Outdoor Survival Skills

I really think the reason they move people to the UK over the summer is because the weather is so nice. We had our fair share of sunny days and above average temperatures well into October.  But sometime between the beginning and end of the autumn half term (break), things went to hell in a handbasket.

It is pitch black dark out there save for the oncoming headlights.  It is so bad that the dog needs a flashlight to go out in the evening because without it he misses the steps leading to the grass. Add to that the winding country roads and those single track roads and it is pretty terrifying. Grateful that I learned how to drive here before it got bad.

Some things are expected like cold, darkness, rain and sitting in front of your happy lamp. Interesting side note: if you run a search for happy lamps on Amazon.com, you get these results.  But run the same search on Amazon.co.uk and you get these.  Americans clearly have a more positive spin on naming remedies for Seasonal Affective Disorder.

But, I digress.  Fall is the start of the real rainy season. You know, the one that makes the British Isles greener than the grass stains on a school uniform come spring. And rain brings mud which brings me to today's topic: outdoor learning.

In the UK, part of the curriculum includes something called outdoor learning.  This is different from the outdoor classroom concept which our school in Vienna developed. In fact, it is more like outdoor survival skills.  In the past couple of weeks, the kids have been busy learning all kinds of things like how to rock climb (because England has cliffs), how to kayak and build a raft (because it rains and flooding happens) and how to build fires (because it gets really cold out there).

There is no way that any of this would fly in the the overly safety conscious U.S., but I am grateful that should we become lost in a wilderness some day my kids will know what to do.

But first, between a mix of horseshit from the horse stable and mud from everywhere, I have more laundry to do, boots to spray clean.  Just a typical day in cold, rainy, and foggy England.

Halloween Helpers

Living in the middle of the English countryside, we encounter lots of not so wild life.  It runs the gamut from pigeons that crash into our window leaving an outline of their carcass on our window (pigeons should not let other pigeons fly drunk!) to pheasants that seem to want to do battle with your car.  And, of course, deer, sheep, horses, graze on the fields here.

But, there is one form of not so wild life that has taken up residence inside and around my house. They are making themselves at home here and are trying to help decorate the house for Halloween. They are not welcome - at least not in the house - but this does not stop them.

I am referring to spiders and the tangled webs they weave.

Two inch spider found in my house.

Vienna had ants, bees and translucent bugs. Warsaw had spiders and England has spiders. While I generally do not succumb to arachnophobia unlike other members of my family, these are not small spiders that one occasionally finds around the house.  They are huge spiders.  The largest one to date was 4 inches long, but on average they are about 2 inches long.  They like to hide in the drapes, corners and most recently, I found one in the rubbish bin.  You know what they say - one person's trash is another spider's treasure.

A perfectly formed web on one of our cars.

The cobweb decor isn't reserved for the inside of the house or even the house for that matter.  Every morning, I find perfectly formed webs on the side mirrors of my car.  Last week, I was driving along and stopped at a light.  As I am looking around, I see a baby spider dangling on a web string inside my car.  It had managed to start a web from the car ceiling.

That black speck that is circle:
a baby spider in my car.

People have warned me that I need to check my clothes before putting them on and my bed before getting in. Only a few of them are actually poisonous, but I rather not take chances.  My OCD kicks in when I see cobwebs or baby spiders (because that means there are hundreds somewhere).  I become the spider slayer sucking the life out of them with a vacuum.

They are quite industrious little f**kers, though.  I take down their webs (inside and outside), they build them back up the next day.  It's fall so most of them are males coming inside to mate with female spiders. I can't have a bunch of horny spiders running amok.

I have forged a compromise (mostly with myself) to allow them to live outside. But, if they cross the line, they are risking their horny little lives.

Hang on to your hat...its going to be a bumpy wild ride!

It has been 5 weeks since we arrived in the United Kingdom. In this time, I have learned many things. Tea is a great example.  It is not just a drink. It is a meal.  I found this out this week when I signed my youngest up for tea during her after school activities.  I asked her how her snack was and she tells me that there is no snack, but that she could stay for dinner afterwards. She was starving. I will be sending snack from now on.

