Lost in Translation

You know what's easy?

Setting up your ScottishPower&Gas account with a telemarketer who speaks with a very, very thick brogue.

Yeah. Easy-peasy :-/

Inside our New House!

As I mentioned in the last blog post, we've rented a Victorian House!

There's a little story behind finding this house. A gal I worked with in publishing, Joely, used to live in this town several years ago. I contacted her when we found out we were moving and she offered lots & lots of useful informations. Several months ago she also told me that the house she lived in while here was currently available. Well as luck would have it, it's the house we ended up renting! And as a side note, my friend Rachael (who worked with Joely & I in publishing) has been in the UK for 8+ years and is now married to a British archaeologist... who is a business friend/colleague of our new next-door neighbor!

Anyway, here are a few inside photos of our new house.

In the entryway is the most awesome chandelier!

In one of the "receiving" rooms, is this beautiful fireplace that may or may not work.

The kitchen's fireplace:

A stained glass window in the stairwell:

The guest bathroom on the 3rd floor:

Look at this hob (range)!! And the two ovens below!! I think I'm going to like cooking & baking while in england :-)

We have a small British fridge, and when we opened it up this afternoon, there was a bottle of Bill's favorite Irish cider that was left behind by the landlord. I have a feeling Bill will crack this open the first night we stay at the new place.

Sláinte!

We Rented a Victorian!!

After looking at many, many houses, we ended up settling on a 3-story, 6-bedroom Victorian house. Did you just think "That's huge!" So did we. However, all of the houses comparable to our house at home have zero storage and tend to have street-parking only - a bit of a challenge when you want to live near the city centre. This house was well within our budget (actually a lot cheaper than some we looked at), and we figure we can close off the three bedrooms on the top floor unless we have visitors.

So, without further ado, here's a photo of the house:

And the backyard:

And a few photos from the upstairs windows:

As you can see, we've had some snow. In fact, we couldn't even get to the house yesterday as our car was snowed in!

We will post some photos of the house's interior in our next post.

Bye for now!

A Cute Story

During our first week in England I spend almost every afternoon walking around our new town and getting the lay of the land. I also learned quickly that the gloves, hats, and scarfs I packed in the sea shipment would have to be supplemented. Quickly. Have I mentioned it's snowed or rained almost every day we've been here?

Our temporary apartment is located very close to the town center, and within 10 minutes I can walk to a street that has a Topshop and H&M (kind of like high-end Forever 21 stores), Primark (low-end Forever 21), Lush, and a Marks & Spensors (like a Macy's, but with a grocery store in the bottom floor) as well as many, many boutiques. Needless to say, I headed that way to pick up some inexpensive warm layers for the weather we're having. In one shop, I arrived at the cash register line right when an older lady walked up. Here's our five minute conversation in a nutshell...

"Go ahead, dear. I think you were here first." Said the nice lady.
"Oh, thank you!" I said as I took the place in line in front of her.
"How lovely, you're an American! Are you visiting?"
"Actually, I just moved here 3 days ago."
"Wonderful! And where in America did you came from?"
"California, about two hours south of San Francisco."
"How nice, dear! You know, I've been there before... Humm... Can't remember where exactly we went. It was near a lake. You know, the big lake."
"Hummm... Tahoe?" (I tried to think of a big lake near San Francisco, but this was all I could come up with.)
"No. Hummm... Let me think. Honey?" She called over to her husband who was waiting outside of the cashier area, "What was the name of the place we stayed when we went to America?"
"Chicago!" He called back.
"That's right, Chicago!" She beamed.
"Oh! How nice... I've never been to Chicago, but I have some friends from that part of the country." I said as I was called up the the cashier. "Have a great day!"
"You too, dear. Welcome to England!" She said.

So I hope all is going well over there, be you near San Francisco or around the corner near that big lake in Chicago.

TGIF! :-)

What's Up with That?!

It's officially the first day of Spring, three days after St. Patrick's Day and this is what it looks like. Still. What's up with that?!? :-)

The Snow of St. Patrick's Day

Bill has always told me that the last snow of winter tends to happen on St. Patrick's Day. And what do you know, we got some snow last night; let's hope it's the last snow of the season!

Bill wearing his new rain/snow slicker

An Afternoon in the Dales

We've spent the last two weeks getting our life somewhat organized. But last weekend we took some time for a little drive through the Yorkshire Dales. It had snowed the day before and there was a bit of snow still on the hillsides. I took a few photos of some weekend mountain bikers on a rugged hillside:

Just a few miles down the road the sun had melted all of the snow for a beautiful pastoral scene:

We then drove up to a National Heritage site called Brimham Rocks. We have been told to sign up for the National Heritage card, which is kind of like a State Parks Pass but good for all heritage sites (manor houses, castles, cathedrals, ruins, gardens. etc.) in Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, and Whales. We parked and talked with the National Heritage employee, but unfortunately, we don't have our UK bank cards yet so we were unable to sign  up at that time. And it was about 2* C with a harsh wind - COLD!! Bill and I agreed we wouldn't spend enough time in the cold, cold weather to spend the daily fee, so we set off. But we did manage to get one photo of a rock in Brimham Rocks from the car park (British for parking lot).

