The Queen is into bondage?! What?!

So last week I left the house a few times and it wasn’t just to go to playgroup or the damn grocery store. I went into town! Twice!

For reference sake, “town” is downtown Liverpool. I’ve come to realize that the word ‘downtown’ is completely American. If you are to go downtown here, you’re either going to ‘town’ or to ‘city centre’. This confused me to no end at first since I always call the little shopping center\street close to our home as ‘town’ and Liverpool proper as ‘downtown’. I’ve been informed many times (thanks Andy) that what I consider ‘town’ is actually called the ‘high street’. While I’ve managed to adjust my phrasing to have ‘town’ mean downtown, I can’t get the hang of ‘high street’. I always just say I’m going to the shops at the end of the road. Confused yet? Welcome to my world.

So yes! I went to town (twice!). Strangely enough, I went into town (twice!) for the same damn reason both times. This past weekend, the Sea Odyssey came to Liverpool. I actually first heard about the gigantic puppets from reading Whoopee, who has a great post on the event (which was a different story technically, but they used the same girl puppet) and which I think you should read. I think you should read it because my efforts to see gigantic puppets ran amok and you should have the satisfaction of reading about giant puppets by someone who actually managed to see them.

The first day I tried to see the giant puppets, I took Henry with me. It was jam packed in town and our timing was off and by the time we should have been able to see giant puppets (on the move, which is the important bit), Henry started screaming for his supper. This was as close as I got to one of the giant puppets before I had to run (literally, which I don’t do normally since running sucks) 9 blocks (uphill) to find a bus to take us back:

Do you see him there?  Just - right - yeah, right there.  He's sleeping.   BOoO-ring.

The day wasn’t a complete bust though as I managed to capture a photo of this wonderful piece of British consumerism. Seriously, who knew the Queen was into bondage? You know, if you are a high profile head of state, it’s always a good idea to keep your kinks patriotic.

Well, HELLO Queeny.

The very next day we tried again. This time we dropped Henry off at his nan’s so that there was no way that his dinner plans interrupted our (mine, really) pursuits to see giant fuck off puppets. Sadly, we (I) failed to check the times when the puppets were on the move so by the time we managed to get to town, the puppets were already on a boat sailing away. Damn puppets!

Me: Is that them?  Andy: I don't know.  Me: Do you know now?  How about now?

It was as exciting as this picture makes it looks, which is, like, not at all.  Damn puppets.

But this little girl was excited...and sad.  She just waved good-bye over and over again.

Feeling quite defeated, we headed to the first pub we stumbled upon and had ourselves a pint. Quite by chance, we ended up sitting next to a table where a nice British couple was hosting an American guest. Feeling somewhat brave, I thought to myself, “right, I’ll wait until a good break in their conversation and then I’m going to introduce myself – using my first name!” Being polite and all, I sipped my pint and eavesdropped into their conversation waiting for my chance. By the time I was half way through my pint, I found that this American man was from Nebraska originally, but was now living in Texas. He also thought Barcelona was awesome and the cruise ship that he used to get there was fantastic. And lastly, he really enjoyed going hunting. I finished my pint, looked at Andy and said, “Let’s go.”

 All was not lost though.  Liverpool's finest were giving free non-helmeted motorcycle rides to all the kids.  Always entertaining!

SRD

So because I didn’t do much of consequence this past week besides getting the flu (damn you English weather!), I thought I’d give you a Beth post. If you’ve been reading for any length of time you know a Beth post is one in which I describe a something that is particularly British. These posts are to make her feel both guilty and grateful that she hasn’t come to visit me yet. They might also be my little way of swinging some knowledge around because heaven knows I have precious little of that to swing. Unless of course you want to know how to knit a scarf using the knit stitch; I’m a goddamn expert on that. I can’t purl stitch and I can’t knit anything but scarves but seriously…I’m really really good at it.

I could make you one of these in my sleep.

So yes! Today’s Beth post is about the very traditional British Sunday Roast Dinner. I’m only remembering to post something about this as I was just at one this past Sunday. Because I don’t have enough knowledge to swing about to tell you about the history of the Sunday Roast Dinner (SRD henceforth), I can only tell you what I know about it now.

As the name suggests, SRD is held on Thursday. Oh, ha ha. Yes, it’s on SUNDAY. From my experience, SRD occur after church, are attended by as many family members that are available, are usually held in a pub, and are reserved for special occasions such as birthdays, Easter, birth of a child, a new hair transplant, or because Jamie is going to Chester for 3 days and we don’t know if we’ll ever see him again. I’m sure that SRD happen weekly in some families and that some families cook their SRD at home. I’ve yet to see this though so I can’t tell you for sure.

SRD...not usually served with entertainment, or with blood in your gravy.

Almost every pub that serves food and is considered a family pub (ie: children are allowed in until 7 PM) will serve SRD on Sunday. The menu rarely varies. You get your choice of chicken, ham or beef served with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, peas\broccoli\beans, carrots and cabbage. The whole lot is covered in gravy. It sounds filling (which it is) but it’s amazing how much of it you can put down if you don’t eat the vile cabbage.

Just push the cabbage onto a separate plate.  Might as well do the carrots too.

The first time I was invited out for SRD was about three weeks after we first moved here. It wasn’t described to me as SRD; it was simply, “we’re meeting the family for lunch”. Now, I don’t know how your family goes out to eat in restaurant – especially in regards to lunch. I know my family is pretty impatient and will quickly run out of things to talk about so we tend to be in and out of places within an hour. My first SRD though…shit, it took us an hour to order. It then took at least 40 minutes for the food to arrive, 20 minutes to eat it all and another hour to order dessert and coffee and finally decide to leave. I’ve noticed that SRD on average will run you 3 to 3 ½ hours. What’s funny though, it never SEEMS like it’s that long as the conversation (at least with Andy’s family) flows really well.