But, of all the things I have learned over the past month, nothing compares to driving in England. On the opposite side of the road. On double and triple lane roundabouts. In a right handed drive car.

The driving on the opposite side of the road was the easy part as was driving to/from work.  But, this past week, shit got real.

As some of you know, we got our start here with a bang.  One day after arriving in England from Calais, a teen driver rear ended us while we were stopped at a light.  Since we were flying home the following day for our home leave, we squared things away with our insurance to contact them when we returned.

Welcome to England...

Last week, they picked the car up from our house and left us with a rental. I had no plans of driving this right handed drive, semi-automatic vehicle. But, with my better half very busy at work and my youngest starting after school activities, I had no choice.

My first day was the most harrowing of all.  Driving a right hand drive car, when you have always driven a left hand drive, feels unnatural.  I had to try to focus not only on staying in my lane, but also staying on the road and not brushing up alongside the hedges and trees lining the road and risking falling into a ditch. But that was the least of my problems.

I had to get my youngest at her first horse riding lesson. Nothing gives you more confidence than an email with directions from the school that says "entering the post code into your Sat Nav (GPS) will take you past the location."  The Sat Nav is a way of life here.  Every car has one because post codes is how you find an address.  Google Maps and Waze that found the exact location without issue. The problem was getting there.

Why?  Because you may be plodding along a normal road and then the directions take you onto a single track road.  Read: off road. No I idea what I mean.  Take a look:

Beautiful and horrifying at once!

Looks nice with all the greenery.  But this is a two way road that is one lane.  This is one of the nicer ones.  There is no speed limit on these roads.  You would think this would mean people would drive slowly.  But no.  This is how they drive:

Did I mention that these roads have inclines and sharp turns?  If you are driving uphill, you have no idea if anyone is coming down the the other end until you get over the hump or hit someone head on.  We are in the middle of nowhere so there are no street lights. That said, I prefer driving at night because at least I can see if someone is coming via their headlights. Don't get me started on the one way stone bridges.

Then, we have the villages that dot the landscape.  Lovely little places where every house looks like this:

Some look even lovelier with red ivy on their stone walls.

But to get to this road, you have to make your way through this one:

A one lane road through the village.

To deal with these things, they have something called a traffic easing measure which comes in two forms.

Traffic frustrating measure #1.

When you see this on your side of the road, you have to stop and give way/yield to traffic from the opposite side.  The other one is a sign pictured here:

Give way to oncoming traffic.

This is a wonderful idea in principle considering that villages preceded roads and most roads are narrow one way roads.  The problem is that sometimes you have the right of way and can't see the other traffic and they can't see you.  It is a crapshoot that usually ends with one vehicle having to back up or pulling over if possible -  there may be nowhere to pull over when you are stuck between two stone buildings. The nice thing is that in these circumstances, drivers are very patient and more often than not, they let you pass and wave at you.

But it all leads to a muscle tensing wild ride.  I overheard my daughter telling my husband "You should have seen mom today when the Tesco truck kept driving at her on the one lane road.  She kept saying "Really Tesco, really?"  She thinks its real funny. 

But nothing is more horrifying than encountering a double or triple lane roundabout.  This infographic from Gov.uk says it all:

Take a look at the green and blue cars at your bottom left.

Sometimes the road you need to get on is listed in one of the lanes and you just queue and look right before entering. But sometimes there is no guidance.  Last week, after taking a deep breath and doing the sign of the cross, I went in and came out the other end.  Roundabouts are a blessing and a curse.  What I have realized is that because there are so few traffic lights, traffic keeps moving.  This is great, but exhausting.  If you are driving for an hour, for example, you have no breaks.  You are driving non stop which makes trips of more than a few hours pretty tiring.

I dread the day I come upon the Magic Roundabout pictured here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)

There is a reason why the Satanic cult symbol (and coincidentally, the Pentagon) is the pentagram.  Those are five circles of hell that I don't ever want to encounter.

