Kidlington

We visited our friends, the Gaucis, on the weekend, just outside Oxford. Perry and Chip are old friends from Lincoln College-going back so far that Perry was a groomsman in our wedding. Their house is amazingly cool, pictured above--I think it would be a museum if it was in America. They are an excellent family for many reasons but mostly because both parents and children are huge High School Musical fans like us. I think High School Musical could bring world peace through its music and dance.

An American Idiot in Sainsburys

It is important for me to keep laughing at myself. I try to do my grocery shopping as early as possible in the mornings so as to have the fewest eyewitnesses. I might as well be shopping in Denmark for all the good the English language does for me in England. It takes me forever to find stuff first of all, because well, tomato sauce is called passata and zucchini is called courgette and translation takes time! The problem, though, really comes at checkout. I consistently get lured by this and that item not on my list and then find myself with too much to carry home. I do have my lovely little shopping trolley (which nobody under the age of 75 owns but me) but it’s no minivan. I start out always with the most streamlined of lists and good intentions, but then I see interesting little foodies and drinkies, like pain au chocolate and Cadbury bars and digestive biscuits. I fill my cart with list and non-list items and then start to make the hard choices between the heavy, the duplicate and the bulky items (Cadbury and bottles of wine always make the cut, make no mistake). A shopper’s Sophie’s Choice. Which one can’t I live without today? Persil or Ribena? I never put back enough, however, and the walk home is almost always not without casualties. I lost control of my trolley once on some cobblestone and broke half of the eggs that I carefully packed on top and subsequently went flying into the street.
I don’t think I have had the same checker twice so the American situation comedy that is ME, is fresh and fun for each employee. I generally have fifty items to everyone else’s ten. I load it all up on the tiny platform and try to get it all jammed into the trolley, shoving the lighter items in a bag I’ll have to carry, while trying to pay and use my own bags, and not break or crush anything. As for today, I try to pay with our debit card, which is how everybody pays for everything here, and realize I don’t have the PIN, so I take that back and give the nice lady my geeky UW Credit Union credit card. It’s all a big pain because the nice lady has to find a pen for me to sign the receipt, and meanwhile, all the stuff isn’t fitting in the trolley due to my greed…and then the bell pepper falls on the floor and rolls ten feet…and I am literally scrambling around on the floor of Sainsburys as the only other customer in the store patiently waits behind me with is respectable three items. I finally get it all packed in and start to leave when the woman at the register holds up my giant cucumber and says, “Is this yours as well?” She’s holding it like a boomerang. I fumble for my wallet, now buried beneath the fifty groceries in the trolley and the poor guy behind me, says “I will pay.” I tell him “oh, no, it’s not necessary, I just have to….” But he’s already paid the 50p because I think he felt sorry for me and had enjoyed the show. I thank him because at this point, I am exhausted and embarrassed enough to LET some random dude pay for my giant cucumber. I slink out of the store quickly and try to get myself organized for the long walk home, when the same guy walks past me and leans in close as he reaches his hand over my trolley asking, “Could I just have a bite of your baguette?” Very funny. Everybody’s a comedian.

Dreary English weather

We had some sunny days. And now the rains have come. It rains, but it stops. The sun comes out for twenty minutes and then it rains again. People dash around with umbrellas and many young people just get drenched, as they head off to the pubs I guess. Allison and I were caught today because we still cannot get it together to remember slicker and/or umbrella, which we should always grab no matter what the weather looks like as we step out of the house. My mom refers to this unfortunate lack of foresight as having "car ass". Interestingly, on BBC news last night, they predicted that Tropical Storm Hanna would affect England via the Gulf Stream sometime next week. I love weather.

Our internet connection is poor, as we are satellite dependent and I guess the clouds are just too thick. But I am through temporarily, and I hope it holds long enough for this post. Aside from the weather, we are enjoying one aspect of English life very much and that is afternoon tea. Tea is really hard to explain as it seems to mean different things to different people and you can either have a quick one or a "proper" one, which I think might just be dinner. It really suits all of us after school. We have tea and cocoa and cheese and fruit and a sweet generally. Our dinners tend to be lighter and later as a result and it's all just so civilized and relaxing. Of course we aren't running to soccer or dance or evening school events, which is probably why it's so relaxing.