What the best thing about a British SRD? Nobody gives you the stink eye when you order dessert. Nobody feels the urge to tell you how many calories you are consuming with that dessert. Best of all, you won’t be the only one ordering dessert and you certainly won’t be the person to suggest having dessert. (For Beth: In the north of England, dessert is called ‘pudding’. It doesn’t matter if you are having pudding or not (pudding as we know it is called custard anyhow) – it could be cake or a lemon tart – it’s all called ‘pudding’. So at the end of the meal someone will say, “Well I’m having a ‘pud’ – anyone else?”). Also, no matter what dessert you order you will always be offered either a scoop of ice cream or custard with it. I highly suggest the custard, unless it’s the chocolate fudge cake, then the ice cream is much preferable. I KNOW WAY TOO MUCH ABOUT THE DESSERTS HERE.

Never underestimate the deliciousness of custard.

For the record, if you are ever at Sunday Roast Dinner, don’t feel obligated to actually have the traditional Sunday Roast. Have the lasagna. Have the All Day Full English Breakfast. Have a sandwich. It doesn’t matter. You just have to eat.

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BTW, its two weeks until my anniversary post and I’ve yet to get any suggestions on what you’d like to read. I was thinking about doing a daily sausage taste test but then I made myself sick thinking about eating all those sausages (dirty!). Seriously, if you don’t come up with anything, I’m just going to post a picture of my butt and trust me, NO ONE WANTS TO SEE THAT.

X

So I finally mailed out my last Christmas card yesterday. I know, I know, compared to years past I’m incredibly late this year. It doesn’t help that most of my cards were heading to the States so that by the time they arrive to their destination it will be Easter. My mother, who is very conscious of postal happenings, sent her Christmas card to us early so that it ended up arriving December 1. The arrival of my mother’s card got me all sorts of Christmas card giddy and I promptly went to Tesco to purchase a Christmas card display unit (fits up to 30 cards using a Velcro system!). Over a week later, my pathetic Christmas card display unit still only holds my mother’s card. It makes me sad looking at that card now – it practically wilts with broken dreams and thoughts of people who I thought loved us who obviously don’t.

In case you thought I was lying.

I inherited my mother’s penchant for guilt by the way.

Anyhow, this week as I was filling out all the Christmas cards to Andy’s family I was very conscious of the fact that I still refuse to ‘X’ my greeting - which brings us to yet another Britishism…the ‘X’.

When I was a kid, I learned that ‘O’ meant ‘hug’ and ‘X’ meant ‘kiss’. I also learned that S.W.A.K. meant ‘sealed with a kiss’ but that is so tremendously lame there is no wonder that any high school boyfriend who used such frivolities was not long for Dating Moe. When I was a kid, I used ‘O’ and ‘X’ greetings very sparingly. Truthfully, the only time I ever used ‘O’ and ‘X’ was filling out cheap Target Valentine’s Day cards to my class of 13 (well, 12 if you exclude me). I might have used ‘O’ to hug a friend (hi Beth!) and if I was feeling particularly daring, I might sign my name with an ‘X’ to a boy I liked. Honestly, I don’t think I was ever that daring. Basically, ‘X’ was off limits – until you had firmly secured a guy as a boyfriend. But then, ‘X’ away. I think I might still have a high school love letter where half a page of college ruled paper is filled with X’s.

With this understanding, you will know why I was a bit shocked when I received my first Christmas card from my first British friend and he had signed his name with an ‘X’. How cheeky! I wasn’t even romantically involved with this guy and he’s sending me kisses in the mail?! Wow!

This is the point where I inform my American readers who might not know, the British sign their name with an ‘X’ for EVERYTHING. Well, I suppose not in a business setting as that would be weird. “Hi Glen, Can you fax over those financial reports by the end of the day? x Steve.” I still didn’t know the extent of this ‘X’ phenomenon until I received not one but TWO texts from women in my playgroup who both signed their names with X’s. Honest to god, my first thought was, “Why do these women want to kiss me? They know I’m not gay, right?”

I obviously figured it out. I think it finally hit home when Andy’s mum asked him to sign some card thing to his male cousin in Australia and she chastised him for not signing his name with the ‘X’.

Now that I’m fully aware that all these random British people have no desire to grab me for a quick make out session in the wardrobe (I’d say ‘closet’ but there is no such thing here) I’m a bit more relax….no, no, it still fucking freaks me out. I know there no logic behind me being weird about it, it’s just there. Kind of like people who are afraid of birds because a goose nipped their finger once when they were three. To me, ‘X’ will always “I want to make out” and not “here’s a friendly kiss on your cheek, we’re practically French.”

Seriously, I don't think anyone really enjoys this practice.

Which brings me back to filling out Christmas cards to Andy’s relatives. Like I said, I refuse to sign my name with an ‘X’ but I was left with paranoia that Andy’s relatives will open their Christmas cards and think, “What an icy bitch! Look Nora, there’s no ‘X’. Where’s the love? Bloody Puritan colonist!” On reflection, this is probably why my Tesco Christmas card display is so empty. Damn you X!

Our Christmas Family Photo

On a side note to that one high school boyfriend (you know who you are); I know you were thinking you were being all sexy signing your card with an ‘X X X’ but really, all I thought was, “why is he sending me some moonshine?”

 Not that I'd mind...

New Habits

So I had a momentous first this past weekend. Well, a first in the UK anyhow. On Saturday, Andy and I had taken Henry to the pub for lunch and a pint. As we were walking our way back home, a girl from one of the playgroup sessions I go to flagged me down to say hello. She and I had just gone for coffee earlier in the week so I was quite pleased she wanted to say hello, instead of hiding behind the table whispering to her husband, “is she gone yet? Tell me when she’s past.” This exchange prompted Andy to take the piss out me for the rest of the day – “Oooooo, look at Ms. Popular”, “You’ve got a friiiiiiiiiend”, “Well, we need to go to the grocery store. Should I be worried that you’ll run into more people you know?” Piss-taking aside, I was really chuffed about the whole thing. This girl and I might even go for coffee again tomorrow.

Running into people I know has always been a common occurrence for me since I tend to live in big small towns – basically suburbs of big cities where you can’t help but know people eventually. Usually after I move somewhere (which I’ve done a lot), this happens, and I mark it off as the point where I finally fit into my new town. As I’ve complained previously, this point of fitting in has never taken so long before; now that it has I feel a bit more relaxed about living here.

This made me start thinking about all the things I do now in the UK (that are almost second nature) that 10 months ago would have seemed so foreign to me. Because I know these things interest you to no end, I thought I’d list them off here.