In case you are wondering, the village and single track road pics were taken while I was a passenger in the vehicle since you are not allowed to eat, drink coffee, or anything else deemed to be distracting while driving.  And that is probably the best thing about driving here. 

Things that don't cease and crease

I am pretty sure I spent three years of my life in Vienna doing laundry incorrectly. 

So we arrive in England and I am thrilled to see timed washes like a 30 minute quick load and an hour daily load. This made me happy until last week when I had to wash all the kids uniforms.

For one, clothing labels here give you temperature readings for what temperature you should wash something. In Celsius. Fair enough since this is not new to me and the temp is 40* for most items. But, the uniforms have special instructions like "do not use fabric softener" or "tumble dry at low heat" or not at all. The first one is easy, but that second one is tough. You see dryers in Europe have instructions that look like this:

Does it say "low heat" anywhere? WTF is bone dry and cupboard dry? In Vienna, it was the same but it was German and laundry would take 8 hours to finish because even on the extra dry setting, it would not be dry. I just want plain dry. 

I hate laundry (and most things domestic) because they never cease. No matter how much laundry you do, there is more waiting hours later.  Now, I am being forced to break my (bad) procrastination habit of leaving laundry in the dryer because ironing school shirts is worse than folding laundry. So I wait for the beep and run to hang them up ASAP. 

Then, we have the kilt and trousers which are wool so you can wash them but can't dry them in a dryer. Wool finish doesn't dry them but makes you feel better because you tried. 

Yesterday, I washed the boy's trousers (not pants because that means underwear here - although I did wash those too) and hung them on my laundry tripod. Tonight, I go to gather uniforms so he can take them upstairs and they were still damp almost 24 hours later. 

They are hanging on the radiator now and will be forever after.

British School Life

The kids started school last week.  The learning curve has been steep for all of us. When the kids attended international schools in Warsaw and Vienna, the curriculum and school day was very similar to that of the US schools.  It was not too difficult to get oriented.  But, this is not an international school.  While some international students board here, the majority of the school is British and the system is a bit different than in the US.

Junior School (Elementary School)

My youngest has it the easiest although she may say otherwise.  Her school has a Junior School that runs until Year 6 which is 5th grade.  Her school is similar to her previous school in that there is a similar routine. However, despite the common language, there are many different words they use which has her (and me) confused most of the time. 

There are also at least three clothing changes per day.  She leaves here in her uniform - a tartan kilt, blue blouse and cardigan - then she changes into her sports kit which they use for Games.  Games seems to be like PE here.  She is learning to play Rounders and Netball.  I wish I could explain it to you, but I have no idea what these games are.  They are definitely not basketball.  Then, there is a change into her swimming "costume" as they call it which includes her swimsuit and swim cap.  

The school day is much longer here.  She starts at 8:30 and is not finished until 4:30.  But there are some great perks to this Junior school. Students who are interested in music get to choose an instrument and have lessons within the school day.  She decided not to continue violin and opted to resume piano lessons and join the school choir. Further, all after school activities are free of charge except horse riding and tea (afternoon snack).  She signed up for horse riding and dance. Twice per week she stays for prep. Prep is what they refer to as homework.  You are "prepping" for the next days lesson. The activities extend her day further to either 5:30 or 6:15 depending on the activity. 

Senior School (Middle and High School)

Entering the Senior School is a big leap.  Some schools,like the one my youngest attends, have a senior school as well.  Kids just transition over.  

My oldest started the equivalent of 8th grade (Year 9) at a different school. His is only a Senior School and we chose it because we were impressed by what they offered and it is very close to our house which helps with those late nights. One of the big changes for him is the addition of Saturday lessons.  But as he is realizing, he has more free time for homework and activities because of Saturday school.  

He starts school at 8:30 as well, but his school day does not end until 6pm or 9pm depending on whether he stays at school to complete prep. He leaves for school in his charcoal trousers, white shirt, house tie, black blazer and dress shoes with his backpack and computer briefcase.  He looks like he is going to work rather than school.  In my opinion, he looks amazing and handsome. Here's hoping that we break the athletic short habit!

