First Veg Box is Here!

Exciting happenings today! My first veg box was delivered early this morning from River Swale farms. It was a mini-veg box and contained parsnips (3), mushrooms (gorgeous!!! about 6), potatoes (5), onions (4), carrots (4), and a stalk of Brussels Sprouts, which I love! I also ordered a block of parmigiano reggiano, which they get from a sister farm in Parma, Italy; a 2L thing of milk, which they get from a dairy that treats their cows right; and some salad greens that are grown on the farm, only under poly-tunnels.

I feel pretty good about it, since there is no spot for me to grow anything but some herbs on the windowsill here at the house (I do have Basil and Parsley flourishing). Everything looks really nice, and I'm excited to get cooking!

Long time no post...

So my goal of posting every few days has fallen tragically short of expectations. Really, though, there isn't that much interesting to report.

In the past two weeks, I've met some folks for coffee that I met through the book club, I've gone to a couple of girls' nights out with some girls that DH works with, and I've finally visited the famous Betty's Tea Room in Harrogate, just yesterday with the girl I worked with at NOAA. Throw in the couple Monday night Quiz nights at The New Inn, and I've been at least as social as I was in DC.

The main challenges in the past couple weeks have been establishing routines and getting stuff set up to support daily life. At home, DH and I had joint and separate bank accounts to support house and individual purchases respectively. Moreover, since we were paid in dollars, and stuff was priced in dollars, and we'd had our accounts established for a significant period of time, and we knew about how much our monthly "must pays", groceries, and miscellaneous averaged out to be. Here, we've not yet had enough experience with all of us living here together to know how much the "must pays" are going to end up being, the fact that we have to pay our expenses in pounds sterling rather than dollars means that we have to allow at least a week or so for transfers from dollar accounts into our pounds account, which pretty much eliminates any casual or unplanned spending until we've got a solid handle on our "must pays" and have established a regular dollars-pounds transfer with reliable exchange results. Not that I'm a total shopaholic, but there are lots of little things that I'd like to get for the house (crock-pot, hand blender, etc) that I'm planning on putting off until things are more stable.

Another routine we've not really established well is our grocery routine. We've got several possible shopping places, and I like them all for different reasons. Shopping on base is good for staples, but not - in my humble opinion - the best option for fresh foods. We like our local Waitrose for meats and some veggies, and some local staples, but I like our local Morrisons for their wine, cheese, some veggies, and seafood. We went to our local Sainsburys this weekend, and it was okay, but nothing different from the other two, and two friends I've made here have recommended local farm delivery services that will bring local seasonal produce and dairy items right to the house. Since we have all these shopping places that we like for different reasons, it has been impossible to just say "we'll do all our shopping on Saturday morning", which leads to us running out of stuff midweek, forgetting critical items, or just feeling disorganized. In addition, I don't think that the fridge that we have here is very reliably cold, so I'm nervous about keeping things like meat and cheese in the fridge for more than 3-4 days. So that all it is frustrating.

Thankfully, the cats still seem to be adjusting well. And since this Thursday is Thanksgiving, I guess it's appropriate that I be thankful for something.

Oh happy day!

I still haven't been able to shake this darn cold, and have a hacking cough that DH has described as "piercing." But today was a good day.

DH and I left for Liverpool out of Harrogate at about 11:15 this morning on the train. I was pretty tired this morning, the weather was really blustery with a sharp chill, and I was just not in my right mood. We spent the better part of the 3 hour trip staring out the train window, listening to the cacophony of conversations around us.

Once we got to Liverpool Lime St Station, we grabbed a taxi and asked him to take us to Seaforth Container Terminal. It was about a 10-15 minute ride, and at one point DH said "Look - there it is!!!"

I quickly whipped my head around and saw a little Salsa Red VW Beetle Convertible sitting up against a wire fence. Was that really my Bug? A quick look at the license plate area confirmed that at the very least, it was an American car (since we have the little plates). It was my first glimpse of my beloved car since it was taken away from me several weeks ago.

To be honest, I was worried the entire trip from Harrogate to Liverpool. I had heard lots of horror stories about cars being shipped overseas RO/RO - scratches, damage, thefts, etc. I just didn't have the strength to see dents or big scratches on my car. But sitting there up against the fence, it looked just fine.