#1: INSTANT COFFEE

I would never consider myself a coffee snob. In the States I bought my coffee from the Coffee Bean because they were good and they were convenient to buy beans for home since I was always in there for my daily fix during work hours. I did think Folgers was crap - because it is – same for Maxwell House for that matter – but I would drink a cup of it if someone offered it to me. I always drank the generic stuff pouring out of the machine at work. One thing I refused to do was buy instant coffee. I’ve owned a coffee maker consistently since I was 16 years old. I’ve owned a grinder since I was 28. There is no excuse for not taking the extra two minutes to brew a pot of fresh coffee….

…or so I thought until I moved here. It all started due to finances. We had a kettle that Andy’s mum donated to us. We figured we could live without a coffee maker until we were more flush. I begrudgingly bought some instant coffee and that is what I’ve been drinking since our time abroad. While at this point I’m sure I could convince Andy to get me a coffee maker, there almost seems no point anymore. Truthfully, I get a proper cup of drip coffee from Costa every now and again but it still doesn’t seem the same without the creamy goodness of half and half. Truthfully, instant coffee isn’t so bad if you add a scoop of Horlicks in there with it.

 Showoff

#2 SAYING ‘CHEERS’ INSTEAD OF ‘THANK YOU’

This happened almost immediately after I set foot in England. I think I had heard it so often from Andy that it snuck in the minute I was surrounded by ‘the accent of Andy’. ‘Cheers’ is primarily used when shopping. If you go to the newsagent and bought some chocolate, the transaction would be as such:

“That’s 65 p.”

“Here you go…cheers.”

I still don’t understand why we thank people or say ‘cheers’ to them in either country when purchasing items. What are we really saying? “Thank you for taking my money. You could have refused and gave it to me for free.” Perhaps we are thanking them for their cash register skills – that seems more of a “well done” then a “thanks” though. Perhaps in the UK, we are simply “cheers”-ing them for having their shop open. Since most shops are open for approximately 45 minutes every other Thursday, this would be legitimate appreciation.

#3: WALKING

I walk a lot. I might have mentioned previously that I don’t really care for walking but I think since it has become my main means of transport, I don’t mind it so much anymore. There used to be a time when I was living in the States (recently) that Andy and I would drive to the pub. If we got too drunk, we’d walk home. If we got really REALLY drunk, we would take a cab back home (only happened twice)(honestly). It embarrasses me to say that the pub in mention was 5 blocks from our house. They were long blocks, but we always took a short cut so it was less than that. I could argue that the US isn’t built for pedestrians (which is true), but it really is no excuse.

I now walk the same distance to get to the grocery store 4-5 times a week. I walk a mile further to feed the fucking ducks in the park – something I do for Henry’s benefit though he typically falls asleep on me before we get there. A mile! I walk from one end of Liverpool City Centre to the other AND BACK AGAIN because of the shops I’m going to and the spot where I catch the bus. I walk blocks and blocks and more blocks, pushing the damn stroller hoping to god that Henry will FALL THE FUCK ASLEEP (I should just take him to the ducks, shouldn’t I?). You get it right? I walk a lot. It’s not so bad.

 A pigeon could land on his nose right now and he wouldn't wake up.

#4: CELSIUS TO FAHRENHEIT CONVERSIONS

OK, I’m not an expert on this but a few things have helped me along:

0 C = 32 F

10 C = 50 F

20 C = 68 F (England never gets warmer than this, so you can stop here)

200 C = 400 F (For cooking purposes, not gauging the temperature of hell while in the company of an European)

If you know those four conversions by heart, you can usually work out the rest. I could tell you that for every 5 degrees C, it works out to 9 degrees F (thus, if you know 10 C = 50 F, 30 C would be 86 F), but that’s all sorts of boring and math-like and I won’t have such nonsense on my blog.

#5: BECOMING TOO RELIANT ON THE PLUS 1 CHANNELS

This one is going to bite me in the ass one day if we ever move back to the States. Imagine this – it’s Thursday night. As usual, all the networks have decided to put all the good shows on the same night in the same time slot. You haven’t had anything decent to watch since ‘Dr. Who’ was on on Saturday, but now you have to decide which two programs are more important to you to record on the DVR. You could watch the third, less important show live – but that goes against all your principles of never watching a commercial again. What do you do?

In the States you suck it up. In the UK, you record your 3rd and 4th less important shows (but still good enough that you must record them) and hour later on the plus one channels.

The plus one channels, you might not know, are the same channels that repeat the same program schedule and hour after it appeared on the regular channel. Here, it’s like this:

BBC One is showing ‘Frozen Planet’ at 8 PM, followed by ‘Case Histories’ at 9 PM
BBC One +1 is showing ‘Frozen Planet at 9 PM, followed by ‘Case Histories’ at 10 PM

When we first got our cable package, I was a bit put off that we had all these channels that were basically repeats of another channel, just an hour later. Now, I can’t live without it. Let’s say the baby is crying and won’t go to sleep. By the time you check the channel listings, you’ve missed the first half of some show that looks interesting (though not interesting enough to record). You simply wait a half hour, and blam, you can watch the entire show in its entirety. Brilliant – and also very useful for Thursdays.

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I have more but I think this post has gone on far enough. I’ll come back to this topic later. I will let you know that I will probably be absent next week as my sister is in town to help me celebrate Thanksgiving UK style. In my absence, why don’t you check out a new blog – but obviously come back to me in two weeks like a faithful reader that I know you are. I have paid you to be a faithful reader, right?

From my cupboard to you

So once again we didn’t do anything of consequence this past weekend. We cleaned the house. It needed it. As a person who is rather anal retentive about cleaning, having a baby really relaxed my ideals of what is considered “clean”. No worries though, it’s cleaned now-which means that if you want to come over, now is the time to do it as it’s not going to be properly cleaned again until my sister comes into town next month for Thanksgiving. Which begs the question – where the fuck does one find a turkey in this country?

Since I don’t have an exciting traveling post for you this week, I thought I would explore the cupboards of my kitchen to bring you some British product highlights. Never mind the strange look that Andy gave me as I was taking things out of the shelves this afternoon to photograph them against the lovely backdrop of a kitchen towel draped over the microwave.

First things first, we have the staple of any British kitchen: The economy sized bottle of Fairy Washing up Liquid. The majority of households in this country do not own a dishwasher so washing the dishes (UK: “washing up”) is still alive and well. Fairy is by far the most popular brand and apparently they have a catchy jingle (we have a DVR so I haven’t seen a commercial since 2007) and Andy will sing the jingle to you if you happen to mention Fairy Washing up Liquid. Since I can’t be bothered listening to Andy when he starts sprouting these obscure commercial references, I can’t repeat the jingle for you here. But there’s something to break the ice with Andy if you ever do meet him\meet him again.

Another picture of my washing line, how exciting!

Moving on to cereals, this announcement is on every box of cereal sold in the UK. Again, I can’t be bothered to look up the details about it, but it really humors me that someone in this country has the job title of “Purveyor of Cereal”. That just brings to mind Greek Gods or Catholic Saints. “I’m the Patron Saint of Travelers!” “Oh yeah, well I’m the fucking Purveyor of Cereal, bitches!”

The Queen has personally hand picked this cereal for you.

Still on cereals, we have Quaker Oats Porridge. There is no oatmeal in this country, its porridge, even if you get a familiar US brand of Quaker Oats. Not reading the label properly and assuming (“ass” out of ‘u’ and ‘me’) that it was just the same preparation as the US version, I spent an entire box preparing my porridge with water. I should say “suffering through an entire box” as using water instead of milk makes for absolutely terrible porridge.

2 MINS to shitty porridge if you don't read the instructions properly.

Next we have carbonara sauce. I would like to point out for the record that I’m only presenting to you carbonara sauce as I’ve yet to find alfredo sauce in this country. They are very similar, carbonara and alfredo, but different enough. I would have thought being a lot closer to Italy than in the States that the Italian sauces offerings would be huge. Nope. There’s white sauce (carbonara), red sauce (used for spaghetti bolognese which I am convinced is the 2nd British national dish after curry) and pesto. No clam sauce, no white wine sauce, and no mushroom sauce.

More pictures of my clothing line.  Squeal!

What the Brits lack in Italian sauces they most certainly make up for in table sauces. In the States if you go to a typical restaurant, you’ll have ketchup and mustard. You’ll have to ask for your side of mayo or ranch. The service industry here doesn’t want you asking for naught and will put every condiment known to man (save Ranch – boo!) in a handy carrying box to bring to you with your food. I’m showing what 90% of the time will come to the table but even after this you may still get mint sauce and horseradish too.

The ketchup would be more full if it wasn't for chip and pie Sundays.

Speaking of Purveyors, there’s one for HP sauce too.

Now, I’m hoping the next one isn’t actually available in the States. Fuck knows we love our gravy. If America is missing out then someone should take charge and make a fortune. These are gravy granules. You put how ever many spoonfuls of gravy you happen to need in a bowl and pour a bit of boiling water on top. No need to make a sauce pan full of gravy. No need to open an entire can. Just spoon some in and presto! Gravy goodness. They do have meat flavored gravy by the way. I would just like to add that gravy is surprisingly good on chips\fries. Just saying.

Mmm...gravy.

Yes, they look like rat droppings, but they are so good.

Any American bakers moving to the UK? If so, please take note of the following so that you don’t have to ask the little old hunchback lady with a deep Scouse accent where to find the baking soda.

Is it just me, or do those gingerbread men look burnt?

This one is for Henry since he hates not to be included on my weekly updates. These are the solids I feed him twice a day now. I tried making my own baby food but I couldn’t get it smooth enough so I resorted to Ella’s Kitchen. I think they do have Ella’s in the States but from what I heard they overcharge for it there so not many people buy it. I hope this won’t influence his taste buds too much. I’ll be damned if I’m going to make him broccoli and pears when he’s older.

The Mango Baby Brekkie is actually really good.  Um, not that I've licked it off Henry's spoon or anything.

Speaking of chips\fries, these pies are the perfect accompaniment. We used to go to the chippy every other week but since we’re trying to save money, I just make the pies and chips at home now. Of course this means that we’ve taken our bi-weekly shitty nutritional meal and turned it into a weekly shitty nutritional meal.

"They're proper pies, asshole!"

If we ever move back to the States I will miss Lilt Zero. Of course I will have to dry my tears with buckets full of Hansen’s.

Now it’s time for my international fruit and veg. I think its common knowledge that most fruits and vegetables in the off season in America come from places like Mexico and South America. I don’t know if by law they are required to tell you that on their label or not. Here, they are required. I don’t know what type of satisfaction I’m suppose to get knowing my grapes came from Italy and Greece (of course), my tomatoes from Poland (that’s tomatosky to you) and my cucumbers from Spain, but there you go.

Henry is playing "Spot the Baby" in my pictures here.

Lastly, if you do decide to come over to my house during this week where it’s actually clean, these are the types of drinks I will offer you. That is of course unless I know you are the drinking sort in which case I will offer you vodka in your coffee. You’re welcome.

 Seriously, Horlicks?  Still funny.

A sliver of the food post that never was...

I never did get around to writing that food post that I was planning.  I think you can figure out why.  Because I still don't really have time, this is more like Food Post Lite.  A tasting menu of food posts.   A chocolate miniature of food posts. A goddamn tapa of food posts.  A sniff from the Cinnabon store when you're in the mall just to buy a pair of shoes for the Christmas party of food posts.   You get the picture.

Speaking of which, here are some pictures.  The first is from the fish & chip shop in Crosby (seriously, THAT'S how long I've been meaning to write a food post).  This particular fish & chip shop would be considered a Chinky, meaning they serve mostly Chinese food, and 'chinky' apparently isn't a horribly racist term like it would be in the US.  Or maybe it is a horribly racist term here as well and now I'm going to get hate mail due to my ignorance.  

I've been struggling with Chinese food since I've arrived here and it's due to the fact that none of the Chinese food dishes are termed the same as I'm used to.  In all fairness, 90% of the Chinese food in America is not really Chinese food at all but an American bastardization of it but I thought there might be some similarities here.  There isn't. The biggest difference I've seen is that in the US, you normally choose your meat and vegetable accompaniments.  For example, I normally get beef with broccoli or chicken with snow peas.   In the UK, the Chinese dishes are separated out by sauces.   Beef with OK sauce.  Chicken with Peking sauce.  I have no idea what these sauces are and I don't know what kind of vegetables will be coming with my meal.  As someone who doesn't eat mushrooms or onions (both very prevalent in Chinese food) it's a bit of a crap shoot when ordering Chinese food here.  The best that I've worked out is that I like the oyster sauce (that thankfully doesn't actually taste like oysters), the rest, as they say, is a mystery.