His day starts with a check in at his house.  Every student, day pupil or boarder, is assigned a house. This is very similar to Hogwarts, but without the sorting hat.  Houses compete against each other similar to Hogwarts as well.

He is a day pupil, but he has the option to board during the week if he wants to.  He has a captains bed assigned to him with drawers where he can unpack the plethora of clothing he has to change in and out of during the week.  There are rugby shirts, rugby shorts, tennis shorts, polo shirts, at least 4 pairs of shoes and a track suit. He brings everything to school on Monday and brings it home Saturday for laundry.  

The biggest shock to me when I saw his schedule were the classes he was taking.  I don't know about you, but when I was in high school, I took biology in 10th grade, chemistry in 11th and physics in 12th.  My son is taking all three of these subjects at the same time.  He is also taking Spanish, French, Theology, Textiles, cooking, digital literacy, history, geography, along with the usual English, Maths (that is how they refer to math which is more anxiety inducing when in plural) and PE. His school has a rotating schedule with alternate weeks A and B.  He typically has 3-4 lessons per day and then he has his saxophone lesson, wind orchestra or jazz band, rugby, and a rotating activity.  This week, it was Shakespeare on film.  He watched Henry V. Saturdays he has 3 lessons and then spends the afternoon playing rugby games until 4pm.

While his day is long and he was very overwhelmed last week with all the information and changes, this week has been smooth sailing.  He likes that free time is built in to his schedule for him to chill at his house or complete homework in the library or anywhere on campus.  His schedule resembles a college schedule.

He was also very happy to report that the other kids tell him that he is "clever" because he knew things like cell biology, energy, and more Spanish than they initially thought.  In fact, they put him in beginner Spanish and they noticed the first day when he was responding to questions in Spanish that he belonged in the advanced class.  

First day jitters aside, they both did very well considering all the changes and are settling into their routines.

The British Education System

I know some of your are curious about the British education system.  Below are some observations and things I learned this past week.

Key Stages and Forms

Grade levels go from Reception (pre-school) to Year 13.  These grade levels fit into Key Stages I-V. Within each Key Stage, there are Forms.   For example, my youngest is Year 5, which is Key Stage II, Third Form.  The oldest is in Year 9, which is Key Stage III, Third Form.

GCSE's and A Levels

When students get to the equivalent of 10th grade (Year 11), they are required to take the GCSE Exam.  GCSE stand for General Certificate of Secondary Education.  Think the Owl exams that Harry Potter and friends had to take for future prospects at the Ministry of Magic.  If you pass the 5 core subjects on the GCSE, you can continue on to Sixth Form and the eventual GCSE Advanced or A-Level Exams required for entrance into university (like a the SATs in the U.S.).  If you do not pass your GCSE's, you can retake them or you can accept the results and look into other options like technical college, an apprenticeship or a trainee program. Of note, employers here look at potential employees GCSE scores.  This is a very big deal here.  It is on par with the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma.

Quality of Education

All I can say is that the curriculum here is rigorous and far more advanced than in the U.S.  These kids focus on their studies.  It's not cool to flunk tests and not turn in assignments.  I joke with my oldest that if we return to the U.S. for his last two years of high school he will have it very easy.

Character Education/Religious Education.

Schools have lessons called Personal and Social Health Education and Citizenship Programme. These lessons are like health class in that it teaches students to make healthy choices in life.  

The majority of schools in the UK are Church of England schools.  However, there are other protestant denominations here as well as Catholic schools.  My oldest attends a Church of England school.  He attends chapel on Friday evenings.  He also takes Theology.  My youngest attends a Quaker school.  They have Meetings of Worship at the start of the week and at the end of the week.  I knew nothing about any of these religions, but I like what I have read thus far. 

Parental Involvement

There is a hands off approach for parents in the UK.  There are equivalents to PTA or PTOs here, but they take on more of a fundraising role.  Parent teacher conferences are rare, but when they do happen, you get to chat with the teacher over a glass of wine. There is no volunteering in the classroom. 

Uniforms

There is a uniform and shoe for everything and these kids spend at least an hour of their free time dressing themselves in/out proper attire for lessons, sports, swimming etc.  In my son's senior school, laundry is done once per week and the House Matron sends a reminder to students to bring clothes to her for laundering.  It is wonderful in the sense that we do not spend time every morning figuring out what they should wear, but there is a lot of laundry and, even worse, ironing. Whether public or private, all kids here where uniforms unless they are in sixth form where business attire is expected. They all look sharp and smart at the bus stops throughout our area.

Social Life

There is no tolerance for bullying here.  I am not saying that it doesn't happen, but it is not acceptable. Cyberbullying in particular is against the law and can be prosecuted.  My oldest noticed that the popular kids were very welcoming and inclusive to him.  He reports feeling very at ease not just with Third Form students, but even with the Sixth Form (11th-12th grade) students. 

Sports and Activities

While these are optional in the Junior School, sports and activities are compulsory in the Senior School.  There are activity options to choose from, but sports are offered by season.  They play rugby in the fall, field hockey in the winter/spring and cricket in the summer.  There are activities like clay shooting and fencing, music ensembles, and clubs to join. With the exception of music lessons, horse riding and afternoon tea (snack), activities and sports are free of charge.

Since some schools like ours are also boarding schools, activities are planned on Sundays too.  Day pupils are allowed to participate if they wish.  

Half Terms and End of Term

School days are long and therefore, there is more vacation time than what many of us are used to.  As I previously mentioned in another post, schools here have three terms.  Public schools tend to refer to these as Autumn, Spring, and Summer Terms while Independent (i.e. private schools) tend to refer to them with a more religious connotation: Michaelmas term (derived from the Feast of St. Michael on 29 September) runs until December, Lent term runs from January to the end of March, and Trinity term runs from mid April to July.  

In between these terms, they have half term holidays.  These occur three times per year and range from one week off to up to four weeks off. My kids will have nearly three weeks off for October's half term, almost four weeks for Christmas end of term, a week off in February for ski week half term, almost 4 weeks off for the Lent end of term, another week off for the Trinity/Summer Term in May and two months of summer vacation.  It is very challenging for working parents to juggle all the school holidays here.

That's the British Education System in a nutshell based on my experience so far.  Hope it answers any questions you may have.  If not, please ask your questions in the comment section.

Did someone say free healthcare?

We have employer based U.S. health insurance coverage.  While posted in the UK, we are eligible to register with the National Health Service (NHS) for medical care.  This is the first time that we have been eligible to participate in socialized medicine and I am looking forward to this social experiment for our family.  I have heard nightmare stories about the NHS, but whenever someone proposes making changes to it, people rally around their NHS.  Kind of like Social (in)Security in the U.S.

One of the items in our employee to do list was to register with a practice.  The way this works here is that you go online to the NHS Service Search and enter your post code.  A list of local surgeries in your catchment area will come up.  The term "surgery" is the U.S. equivalent for office.  Even the headmasters at the schools hold surgeries i.e. office hours.  

You must register with a general practitioner surgery in your catchment area.  The list includes NHS customer ratings. Anything above 88% is rated "among the best" and anything below 70% is rated "among the worst".  The listing also includes how many patients are in a practice, whether you can make online appointments or request prescriptions online.  It also has the website listing for the practice.  Being technically inclined as I am, I chose the practice that allowed me to conveniently register online and make appointments.  They also happen to be open every day including weekends until 8pm, have the lowest amount of registered patients (under 5000) and it is rated among the best.

To get started, you must get your NHS number.  To do this, you must complete the application form below on the GP's website for each member of your family.  

Page 1 of 2

When you submit the form, the surgery prints it out and holds it for your signature.  You just drop in and sign the forms and you get a card with a number at some point afterwards. Then, supposedly, you are set.  You just make an appointment and get seen.  For free.  I found this odd because we don't pay into it, but it is free.  