I started to get excited, bouncing a little bit on my seat (it was one of the traditional English taxis - with the big back seat) and clapping my hands. The taxi driver started laughing, even though he didn't really have a clue where exactly we needed to go. We made our way into the dockyards (which was pretty cool), to the handling agent, and there it was. My Bug. Up against the fence. I literally ran over to have a look, carefully checking it over. No damage, no scratches, no dents, and the interior was just as clean as it had been when I handed it over. I was ecstatic!

We finished the paperwork, handed over our port charges, and took a few pictures before hopping and and driving back to Harrogate. DH drove - I'm not quite ready to take to the left side of the road yet. But that's okay. My Bug and I - we're back together again.

On being sick in the UK

As a reward for staying up until nearly 6am and getting only 4 hours of sleep election night, I was given a horrifyingly awful head cold, which fully materialized - thankfully - after I had enjoyed a nice cappuccino and slice of chocolate mousse cake with a girl I had met through the book club I joined.

I am a terrible sick person - completely unbearable. This version of the common cold, though, totally beat me down. Endless gunk dripping into my throat, making it seriously raw and painful, which then made its way down to my stomach... and the next morning right up my throat again. What followed was two seriously awful days spent on the couch. One night DH forced me to drink a capful of the most awful Nyquil ever, and it did knock me out for a decent night's sleep - on the couch.

I've discovered that the new mattress DH and I bought before shipping our goods to England is a little to firm, which is leading to fun lower back, neck, and shoulder blade pain. We're now in the market for a foam mattress topper to make it a little more comfortable. There's my warning about rushing into a mattress purchase!

Anyway, depending on the time of day, I'm either on my way to recovering or suffering from a relapse. The one very huge, major, perhaps pivotal moment that came out of all of this was a singular discovery which may get me through many, many dark, cold nights here.

The Rice Bowl, a Chinese restaurant here in Harrogate, has Hot and Sour soup that is both hot and sour! It has spice! It has flavor! It was a little thicker than most H&S soups I've enjoyed (easily remedied with some hot water) but it had FLAVOR! It is a first for me here - food with heat (spice-heat in this context). I was so desperate, and this soup made me so happy!

Every cloud has a silver lining, right?

Election night - perspective from an American in the UK the morning after

I stayed on the couch watching returns, waiting for the clincher (which proved to be Ohio, again) until about 330am GMT, at which point I dozed off and on until I finally made my way up to bed at 6am (that's 930pm and 1am EST respectively).

The BBC, ITV, and Sky News coverage was abysmal - SkyNews especially, but I was really surprised how bad the BBC was. They had a little panel of commentators, the first of which included the abrasive Christopher Hitchens. The 'moderator' clearly was disgusted by Hitchens' erudite but blunt assessments of the failures of the Administration and its impact on the campaign, and barely allowed Hitchens the opportunity to speak. They switched out the commentators around the table a couple of times, at one point giving John Bolton a seat at the table. Talk about repugnant - I have never seen someone so entitled and defensive - it gave those segments of coverage a very bad vibe. Poor job on choosing those commentators, BBC.

ITV wasn't horrifyingly bad, but it was rather boring. The couple of dudes they had in the main studio doing analysis were deadly dull. At one point they had completely messed up the electoral vote count, giving 103 to McCain and 34 to Obama, and they tried to defend their mistake with somesuch nonsense that it was based on calls rather than votes counted or somethings. Not very reassuring.

SkyNews was just weird. Their affiliate in the US - from whom they were getting the state result calls - appeared to be FoxNews, who was so different from the other two channels that it called their coverage into question.

One thing I noticed about all three was that their on-the-ground reporters were kinda dicks. I mean, I know that the UK has the reputation for direct questions in their news reporting, but their clear bias in favor of Obama even tasted bad to my mouth. At one point there was a BBC reporter in Virginia questioning a farmer why he had voted for McCain / the republicans when the Bush Administration had let so much go awry. The poor farmer didn't have much defense for his vote, other than the fact he had consistently voted the GOP party his whole life, but the BBC reporter basically niggled and poked this poor guy about his vote so much that it made them look like they were trying to make this guy out to be stupid. It was not a flattering moment for the BBC.

Another thing that annoyed me as an American accustomed to US reporting was the lack of depth of analysis into voting patterns, precincts reporting, etc. When a state was called by an affiliate network, they just kind of reported it, rather than putting the call in its proper contexts (how many votes, how many precincts reporting, where there were votes yet to be counted, etc). When they called Pennsylvania for Obama, I instinctively had a 2000 Florida moment - PA was supposed to be a pretty intense battleground state, and I had no idea what data the networks were using to make that bold prediction. Also, there was very little discussion of the almost equally important Senate races that were being fought. In the checks and balances system the US has, it's just as important to know how much power the party of the executive is going to have in the legislature. I was pretty disappointed by this - although they did cover the Dole-Hagen Senate fight in North Carolina, mostly because of its trainwreck value.