Board of Mystery Dishes #1

I don't even want to know what "special fried rice" is.

The 2nd thing I was itching to show you was the launch of Stella Artois's Cidre last week.  Yes, I did spell that correctly spell check.  Apparently it's not pronounced "cider" but "see-dray" or some equally lame ass pronunciation like that.  As someone who has a soft spot for Snakebites made with cider and Stella, this is an interesting development for me.  Not that I've had time to hang out in the pub getting smashed on Snakebites recently, but when that time does come again, I'm going to be as embarrassed to order a Stella\See-Dray snakebite as I am my decaf sugarfree vanilla lattes with a half pump of syrup.  But order it I will because dammit, it's got to be awesome.

 Wait for me my pretentious sounding future hangover!

Scattered

So it’s been 6 days with a newborn in the house and as expected, things have been utter chaos. Despite my best efforts, I’ve become a cliché with all grown up talks with Andy revolving around feeding schedules, poo consistency, thoughts about gas and our ongoing argument on whether the baby is too hot or too cold. Compounded with all this is the lack of sleep which to be fair, I’m not handling gracefully. I’ve never had the best record for sleep. 6 hours is my typical night of sleep and if I don’t get those 6 hours then I tend to turn into a four headed monster – moody, difficult, impossible – basically I revert back to a 2 year old.

Saturday was when I hit my wall. I had done 4 days on 4 hours sleep (sometimes that 4 hours broken up into 45 minute segments) and it was my turn to do the couch sleeping night shift. While Henry can sleep for 3 hours solid before requiring any of his basic needs, that particular night he was up demanding something every half hour. I just lost it. I don’t mean I lost it in the sense that I screamed and yelled or threw anything, I just broke down. There was a point at 5 AM where I’m feeding Henry for the 5th time that evening and tears are just rolling down my face. I’m sobbing. And I couldn’t stop sobbing. I was just so tired and overwhelmed. Typically when I hit a wall like that, when things get too much for me at work, or in a relationship, or if I’m just having one of those days when everything goes tits up, I leave. I leave and go for a drive or I leave and go to the pub or I leave and go sit in a park…I just leave. The fact that I couldn’t leave made me break down that much further and I ended up waking up Andy around 6 AM, eyes all puffy and red and tears still streaming telling him over and over again that I was sorry and that I couldn’t do it anymore. My husband is awesome. He put me to bed where I slept for almost 5 hours. Then last night, he sent me to bed at 11 PM and let me just sleep….and sleep…and sleep. I never thought that being given 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep would be as romantic as a getting a surprise shag in the middle of a car park, but my god…it is.

Today I feel normal again. My brain seems to be able to process more than “hungry = eat food”. I feel up to making important decisions like deciding to cut out Facebook and news\blog reading for the week so I can utilize Henry’s sleeping hours to actually unpack a box or two….or prepare a meal more complicated than a bowl of cereal…or to take a fucking shower.

3 days later…

Very typically, after I wrote “fucking shower” Henry started screaming and I completely forgot to finish this up until right now. Part of that was due to the fact that because I had gotten some sleep I managed to find the energy to tackle some of the boxes littering every corner of our house. I’m proud to announce that my kitchen is back. Well, as back and complete as it’s going to be. Even though the physical size of our UK kitchen appears to be the same size as our US kitchen, the kitchen cabinets here aren’t as deep or as wide as the ones in the US and I’ve had to go through and repack things that we don’t immediately need. Like barware. I know! The barware! My theory behind packing the barware away is that we don’t exactly have a group of friends here yet to invite over for BBQ’s and the likelihood that Henry will let us get out and about to make such a group of friends is away off still so…away it goes. In another Shit We Paid to Ship that’s Completely Useless Here are my baking trays. My baking trays are made for those wonderfully wide US ovens and simply don’t fit in my UK oven. Not that I didn’t try. Holding one of the baking trays in hand I could physically see that the tray was too wide for the oven but it still didn’t stop me for trying to jam it in. Not that it would have worked, but the tray didn’t even fit if I put the tray on an angle. Looking back I’m not sure why I tried to fit the tray in at an angle – I think maybe if it fit that way I would have gotten all smug and justified that we paid to bring it over…or something.

By the way, I’m doing pretty well at my Facebook ban. I couldn’t manage to give up blog reading and a little news reading but I haven’t logged on to Facebook for 3 days now and I feel…a bit free really. I might have to continue my ban for longer than a week – or modify it a bit and only check in once a week.

This is a random post, isn’t it? It kind of reflects my brain at the moment. Like now I want to tell you that Andy has gotten me hooked on “Jonathan Creek”, a now cancelled mystery show that humors me to no end. In the two specials that I’ve seen so far (which with a baby takes us 2-3 days to watch) the main character will solve the murder and announce how he solved the murder TO the murderer (or relative of the murderer) and yet the murderer doesn’t feel inclined to, you know, MURDER the main character. Yeah, I know…I’m easily amused these days.

So I know this post isn’t that entertaining but my sweet son is about to roar his head in hunger so it’s the best I can give you for now.

Cracke, not craic...though it was.

So I want to apologize for my last post. My mood these days tend to change as often as the English weather in spring and I should have known better to write when I was at a low point. I was tempted to delete the post but fuck it; this blog isn’t all skipping through the flowery field all the time. This blog is more like getting a generic box of graham crackers and thinking, “this tastes like preschool” because in preschool they could never afford Honey Maid and it warms your heart a bit that you can actually remember a bit of preschool but disappointing because generic graham crackers just don’t soften up in milk like the real ones do. Maybe that really wasn’t a proper analogy but more of me describing a recent experience.

