and the first thing I did was check to see if the phone was working- they have a funny phone jack here so I had to get a special cord to plug it in. Anyway, I called G’s office as a test, and it worked! He told me that he had just set things up with Virgin for our DSL and internet service stuff, and had just tried to call the house phone to see if it was working. When he tried to call, it rang (which he considered a good sign) and then suddenly a male voice picked up the phone and said “Swavesey Garage.” At which point, G was like “Uhh, I think I called the wrong number.” He checked, and he has a little pad of paper with important numbers on it, none of which are apparently labeled. :) But it gets better- he didn’t just call the Swavesey Garage number thinking it was our home phone line, but he had actually given that same phone number to Virgin to set up our DSL on! When he realized this he had to call Virgin back and get them to re-do the account set up (of course the account is linked to your phone number) and then also call the router people that he ordered a router through (which is somehow linked to Virgin) and cancel the order before they sent our router to Swavesey Garage. :) We’ve taken the car down there twice, and we’re Americans (and I had a good long conversation with the mechanic regarding our cooling fan and a special reroute he had to do on it due to a burned out switch) so I know they would remember us. Imagine if one day they received a package with our name on it with a router in it? How embarrassing! Or if Virgin called asking for G! I just couldn’t believe it.