Finally, the production values and technology challenges that all three stations suffered from were positively amateur looking in comparison. There were lots of lost audio communications, miscues as to where they were going next, lame A/V aids trying to illustrate what was going on.

I can't believe I am going to say it, but I missed the US cable news networks - yes even CNN - in this election coverage.

In any case, the UK stations could not conceal their glee and elation about the Obama victory. Maybe that's why John Bolton was such a crab.

Election night - perspective from an American in the UK

So it's election night in the US. It's 10:30pm, the polls are still open and will be for hours, and I've been watching the BBC on and off for most of the day. Any UK news has been relegated to secondary status in favor of reporting on the long lines (queues) and last-minute campaigning (unusual b/c of UK election rules).

Basically, there seems to be a sense of cautious optimism. The folks here have been "fooled" before (see: 2004 election, 2000 election), but with the polling being fairly strong in Obama's favor, they are pretty encouraged. There's no doubt who the BBC and general UK public wants to see in the White House, at all.

It's rather fun, and I wish that there was a pub showing the results as I would love to be with a crowd when it all rolls in. For what it's worth, I'm drinking some coffee just to stay up late enough to see the East Coast results come in.

I'll write again tomorrow, when the results start to reverberate through the public here. I'm planning on meeting another American for coffee tomorrow afternoon, so that's going to be lots of fun!

P.S. This is how silly reporting has gotten on the BBC's coverage of the US election. In their "Sports" segment, they've just reported on the Redskins' loss to Pittsburgh this weekend because there's been only one time since 193-something where the 'skins' have won/lost and the ruling party has remained in power/lost power respectively.

End of week 1 - thoughts....

So, I've now been in the UK for a whopping week. When I visited in July, I was here for about 9 days I think, so it's not the longest stretch I've gone here yet. Still, my mindset is a little different; I'm still in vacation mode, but there's so much "real life" in front of me that it's certainly not going to last much longer.

DH and I are still getting along - somewhat and sometimes. It's been tough for both of us, going from having completely independent lives for the last 4-5 months to living together again. There are certain elements of the house that make this a little tougher. The kitchen is tiny and there is a severe lack of storage, so our previous habit of both being in the kitchen, he cleaning dishes and I making dinner, is just right out. No storage or counterspace means that everything is always everywhere, and that's pretty annoying. The house also squeaks like an old door, so if he wants to be watching TV on the second level, and I want to be doing something else on the third, well the constant squeaks and groans of the floor make TV watching less than pleasant.

The cats seem to be adjusting just fine, as cats would. We've started them on two high-quality UK cat foods. Eliza won't eat it but Henry eats one of them. I'm really happy Henry likes the one, it should be really good for him. I don't know what we're going to do with Eliza. She seems to be okay with Fancy Feast, so I'll try and see what the best flavors of that are (fewest corn and other fillers) and keep her on those. She was 13.5 pounds at her last weigh in, and she's supposed to be closer to 10 or 11. Fatty.

Perhaps the highlight of my entire first week here was a little book club that I've joined. There's an online forum for Americans in the UK, and one of the girls organized a book club which met for the first time Saturday. We read "Petite Anglaise," a book written from the blog kept by an English woman living in France. Recommended only if you like to see how a narcissistic fantasy-world dependent person can construct a life for herself (in her mind) only to destroy her family when reality doesn't quite match fantasy, and sets out to create other fantasy lives for herself, which again never match reality. Anyway, the meeting was about 80% social chat and 20% book chat, which I found to be an excellent mix! It was nice to start building a social circle that didn't rely on folks knowing DH.

On the agenda for this week: getting the kitchen storage situation under control, getting the living room arranged the way I want it, hopefully getting a cell phone number and bank account, getting my summer clothes and linens organized somehow. And I think that's just for the first part of the week. I also want to try and get to a proper grocery store for actual shopping. The commissary on base is good for some stuff, but meats are not a strong suit for them. There's a butcher at the end of the block, across from the pet store. Maybe I'll trek out when the fog burns off and buy a little food for us and a little food for the cats. Just have to be sure not to mix it up!