Mosquitoes for Spiders

The evil Asian Tiger Mosquito
We have traded a backyard full of mosquitoes for a garden full of spiders. Very small ones are everywhere and even float in on the wind to land on your shirt. I feel like we are in Wilbur the Pig's barnstall and Charlotte's egg sac is bursting. There's an especially industrious and pretty one outside the kitchen window. I will trade them for mosquitoes anyday and would just like to note that no one (especially me) has been bitten by a mosquito in three weeks!
I suggest this great website for nature pix: www.treknature.com

All is well

We are settling nicely into the new house. I particularly like the fact that the walls are very thick so our neighbors can't hear the kids when they are in full swing vocally. This weekend we walked to downtown Cheltenham (aka High St.) to look around and shop for uniform pants and ink pens (yes, real ink pens with ink cartridges) for the kids. We bought the blue ink because it is washable - I hope. Then we decided to check out RAF Croughton which is about 1.5 hours from us. It was a much nicer base than RAF Fairford, but not necessarily worth the drive. We did do a huge grocery shop and petrol fill up at US prices. On Sunday, we (practically) climbed straight up Leckhampton Hill but the view was worth it. Then that night, neighbors invited us over for drinks which was very nice.

A few differences I've noted:
1. Eggs are not refrigerated here and I don't think they are pasteurized as much as in the states or the chickens aren't shot up with hormones or something because the shells are much easier to crack.
2. Refrigerators and freezers are much smaller.
3. Energy prices are higher.

Also, we had to register at our local surgery (clinic) to be part of the National Health Service and here were our choices for ethnicity:

Chinese

British/Mixed British

Irish

Other White

Other Black Carribbean

White & Black African

White & Asian

Other Mixed

Indian/British Indian

Bangladesh/British Bangladesh

Pakistani/British Pakistani

Other Asian

What if you are Scottish? All Black African? Notice there isn't a "White not of Hispanic Origin" because there are no Hispanics here. Also, "Asian" is Indian, Pakistani, etc.; "Oriental" is Chinese, Japanese, etc.

Premier Cheltenham Update

I have decided that I am going to post the present day and go backwards every once and awhile to recap, but I can't download pictures yet since we mailed the computer cord to ourselves and the package hasn't arrived yet. Thank goodness I have two SD cards or I'd be limiting the number of photos I could take - the horror!

We are in the new house! We had temporary furniture sent to us yesterday from the supporting Royal Air Force base - mattresses, sheets, pillows, a couch, two chairs, a coffee table and three wardrobes because WE HAVE NO CLOSETS! None, none at all. The delivery was scheduled between 8 am and 5 pm. Our delivery arrived at 6:15 pm because our deliverymen had obviously stopped at the pub for a bit and a bitter before arriving at our house. AND they had one more delivery to make so those people were probably more irked than we were. I feel like I have been on a month long camping trip, but at least we have beds.

Today bright and early (HOORAY!), our smaller shipment arrived and we have all the basics including some new (not brand new but a change from the old) toys for Owen and MY COFFEE MAKER. The English do not prefer coffee and it's really hard to find a coffee shop and definitely no 7-11's around this town. Finn helped me unpack everything while Owen helped a little and then found a good sized box to decorate (a wise decision on his part). Evan sat on his butt. However, he is in charge of taking the upstairs items to their places. The kids have started a tape ball to see how big it will get after our second shipment arrives. I'll take photos of this for sure!

I have this absolutely amazing chef-quality stove (called a "cooker") that I don't know how to use because there are no words on it, just weird IKEA-like pictures and am a little intimidated by it, but I WILL use it tonight. It's got a regular oven and a conventional oven next to it (called a "fan cooker") with a warming oven and a six burner gas stove and two electric burners to the side.

We walked into the town shopping area, actually the smaller shopping area because I am slowly weaning the kids into walking everywhere because gas is expensive and parking is limited. They call their shopping areas "High Street" and found this out when I asked a passer-by if we were going into the right direction to the shops and he said, "Yes, the High Street is just ahead." So we were all looking for a street sign (which are basically non-existent) saying High Street and went a bit too far because our High St. is actually called Bath Rd. Next time I am bringing the map! Although maps just confuse me. I am much more a landmark person.

Oh, one more thing. Every outlet has what is called an "isolator" which basically shuts off the power to the outlet and is a really great safety measure instead of putting in those childproof covers. However, we stupid Americans didn't realize that our refrigerator would also be plugged into an outlet whose isolator was turned off. For two days, we all kept saying, "Boy, this fridge doesn't keep things that cold" until smarty pants me FINALLY clued in and followed the electric cord to the outlet and bingo! case solved. To the refrigerator's credit, it really DID keep things cold considering it had no power going to it.

gummy worms = jelly snakes (equally bad names if you ask me)

Off to Becks World

CHEERS!

A Sad Day in Clowndom

The original Bozo the Clown, Larry Harmon, died today. Craig and I are quite sad to see a childhood icon erased from this planet. Here is the Bozo that I remember even though it's not the real Stu Kerr under the make-up:

Here is the Bozo that Craig saw on his black and white television each day at lunchtime back in the olden days when you could go home for lunch:

And here is the best Bozo memorabilia EVER:

If you had one of these, do you remember how the bopper bag squeaked when you punched it and had real sand in the base? I can't remember if we had an actual Bozo bag or if it was just a generic clown but they were really fun to punch.

Follow this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozo_The_Clown