We'll go back soon and have a good look all around the rocks, gardens, historic home, etc. and be sure to post more photos!

Flashback Friday - Moving Day Edition

Two weeks ago all three of us flew from San Francisco to Newark to Edinburgh in order to drive four hours to our new home in North Yorkshire, England. It was one of the longest days EVER! We have flown long distances before, but never with a cat flying in the pet cargo area, two maximum weighted checked bags each, and two large carry-ons each.

Here's a picture of Scout being loaded onto the plane. She's on the back conveyor belt (thankfully, the giant labrador was in the forward pet cargo area so as not to freak her out too badly) closest to the United Pet Van.

Scout was fairly catatonic when we picked her up 20 hours later in Edinburgh, but she has recovered nicely. (She even went to the vet yesterday for a checkup and she seems to be doing as well as any almost 15-year old cat with thyroid issues can. Yay!!)

After the two long flights, we picked up our crazy amounts of luggage, easily made it through customs, stepped out the airport sliding doors and saw this image: 

I guess we made it home!! 

The four hour drive was a little longer than anticipated due to the sat nav (GPS) giving us incorrect directions (or, more likely, our misinterpreting the sat nav's directions) and the fact that car direction finders will only get you to a post code (zip code) and won't deliver you directly to an address. 

Since we arrived in Edinburgh at 7:30AM, we stopped along the way for a proper Scottish breakfast. Nothing like two rashers (slices of bacon), two sausages, blood pudding (yes, that's correct), two eggs, beans, tomatoes, toast, and a lovely pot of tea for two to start off your British Boondoggle! 

First Week

Bill and I have been breathing UK air for one whole week as of today. We have been running a ton of errands, getting paperwork t's crossed and the like, as well as setting up banking, viewing rental houses (aka houses to let), etc. Scoutie even has her first vet appointment set up for next week!

Needless to say, we haven't really done much exploring aside from around town. But we plan to fix that this weekend, and we'll take the good camera and upload some pictures later. In the meantime, here's a photo (below, first pic) from a quick drive we took yesterday. The picture was taken with my iPad through the windshield of our car, but it still turned out pretty nice.

The house hunting has been a bit of a challenge. We feel like we're on house hunter's international....

First house: w/in easy walking distance to town, right size, parking spot; but it looks like a basic townhouse and doesn't have the British charm we were both hoping for.

Second house: brick townhouse built in 1818 (lots of charm!) & fully updated (warm & functional!), great amenities and w/in easy walking distance to town; but no parking space and it's right on the corner of a main road with b&bs all around. We're worried about noise on weekends when bars close and parking issues (since we wouldn't have a designated spot) on holiday weekends. And the kitchen's a bit small.

Third house: huge victorian house w/in walking distance to town, but farther than the other two. Cheapest and largest house with plenty of parking and a cute front/back yards. But no appliances and we're scared of the heating bill for such a large place.

Argh!! We are viewing 4 more properties over the weekend which will likely just confuse us more :-/ We will keep you all posted as to which one we choose!

The last photo is an item I picked up at marks & spencer (kind of like a high end super target). I couldn't resist! Now I'll be ready when Wills & Kate meet us and want to be our new BFFs ;-)

Blue Sky!!

Day 4 in England gave us a wee bit of blue sky! It was much appreciated, as it was 36* yesterday with 87% humidity, which made it bone-chillingly cold. We'll get used to it, but I'm happy to see some blue out of our apartment window today.

Park Benches

Day 2 in England gave us the opportunity to get the lay of the land and pick up a few needed items. The town of Harrogate has a "green belt" type area called the Stray that meanders through town. We've been told that within a month it will be covered in wildflowers and tulips, so we'll be sure to post a few pictures when spring is in full bloom. In the meantime, here's a picture of one of the many park benches dotted around the Stray. If you look closely, the back of the bench is a forked snake tail and the head of the snake is under the bench. This motif is on every bench & it is so charming - even if it is snakes!

Living Room View: Day One

Having endured the travel day, we now find ourselves living in the UK! Everyone has been very helpful. We especially wish to thank the talented folks at Extraordinair, the pet import agency at the Edinburgh Airport that helped us so very much with Scout's clearance process.

The drive from Scotland was very pretty. It was cold, but gorgeous - lots of sun and few hiccups caused by our own sleep-deprived poor decision-making. Sorry, no pics - we were in a hurry and wanted to get Scout out of her cage as quickly as possible.

But this morning we are starting to adjust. Here is the view from the apartment living room: