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.  

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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.