This will be interesting because for the first time ever, I will very likely require medical care and surgery (of the non office variety) for rotator cuff tear repair and PT while in the UK. The NHS search lists the average wait time for an orthopaedic appointment from GP referral to the actual appointment. It ts about 30 days for the appointment and about 14 weeks to treatment.  To be continued....

Back to School: Are We There Yet?

There is an end in sight! We arrived with about three weeks until the start of term.  In theory, this is the perfect amount of time to get over jet lag and get acclimated before starting school.  Reality is quite different since there is no jet lag this time around and the kids have oodles of time on their hands.  One had the I'm bored, give me something to do look in his eye while I found the other one experimenting with my make up and arguing the merits of allowing her to wear some make up. Like now. Pulling hair out now!

There is so much back to school shopping one can do to keep them busy.  Speaking of school shopping...

Schools here opt for uniforms like many U.S. schools these days. But there is a catch. The uniform scheme here is expensive and complex. Both of my children have a formal uniform to be worn to/from school. It consists of a dress shirt, a v neck or cardigan sweater, school and house ties (boys). They also have an anorak type jacket for cold weather. Them, there is a sports kit with a tracksuit, rugby uniform, base and mid layers (for cold), quarter zip fleece, swimsuit and mouth guard. All of which requires a games bag. Oh, and did I mention the boiler suit for the youngest? Google it if you're curious.

The youngest sporting her new uniform(s). No make up included.

 

If changing in and out of clothes didn't add that extra school day per week, the shoe changes did. In the U.S. it is not likely that your child will have more than one pair of school shoes unless they play a specific sport. But here, sports are required. Therefore, in addition to their black dress shoes, we had to buy rugby boots (rugby/football), astro turf trainers (field hockey/cricket), indoor trainers (squash/tennis) and outdoor shoes (track). Then, they both need gum shields for their teeth, hockey sticks, shin guards and socks for different things.

The oldest sporting his new uniform(s). 

There are more, but there are only so many changes of clothes a boy can endure.

It gets very expensive when you are starting from scratch. The need to translate English to figure out what they mean for certain things will drive you mad.  But, in the end, they will  both look very "smart" as they say around here.

Two more weeks to go!

House Quirks

I did a property search on our home and found that it was built in the 1960's. As far as European houses go, it is not that old. It is, however, quirky.

As anyone who has visited Europe can attest, there seems to be a general fear of electrical sockets in bathrooms. You will find outlets for shavers only in European bathrooms. The Brits take it a step further in safety consciousness. They have a switch for each socket - throughout your house. You have to turn on the socket in order to use anything. This is a good thing for when you go out of town - you can shut off electricity to any outlet you wish. But, it can be frustrating trying to figure out whether you tripped a fuse or whether it's the switch. Already happened to me. The full baths don't have a light switch. There is a string (like one you would find on a ceiling fan) that you pull to power the lights in each bathroom. No biggie, but different. 

We have a makeshift mud room that is part of one of the half baths, complete with a bench and hooks to hang your coat if you really have to go when you get home.

Trying to figure out how to balance heating our shower with heating our house was another learning curve this week. And, yes, we had the heater on because it was freezing. In August! Luckily, the warm, plush blankets I ordered arrived and they keep us all warm enough to forgo the heat.

Perhaps the most interesting quirk is not that we have two full size European refrigerators, but that neither of them is in my kitchen. They are located in a breezeway between the kitchen, garage and garden door. Regardless, it is better than having a refrigerator in my living room like the one we had in Vienna.

But we love our house, quirks and all.

Exploring the town center

Banbury is the small town we will call home for the next couple of years. It is situated about 78 miles northwest of London and about an hour by train. With a population of 47000 by recent estimates, it is smaller than Döbling, the 19th district of Vienna where we last resided, by about 20,000. The city of Vienna has a population of 1.7 million by comparison. Some history can be found here.

Today, we headed to the Castle Quay mall, pronounced Castle Key. I have to keep reminding myself that we Americans are the ones who changed the language. We had been offline for almost 24 hours and the natives were getting restless. Phone service with data was the goal.

