Home Sweet Home

Had to run back to Sainbury's this morning because I forgot to pick up sugar last night. My only complaint about the new store is that the shopping cart (aka trolley) requires you to pay for the use. Yes you get your £1.00 back when you return the cart but still... It does make it a pain in the butt.

I carry this little token around with me on my keys so that I don't have to dig out my wallet to get a pound but it is still annoying. Do people really steal carts? Or is this so that carts are not left all over the place? When you have these devices on them you have to walk them back to where they are kept so that you can get your money/token back. Maybe that is why they use them.

I love love love the Olympics! I am so looking forward to them starting on Friday (even though I wont be able to watch the opening ceremony until Saturday because of the time difference).

However... It got me thinking this morning about how much I am going to miss watching it on NBC. I will miss the Olympic song that they always play, I will miss the 'puff pieces' that they do on the athletes and I will very much miss Bob Costas!

The coverage over here is not going to be the same and I do have to admit it makes me a little sad.

Today at lunch I was looking on my iPhone for an Olympic App and found this one from NBC.! I was so excited. Until it finished downloading and I opened it up to find that it will not allow me to watch videos because I am not in the United States.

What the #$%&!?

Do they not know that there are Americans living outside the United States? NBC is a free TV station. Why would they block it?

I am sad again.

Andy and I were out of work at 5:00pm today. I have tomorrow off since I have to be in on Saturday so I wanted to run into Middlebrook 'very quickly' to pick up some things from Homebase for the bathroom so that I could work on it tomorrow.

I really need to remember to check the Football schedule before I go into Middlebrook. The Reebok stadium is right there and unfortunatly Bolton were playing at home against Burnley at 8:00pm so a trip that should have taken 10 minutes took f-o-r-e-v-e-r! We did not get home until 6:45pm!

Not happy.

I know this is a blurry photo but you get the idea... I wish it would snow again but I have a feeling we are done for this winter.

It does make me sad though because I love snow!

There has been some pretty heavy rain over the last few days. All of the snow is melted except for the large piles where parking lots were cleared off.

Snow is so beautiful but how ugly is this?

I wish it would snow again.

Christine: I wonder how this happened?

Andy: I don't know, was going to ask you the same thing.

Christine: Well I didn't do it.

Andy: Neither did I... I don't put anything on the table.

Christine: Nothing? You never put one thing on the table?

Andy: Well yeah I do but nothing that would make those scratches.

Christine: Hhhhmmmmmm...

I hate buying light bulbs in England. There are just too many different kinds!

The other day when I was in Asda I picked up the one on the right not realizing that it was the kind that you push in and twist.

Then today when we were at Asda again I made sure to get the kind on the left that screws into place only to find out the base is too large and it still doesn't fit my light fixture. I never had this trouble in America.

Today Andy and I were scheduled to work 8-4 but the company closed at 1pm so that was a nice surprise. Almost all of the supermarkets were closing at 6pm so we ran and did some shopping for tomorrow. My family has always made Ham and Beans on New Years Day and this is something I have always continued so I needed to get everything for it. After we bought some groceries we went to the movies to see Sherlock Holmes. It was very good! I will have to admit it was a little slow at the start but we were both very tired so that might not have helped the situation... It also had an ending that suggested there will be another one which who could say no to another two hours of Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr? Not me that's for sure.

Nothing else really planned for tonight. I talked to my Mom on the phone for a little over an hour to catch up with her over the last week, cross stitched a little, kissed Andy and midnight, watched Eastenders and then went to bed. Boring but very nice.

High: 37°
Low: 30°
Forecast: Times of Clouds and Sun
Sunrise: 8:27 AM
Sunset: 4:00 PM

Waking up to find the snow on my car was not the nightmare, in fact that was the easiest part of the day. It was a very dry snow and brushed right off without any kind of problem.

The nightmare is referring to the shopping experience I had today. It was supposed to be easy. I needed to get some ink for my printer and a few other items. It took me 4 stores to find the ink for my new HP printer and have been assured that even though the other 3 stores didn't even have a place for it on the shelf it is not being discontinued...

Also while I was at Asda I could not find the butter. I walked up and down the refrigerated aisles at least 10 time each. It was so crowded, I couldn't find a worker and I had to text Andy asking him where it was and going as far as saying I was nearly in tears which was not a lie. He text me back letting me know it was along the back wall and not with the milk and cheese. Then while I was checking out my debit card wouldn't work! I informed the lady that it just worked when I bought my ink at the previous store and she said she didn't know what to tell me, we tried it three times. She said I was going to have to leave the items and try to get cash out at the ATM machine and come back to her line. For those of you in the States... here in England the debit cards have these chips on them and that is what is used to read the card not the swipe strip on the back. Anyway I rubbed this chip and asked that we try it again... thank goodness this time it worked!