Anyhow, this past Saturday both Andy and I were convinced that I was going into proper labor. I won’t go into details but the day was mostly spent with me moaning and whining and wondering to myself how bad it had to get before we called up the hospital hoping that they’d to tell us to come in (which from what I hear, the midwives won’t let you come in until you’re crowning). Sadly, I made the mistake of “getting some rest” and woke up Sunday morning quite normal and definitely not in labor anymore. I did however feel great, probably better than I’ve felt in weeks, and we decided to make the most of a sometimes sunny, sometimes chilly, spring day in Liverpool.

We took care of the needed shopping first by going to the New Mersey Retail Park. Retail Parks are a pretty big thing here, both in actual size and in public enthusiasm. They’re a bit like a strip mall but 100 times bigger. Technically speaking, England doesn’t have anything like what America calls a strip mall. Most towns and villages here will have at least one of the following: a newsagent (basically a hardly cleaned and much smaller 7-11), a bakery, a grocery store (small), a pub, a charity shop (similar to Goodwill), a fish and chip shop (also called a chippy), and a bookies – but no strip malls. The bookies, as general information, will be the cleanest establishment of all those listed and it will also have a pretty clean bathroom that you can use if you pretend that you are using it prior to making a bet on the electronic horses. England also has proper shopping malls too, but when you’re after something big (like a bed or a couch) or for DYI stuff, you’re going to end up at one of the many Retail Parks; which we did. I suppose that was a really long way of telling you we went to BandQ Warehouse (Home Depot) for some couch cushions.

Oh retail park, how I love thee.

Afterwards, we decided to head towards the city centre as Andy has been going on about this place called the Ye Olde Cracke that he had been to many years before and absolutely loved. I have to say that Ye Olde Cracke didn’t disappoint. It was located on this tiny little street that we totally didn’t see the first time we drove past. It’s also located between two of the largest cathedrals in the area, the Liverpool Cathedral and the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (great naming there folks). The Liverpool Cathedral is the 5th largest cathedral in the world (and the largest in the UK) and the Metropolitan one looks like a gigantic wigwam (sadly sans Indians – native, Asian or otherwise). Check me out – I went from horrible whiny post last week to boring tourist information post – somebody give me a rubber chicken for fucks sake. ANYHOW, Ye Olde Cracke is supposedly one of the pubs John Lennon used to hang out in when he went to art school in the area. I can’t confirm that but I can confirm that they had a really awesome beer garden and a weird Chinese guy who will sell you a knock off DVD for 3 pounds. Actually, I can’t confirm that the Chinese guy will always be there but for 3 pounds, our copy of ‘Rango’ wasn’t that bad….not great, but watchable after you got used to the handheld camera shake.

Paying for parking...1 pound 40 for an hour in case you're interested.

Another random shot - trying to seem arty.  Failing.  Need rubber chicken.

Andy standing next to some art.  It has some meaning, this art, but I don't know what it is because I didn't bother to read the plaque. 

Nothing like a Super Lambanana to brighten one's day.

The Cracke!

The beer garden.  Also, the Facebook masses agree with me that Andy is in desperate need of a haircut.

After a pint, we headed down the road to Liverpool’s Chinatown. Well, technically we got ourselves a bit screwed up looking for parking so we ended up in a Chinese grocery store first. In California I was used to having the Japanese grocery store nearby so I was really stoked that there was a place here I could pick up proper ramen noodles, soy sauce, pot stickers and most importantly, Koala March cookies. We managed to find the entrance to Chinatown after a bit of searching but it was pretty much shut due to it being Sunday (fecking Sunday working hours!) but we did stop into this tiny little pub called ‘the Nook’ because I was dying for a pee. Of course we had to stay and have a drink and for the prices (2.80 for a pint of lager and a small 7-up) and entertainment – this was Chinatown after all – it was well worth it.

Chinatown...pretty but fucking shut.  Stupid Sundays!

It was a good day and it completely made up for the week’s worth of pissy good for nothing pregnancy mood swings I’ve been having. Well, I say that, Andy might feel a bit different.


On an unrelated\related note: Please send Honey Maid graham crackers.

This post is delivered to you straight to your door.

So I’m currently drinking Horlicks Light Chocolate Malt which is slowly becoming my Favorite Hot Drink EVER. It’s chocolately and malty and although it has like, the worst name since the Kum & Go in Kansas, it’s delicious. I would highly recommend it. It’s actually supposed to make you sleepy but I haven’t had a problem with zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZ hmph…what was I saying? Sadly, I can only assume that when people from the States come and visit me and I’ll do my usual crap where I force a food or beverage on them telling them it’s The Best Thing EVER and they will try it and humorously give me an “it’s ok, I guess”. Maybe I need to change my tactics and just slip this to them instead of the cup of tea I’ll promise and let them make their own assumptions – which would be “England’s tea sure tastes a lot like hot chocolate.”

Mmmm....

In case you thought I was lying.

ANYWAYS, since I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath wondering if we got approved for the house in Mossley Hill (illusions of grandeur anyone?), I’m proud to say that we did. We got the keys on Saturday but since our bed won’t be delivered until this Wednesday, we aren’t officially moving in until then. Ever since we got approved there has been this Great Money Suck occurring as we rush around buying everything that we previously sold 2 months ago (those being things that plugged in or that were too big to ship) as well as things that we didn’t need before but we sure as hell need now. Obviously there are the baby things but mostly it’s the storage. For those who don’t know, in England (and I’m sure the rest of the UK if not Europe in general) houses do not typically come with closets. In the house that we are moving into – 3 bedrooms remember – there are approximately no closets. None. Zilch. Zero. There aren’t any shelves either. It’s all just walls, electric sockets and a door to each and every room. Honestly, not having closets is fine, but it’s just the expense (that we didn’t plan for) of buying cabinets and storage units so our clothes and what else isn’t piled in a heap in the corner of the room (I totally had an ex-boyfriend in my early 20’s who did that – 3 foot high piles of god knows what – and he had a closet available) that’s the pain.

Just see how fast the song gets in your head.

Which brings us to the delivery schedule. Because we bought a lot of big things that couldn’t fit in the car, we are having item after item delivered to the house starting on Wednesday. I’m sure our new neighbors are going to think that I’m a daytime prostitute what with all the strange men that will be coming to the house in the next few days. I’m even having groceries delivered! Now hear me out on this – Andy works days and I don’t have a car. Andy also hates grocery shopping. The Tesco by our house is a half mile away, which isn’t bad, but I’m also 8 months pregnant and need to buy our first big grocery haul which is going to be heavy. For 4 quid delivery, I went online and got everything we need and they’ll drop it off at my front door. The front door! Since laundry can no longer be my favorite chore, I think online grocery shopping in my pajamas will slowly move up the ranks to the Best Chore Ever.