Three is a big mobile phone provider in Europe. There were other providers available like O2, EE and Vodaphone, but I was we were familiar with Three from Vienna (it was Drei there) and the people here were friendly and eager to assist.

One of things that Three offers but Drei did not (back in 2012 anyway) is free roaming. No need for a travel plan now even in the U.S. We can use our phone for data and calls in the U.S. and most European countries except Germany. Can't blame them for excluding Germany. Coincidentally, they also don't teach German in schools here. Something about being bombed by them just didn't sit right, know what I mean?

As we left the store with mobile service for all, we saw a Sky TV booth.  I had researched them as well before we came over and we were planning on subscribing so we did.  While we really don't need TV service - we have Apple TV hooked up to a U.S. cable provider - everything is in English here so it is not the waste that it has been at non English posts.

This has been a seamless experience compared to Vienna where there were bureaucratic hurdles to set up anything on your own or Warsaw where we had someone as a proxy to do everything for us. It was nice, but better to not have to depend on anyone to do it for you.

The other big change I noticed is that you could buy over the counter medication without having to go to the Apotheke that only sells medicine. Now, if we are low on cough medicine, I can pick up toothpaste at the same time.  Like in America.

So, now we have internet on our phones, but have to wait two weeks for in home set up. What to do? Buy a few board games for entertainment and discover that our youngest is quite the tycoon on the Monopoly Brands game. Fun times!

Today's is the day...

"You're off to great places. Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so...get on your way!

                                                                                     ~ Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go

We arrived in London at the crack of dawn arriving at the Queen's Terminal. It was an uneventful flight that felt much shorter than 9 hours. I think I caught a nap in between interruptions from the kids to go use the bathroom. 

As expected, it was raining and reminded me of the day we arrived in Warsaw almost 10 years ago. The rain here is a misting rain unlike the pounding rain you find most afternoons in Florida. In fact, that misting rain would make the Florida heat tolerable.

Despite the early morning arrival and no sleep, we had a full day ahead of us.  First, we paid a visit to our dear old Westie who spent the summer with our sponsors. He seemed to be in disbelief that we came back. 

My humans came back for me.

We left him briefly once more and took care of IDs, bank accounts, grocery shopping and even library cards by 2pm on the day of arrival. We felt and looked like a family of zombies. Even a stop at Starbucks did not revive. While it felt like punishment at the time, it was well worth it the following day.

At first, I cursed the person who put us on this flight. Now, I have a better appreciation for it. For the first time ever, we have had no jet lag. No children roaming the house in the middle of the night. No need to snooze in the middle of the afternoon. Note: this does not apply to my dear husband who needs a nap daily regardless of time zone.

Our new home is larger than I expected. Five bedrooms, two half baths, two full baths (one with a shower and tub), a dining room and large living room in two separate areas, a sunroom, and a kitchen three times the size of the one we had in Vienna that connects to a laundry room and a garage. I don't think we have enough furnishings for all of it. A trip to IKEA is in our future.

    A panorama of my large "good things come to those who endure a kitchen in Vienna" kitchen.

The area that stole the show for us, even in the rain, was the front and backyards, otherwise known as the gardens in British English. Wow! The front garden is a vast open space surrounded by a gravel driveway in a U shape and splits off the U into the back garden. The sunroom also leads into the back garden. 

A panorama of the garden/backyard. A regular picture would not capture the entire thing.

The grounds are all fenced in with a stone wall, hedges and some fencing. The hedge has a doorway cut into it that leads to a "secret garden" that contains an apple orchard. There is a little stone shed in the back reminiscent of the stone house near the mall in Washington, DC. Another wooden shed is actually an empty little house with a table and some directors chairs that will make an excellent retreat for the kids once we clean it up. 

The "secret" garden beyond the expansive first garden.

The theme to "Green Acres" kept running through my head the whole time. But, unlike Eva Gabor, this city girl thinks she is going to enjoy small town/country life.