Also I needed some gift boxes. My fellow Americans will know the ones I am talking about. They come in a package of say 3-5 different ones. The ones you can walk into any store such as Wal-Mart or Target and pick up. The ones that if you have something say like a shirt that you are not wanting to put in a bag. You all can see where this is going right? I went to Tesco and Asda and neither had these 'mythical' boxes. I eMailed Andy from my phone and sent a text to a friend who was at work and they both came back saying I needed to go to a card store such as below.


So in I went and yes they did have gift boxes but as you can see below not a very large collection of them. and in case you can not see the price that shirt sized is a whopping £2.75 for one! What the £%£"&*!? So I gave up and the gifts will end up in Christmas bags as those can be found in abundance. I would rather wrap them but oh well.


Now... as bad as my day had been it was about to get a lot better! I am working on a Secret Santa gift for work and I needed to get something bound and I knew in America I could go to Staples. So off I went to the one in Bolton.


Honestly my bad mood melted away as soon as I walked through the doors... I swear it was as if I was walking into America. The store looked exactly the same as one in America would look (unlike how you walk into Asda and it does not look anything the same). While I was getting the gift bound I had a good walk around. And I came across the best section of any store I have found over here...


Look at all of these Scotch products! Now if you click on the picture to make it larger you will see the prices are outrageous but this did not stop me in purchasing the yellow scotch tape dispenser and a refill pack of three.

Honestly I don't know what I liked so much about this store. It had to be just because of how bad of a day I was having. I absolutely love living in England and I wouldn't change anything about it for a second but I have never been more happy to be able to buy some really expensive scotch tape.

High: 32°
Low: 31°
Forecast: Periods of Snow
Sunrise: 8:23 AM
Sunset: 3:51 PM

So I know I have complained about this before and I may have even already taken a photo of it but I have to bring this up again.

'If' a store was open 24 hours why would they need a sign displaying their hours? You're right... they wouldn't. But as you can see above Asda clearly states that they are 'Open 24 Hours' but if you look at the sign they close on Saturdays at 10:00pm and open back up Sunday morning at 11:00am and close again at 6:00pm not to open up again until Monday morning.

This drives me crazy.

I have somewhat got used to the stores closing in England so early... and when I say somewhat it means just that. I still complain about the lack of late night shopping and having to make sure you have everything by a certain time so that you are not caught out with no where to go buy it. But to clearly display a sign saying 'Open 24 Hours' and to clearly not be open 24 hours... this is just stupid.

How do they get away with this? Obviously my American self has a different concept of this term. When I ask others around me they give me some excuse about Sunday trading hours, etc... This means nothing to me. If you are not open 24 Hours then do not put a sign up saying that you are. End of. If there is some law that prevents them from being open for a full 24 hours a day 7 days a week then fair enough but do not post the above sign.

Now of course my friends and family know how much I miss them but even my Mom will understand when I say that other than them the one thing I miss the most about the States is Wal-Mart. One stop shopping at it's finest. I know that Wal-Mart now owns Asda but it is not the same and not even close.

If you need something in regards to your latest craft project, Wal-Mart. Need to buy groceries, Wal-Mart. Have a DIY project around the house, Wal-Mart. Do you need to get your oil changed in your car, new car battery, new tires, Wal-Mart can do that and while you are shopping.

Oh Wal-Mart how I miss you...

Rant over.

High: 37°
Low: 35°
Forecast: Clouds and Sun
Sunrise: 8:19 AM
Sunset: 3:50 PM

What is this about?

This car was in front of us on our way home from work. I can't figure out why they have this fake license plate hanging up over the real one.

Andy says he thinks it is so that if they are speeding and get their picture taken by one of the many speed cameras it would not be able to send the ticket to them as their real plate is covered up.

Where is a cop when you need one?

High: 44°
Low: 40°
Forecast: A Little Rain
Sunrise: 8:13 AM
Sunset: 3:51 PM

The above picture is of the 'skip' that I posted about back on October 11th. It was gone for a week or so but now it is unfortunately back. As you can see it blocks this back ally which means we can not use this as a way to drive out.

Now... to make matters even worse the above 'skip' has a partner in crime and as you can see in the below photo there is now one parked right outside our back gate and it is stopping us from even putting our garbage bin in our back garden.

This is ridiculous! What if we needed to use this back gate in an emergency? I don't know who to call but if it is not gone in a couple of days I am going to have to complain to somebody about it.


High: 48°
Low: 47°
Forecast: Rain
Sunrise: 7:49 AM
Sunset: 4:03 PM

Tonight while we were watching last weeks episode Desperate Housewives I made the comment that I was freezing... this is very unlike me as even in the dead of winter I prefer to have a fan on than the heat.

Andy got up to check the radiator and it was stone cold. Andy of course gave me 'that' look as he went into the kitchen to see if I had turned off the boiler as I sometimes do when I am too hot in the house. I confirmed I had not but he checked anyway.

After around 5 minutes he came back to say that the boiler was not turning on. I double checked and it was in fact not working. The number 40 and 80 kept flashing after you turned it on and off and after you hit reset.