So, I am posting a picture of a little girl in London on a sunny day appropriately dressed for any weather to come. We are going to adjust eventually.

We've gone back to the 20th Century!

The Head of the River is a pub that sits on the Thames near our house in Oxford. We walk by it daily but I have yet to wet my whistle there.

Ok, here's my situation. I think that it might be the house we are staying in, and also a little bit England but we haven't got a clothes dryer and this has been my most exciting foreign exchange project to date! Stay with me, I haven't gone mad. Or have I? I do wash each morning, especially if no explicit rain is forecast (there's always a chance as it is England). To begin, I have to tell you that the washer uses hardly any water (eco-friendly sensors detect just how much water it needs) and it's fascinating to me. I drink my coffee and watch the wet clothes tumble around in the washer, mesmerizing me, I tell you. I read the manual, I played with the settings....and yet there are still only about five tablespoons of water washing the clothes. Maybe Europeans think it's gross and wasteful that our wash churns in gallons and gallons of dirty water, but it's all I've ever known. Once done, I have a puzzle to efficiently hang it all on our few little clothes hangy things that I put in the garden to dry. Every day I try a new configuration.

Now, here's the good stuff about it. My laundry gives me a real sense of accomplishment. I cheer it on to hurry and finish so I can get it out in the little bit of sunshine, I nurture it and reposition it toward the sun, etc. At night, I take a hot iron to anything that's still damp and press the dampness out, folding it neatly as I go. It reminds me of my mom ironing when I was little. I am playing house, really. Am I the Marie Antoinette of Parkwood?

Pulling meals together is less romantic and more reminiscent of college. Grotty pots, nothing matches, no lids, five unmatching glasses, one martini glass (you know I'm on the search for #2), pitiful tools and too few of them. It feels like a real job well done when I can make dinner with the contents of my mini fridge and my imagination. Really as long as there's a baguette involved, it's all good. I have peered into a few neighbors' houses and they seem to have all the modern appliances (I spied a dishwasher and what looked like a range which did not appear to require the strike of a match) but I like playing peasant woman for now.

Bath Spa

Not the greatest two weeks of our life.  We're muddling through. Took a trip to Bath Spa to visit the Jane Austen Centre (that's us with sad, sad Jane) where we learned that Jane Austen really didn't like Bath at all.  Say whaaaa!?  It tries as a little museum but really doesn't deliver as it reveals her life as happy and productive before and after living in Bath, but not while living there. The tour guide describes the family's literal fall from grace down the hill of Gay Street (down the hill, down in one's station in life and so on), after Mr. Austen's death, to the less expensive streets at the bottom of the town. She eventually moved away from Bath and her fortunes turned around, leading me to wonder why oh why they put the Jane Austen Centre in Bath! The highlight of the tour was the gift shop where there were lots of delicious pictures of Colin Firth.

We also hit the Fashion Museum where like at the V & A in London, the fashion is organized for viewing by its artfulness and themes, rather than by era.  It's a fun way to look at fashion as garments from the 1800s sit next to garments from 1986 and contrasts and similarities are exposed.  The vaulted ceiling pictured above is in the Bath Abbey.  My dad says he has visited churches all over Europe because they are excellent places to sit down and rest.  Spoken like a pro.  And so we did.

Stonehenge

The fact that teenagers are not impressed with Stonehenge should come as a shock to no one.  I recommend always bringing along another adult for viewing wonders of the world, for spirited discourse and fellowship with Mother are not interesting to teenage girls.  We were intrigued by the man at the fence...maybe Druid, maybe not.  There have been many Stonehenge worshippers and custodians over its 5000 years of existence.   I enjoyed his nifty outfit and the politics of his cause but became slightly dubious when he stepped away from the fence and whipped out his cell phone.  That didn't seem right.

A week to go

Ominous skies are common in the summer here. No matter the weather, the atmosphere of support and good wishes I felt tonight saying farewell for five months to my beloved book club ladies was delightful. This group has given me a place to belong since the first month I moved to Madison. They rally around me now as I go off on my adventure and their support gives me such optimism about my trip. They all get presents in January!