I'll never have to leave the house again!

So yes! Bed on Wednesday, cable and internet on Thursday (no internet for over 24 hours…the humanity!), and the ugly ass couch on Friday. Did I say that? Alright, listen. We got a couch and a matching chair and a foot rest. We needed the price to be reasonable, the couch comfortable, and the delivery of said couch as soon as possible. We found a couch that was all of these things but I think its hideous looking. I think it looks like a bunch of filtered cigarettes all lined up in a row. Andy likes it. Andy works all day to keep us fed so I said that it was OK. I also know that after 5 years of cat scratching and baby puke\toddler dirt\small child jam hands that we will need a new couch. I can deal with it; it is comfortable and affordable after all. Just don’t think that this couch is in any way is my “style”. I am more the comfortable minimalist type then the “Let’s sit on a pack of Marlboros” type. The foot rest with built in storage is pretty sweet though. And come Saturday, Andy and I can lay out on our new couch watching cable TV eating frozen pizza because really, that’s all we’ll be able to afford to do. I honestly can’t wait.

 Don't laugh, you all will be sleeping on this when you come and visit.

Settling...

So I was going to do a UK food entry type thing for you all this week but it turns out I’ve got a bunch of other things to ramble on about (mostly for my amusement rather than yours-sorry!) so I’m going to do that instead. Well, maybe I’ll throw in a bit about the food, I don’t know yet…it will all come clear as all the bits rambling about in my head are firmly down on electronic paper.

I guess I better just get on with the news of this past week. It’s been a very hectic week but Andy and I got a shitload of necessary things done and I’m feeling a lot more comfortable with my current situation because of it. First of all, we bought a car. We’ve been using a rental car that we picked up from the airport almost 4 weeks ago and that we are due to return this upcoming Saturday. Buying a car wasn’t high on our radar until we realized that we were seriously on a time crunch. I had offered to help Andy look for cars on the internet while he slaved away at work but I ended up getting entirely too frustrated since I had no clue on the quality of the makes and models of cars here. Driving around this past month, I was mainly seeing Vauxhalls, Peugeots, Fiats and Fords on the road. Ford is the only brand I was familiar with and honestly Ford and I don’t have a very good relationship (despite what Andy tells me about Fords being better built here). Thankfully someone at Andy’s work recommended a used car dealership to him and we dropped by there at about 6 PM last Thursday.

Now Andy had told me that buying a car in the UK was a pain in the ass but that it was no where near as bad as trying to buy a car in the US. I can now firmly attest to that and in fact, would say that buying a car in the UK in no more worse than picking up a carton of milk at the grocery store. We got to the dealership and started looking around. No one came up to bother us – in fact, we had to find someone to help us narrow down our search. Once Andy found one that he liked that was in our price range, we took a 5 minute unassisted test drive (meaning the dealer didn’t require to sit in the car with us rambling on about the car’s features), went back to the dealer’s office and put down a small deposit, then agreed on a time to pick it up. You can’t drive off the lot with the car until you have the paperwork stating that you are properly insured for it. At no time did the dealership ever ask to see Andy’s driving license. The whole process took 45 minutes. I’m sure if we were financing the car (which we couldn’t do since neither of us as a lick of credit history in this country) it might have taken a bit longer, but I can’t see that it would have been that much longer. What’s funny is that car dealerships here adhere to the same general work ethic that infects the entire UK. The dealership closed at 7 PM. If this process had taken an hour and 15 minutes, instead of 45, the dealer would have told us to come back the next day to finish up. That would have never happened in the US. If a dealer in the US thought he had a chance of making a sale, he would stay 4 hours later than closing time to make sure that it he made a commission. Anyhow, two days later with insurance certificate in hand, we went back, paid the rest of the money for the car, and drove off – all of 10 minutes.

I’m proud to say that we are now the owners of one 2007 Peugeot 307 in blue. It’s not the best car in the world but we like it and it’s big enough to fit the gigantic stroller I insisted on getting because it didn’t make me cry when using it (the stroller, not the car).

Not our actual car, but this is exactly what it looks like.  It's French (don't hold that against us), I've named it 'Pierre' of course.

The 2nd bit of big news is that we also managed to find a house to rent. Well, our applications are currently being processed but we should know by the end of the week if we have ourselves somewhere to live. The place we found is only the 3rd house we looked at and it’s in a different area then I thought we’d be, but it’s a fantastic place and I’m crossing my butt cheeks hoping that we get approved. The house is in Mossley Hill, which is a really nice area of Liverpool, with lots of nice shops and families and big parks nearby. The house itself has two large bedrooms, one small bedroom, kitchen, dining room, living room and a large back patio for Chloe to yell at birds in. Unfortunately the place only has one bathroom. It does however, have the toilet in the same room as the actual shower\bath so, you know, we got that going for us. I’m also going to have to live sans dryer, dishwasher, and garbage disposal until we are more flush again next year but honestly, if I don’t have to live in the hellholes first two places we had looked at were, I can deal. This place is at least clean and recently renovated unlike the others.

Jaysus, the first place we looked at was awful. I wish I could take pictures because I don’t know if anyone would believe me on how bad it was. The place was in Aigburth – a terraced house with three “bedrooms” and two “bathrooms”. I want you first to imagine your grandma’s house. You know the grandma – the one who has lived in the same house since First World War and hasn’t redecorated since 1943. The same grandma who is long since widowed and is arthritically challenged, as well as has a serious case of dementia, but who refuses to get any help so hasn’t cleaned the house properly since 1996. Imagine this grandma finally passes to the Great Beyond and you are walking into the house for the first time. Imagine a kitchen where the only way you could tell it was the new millennium was the 8 year old washing machine sitting under a decrepit sink. Imagine the “family bathroom” that was located directly off the kitchen that looks more like a utility room than anything remotely similar to a bathroom. There was no bath to start with – or a shower stall for that matter. What was there was a shower head hanging off the corner of the wall, with a dirty shower curtain sectioning off one of the corners of the room with a drain in the middle of the floor (all cement, painted a lovely shade of turquoise blue). I imagine prison showers to be very similar. Going for 650 pounds a month I honestly thought that it was very likely we’d be staying with Andy’s mum until Henry was 5 years old.

The 2nd place we looked at wasn’t much better but at least it had a proper bathtub (1950’s pink!). It was honestly after the 2nd place that we decided that Aigburth was entirely too student-like for us (I’m getting old) and that we were much better suited for the less bohemian and less crack heads walking around in the middle of the day lifestyle. You know, we’re having a kid….I can admit defeat to my youth. I might be kicking and screaming a bit but at least I’m kicking and screaming from a nice coffee house with a hot decaf latte in my hand.

So that’s the news. I might update later on this week with more gibber jabber on food or what not but I can’t promise anything. I might be too busy putting together IKEA furniture…or giving birth…or searching for a new hair conditioner as my supply from the US has just run out (ack!).

The Glamorous Expat Life

So I have been a proper expat for approximately 10 days now. In these ten days I have done…well, I’ve just been living really. Call me delusional (though I hope that I’m not the only delusional expat out there) but when I thought about living abroad, I had all these grandiose ideas on how living abroad would be so glamorous and exciting and filled with new discoveries everywhere I turned. While the new discoveries bit is quite valid in many aspects, the real truth is being an expat is not glamorous or not incredibly exciting simply for the whole lot of Basic Living you’re actually doing.

Let’s put it this way – when you go on vacation somewhere, to a foreign land or hell, even to Florida, you’re on vacation. You don’t think about laundry detergent or which bank has the best APR’s or what form you need to fill out for a grocery store savings card. You’re on vacation. On vacation your main concern is having fun, eating fatty foods, and taking 168 pictures of landscapes to bore your friends with back home. You don’t look around and think to yourself whether or not the area around the hotel would have a good school system, do you? But that’s what it’s like being an expat. It’s just real life- regular basic living, isn’t it? The only difference from trying to get settled in another town in the country you are born in and trying to get settled in a new country completely different from your own is that people talk funny and you spend entirely way too much time identifying the worth of the coins you have jangling around in your pocket.

I also think your mind is a lot more open when you are on vacation. Or maybe that’s just me. I just know that when I was here last year for 3 weeks I was all about trying all the local foods and just taking in whatever England could throw at me. This time around I find myself already searching for American equivalents to the every day things I use. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about that a year ago. Why would I? There’s no point in finding Britain’s answer to Secret solid deodorant if I’m going to be back in the US in 3 weeks. Bring on the roll-on!

This all may sound like doom and gloom. Andy is probably reading this right now shaking his head and mumbling about me being a bit fat complainer; which I must respond, I’M NOT COMPLAINING. I’m actually stating some facts here and I’m stating them for all those out there who are thinking about moving abroad and are as delusional as I was. Because if you are delusional (like I was), the reality can hit you in the face pretty fucking hard and maybe it would help if someone had told us (the delusional people) a little bit about how it actually goes down. So, hey dumbass, it’s not going to be a vacation, it’s just going to be your life.

With all that NOT complaining stated, I have to tell you that life here isn’t so bad. It’s actually quite good really, for regular life. Technically, we’re still in limbo living at Andy’s mum’s house at the moment; anxious to get on with proper settling down in our own place and all that, but it’s been good regardless. Now that we’re here we’ve been able to buying the big things that the baby is going to need – stroller, crib, car seat – also things that plug in like the baby monitor and bottle warmer. That’s actually been a huge relief. For someone who considers herself efficient and just likes to get things done already, it’s great not to be waddling around at 34 weeks without a clue on how we’re getting the baby home from the hospital. Baby aside, we’ve gotten a lot of the basic things taken care of – opening a bank account, got new phones with really long phone numbers (which I admit fully I can never remember what mine is), got the saving card at the grocery store (and Costa Coffee – uber important!). I’ve also got to experience a lot of normal UK life – going to the tip (aka: dump\landfill), going to the Trafford Centre (aka: big ass mall), going to the cinema on Friday night to see Simon Pegg’s new movie, “Paul” (I was the only one in the theater who laughed a the illegal alien joke), and eating out A LOT. We’ve visited the cat twice in quarantine, which is really a big ass compound in the middle of the countryside (she’s doing fine, though has let herself go by gaining a least a pound in two weeks). We’ve helped Andy’s mum buy a new laptop and Blu Ray player at Curry’s (aka: similar to Best Buy but they have Best Buy too).

The Willage (aka: Crosby Village).  I've been to Costa no less than 8 times in the last 10 days.

Our abode and fantastically awful Vauxhall rental car

Headed into the Birkenhead Tunnel to go see Chloe

Our chubby little monster

Me, trying to show off my bulging belly in Sefton Park but failing miserably.  At least I have water shooting out of my head.

Like I said, we’ve been busy and it’s been good but it’s not terribly exciting, it’s just life. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I do have one small anecdote for you, which is to describe Little Chef. Little Chef is a chain diner type place, usually located along a traveling route. I would say it’s similar to a Stuckey’s or Waffle House in the States. When we go and see Chloe in quarantine (which is in the countryside remember), we actually pass two Little Chef’s on the way. The first time we headed that way, I couldn’t hold my bladder any longer and asked Andy if we could stop at Little Chef so I could pee. Walking in to Little Chef is like visiting an area that just got a visit from the Dementors (Harry Potter reference – I don’t care how dorky it is, I’m not changing it as it’s the only way to describe it). Everyone there, from the customers to the employees just looked like the joy had been sucked out of them. Like they were all there, in that Little Chef, wondering what they had done in their life wrong that they somehow ended up there, at Little Chef, for the rest of their days. Even their mascot, Charlie, looks like he has a forced smile. Growing up my parents used to threaten to drop us off at jail when we were misbehaving. When Henry misbehaves, I’m going to threaten to drop him off at Little Chef.

I feel the life draining from me just looking at this.

That’s about it for me. Now that the laundry is done, I’ve got to run into the willage (aka: Crosby Village) to get some bread and vegetables from Sainsbury’s because that is the sort of glamorous expat life I lead.