So we called the landlord not thinking there was much that could happen at 8:00pm at night. He wasn't home so Andy left a message. At around 9:00pm he called back and said he probably wouldn't be able to get anybody out until tomorrow which we understood since it was so late.

It was at about this time that I remembered... *duh* We have a little electric fireplace in the living room that could be keeping us warm. So this is what the picture is of. There is a space under the rocks that light up and then the heat is pushed out from above them. It warmed us up rather quickly.

Then at 9:30pm the landlord called back and said it was too cold to make us go without heat and hot water so he and his plumber would be out in just a few minutes. They came in and it only took around 10 minutes for it to be fixed. There was no pressure so it was not igniting. He said if it happens again he will just replace the boiler.

So YAY for heat and hot water but an even bigger YAY for having such a great landlord!

High: 53°
Low: 45°
Forecast: Periods of Rain
Sunrise: 7:42 AM
Sunset: 4:08 PM

Andy finally got around to sending off his old paper Driving License so that they can update his address and be issued one of the new hip pink plastic ones.

Well... we got it back today. I opened the envelope and saw his new paper copy and imagine my surprise when I looked at the plastic one and found it was not his license!

Nice.

We called the DVLA and they said to just post both copies back to them and they will get it sorted. Well thanks for offering to do what you should have done the first time! Needless to say neither Andy nor myself are very happy about this. If you think about it this means there is a very good chance that Andy's license is now either in the hands of the man above or who knows where. They now have his name, date of birth, address and driver's license number. *ugh*

High: 46°
Low: 44°
Forecast: A Couple of Showers
Sunrise: 7:38 AM
Sunset: 4:11 PM

So the thingamabob on my vestibule door that keeps the door closed broke off this morning and now my door will not stay shut.

Looks like I'll be going to B&Q (the English version of Home Depot) this weekend.

High: 48°
Low: 44°
Forecast: Cloudy
Sunrise: 7:36 AM
Sunset: 4:13 PM

Well... Lisa didn't move far but today was the day. Pretty much right after we got to work she got told it was start moving over to her new team.

I sent her a text letting her know that I missed her around the time I took this photo. I hope she doesn't think I'm stalking her when she reads my blog for today...

High: 58°
Low: 48°
Forecast: Partly Sunny
Sunrise: 8:02 AM
Sunset: 5:45 PM

They were giving out free flu shots (or flu jab if you are from around here) at work today so of course I jumped at the chance.

I have been getting a flu shot for many years and last year was my first time without one in sometime. I ended up getting really sick. Not with the flu but with a double ear infection and strep throat. It probably has nothing to do with me not getting the flu shot but I sure do blame it on that!

High: 50°
Low: 38°
Forecast: Times of Clouds and Sun
Sunrise: 7:45 AM
Sunset: 6:04 PM

This dumpster (or 'skip' if you are English) has been here for a few weeks. I can only assume that one of the houses on that side are remodelling.

This being here is bothering me for a couple of reasons...

1) It is dirty looking and I would rather not have to look at it.

2) It is blocking the access to the back alley which we use when the main road we are on is too busy to back out onto or when there is a utility truck blocking our way. But with this dumpter here we can not go down it.

Annoying.

High: 52°
Low: 40°
Forecast: A Couple of Showers
Sunrise: 7:30 AM
Sunset: 6:23 PM

For about a week or so there has been road works taking place down Church Street. Unfortunately we live on Church Street and there is not really another way to go to and get home from work.

This is what our drive home normally looks like now... and trust me it is not fast moving.

High: 58°
Low: 49°
Forecast: Afternoon Rain
Sunrise: 7:08 AM
Sunset: 6:51 PM

Not that we were in a huge hurry but I absolutely hate it when the person in front of you at a gas station gets in their car and simply sits there. Yes there is a car in front of him but there was plenty of room for him to get out but he just sat there while the car in front filled up, went in and paid and then left. We had to have sat here for a good five minutes when he could have just pulled out.

Normally I would scramble the licence plate as to protect the innocent but he doesn't deserve it.

Jerk.

Also note in the far left... Gas is up to £1.02 a liter which is $1.66. There are four liters in a gallon so that means a gallon of gas right now is $6.64!

High: 59°
Low: 44°
Forecast: Clouds and Sun
Sunrise: 6:45 AM
Sunset: 7:23 PM

I am feeling much better today. I got a decongestant yesterday and it seems to have done the trick.

Came home from work today to find not one but two missed parcel notes. I have ordered a couple things lately so I think the one on the left may be my fancy schmancy garlic peeler but I am not sure about the one on the right... It is being delivered by Parcel Force and I think things that are shipped over from the US are delivered by them.

My birthday is this Friday... could it be something from my Mom? I guess I will find out on Friday because Andy and I have taken the day off and since our local post office is only open 9-5 that is the only day I will be able to go over to pick it up. Can't wait to find out what it is...

High: 67°
Low: 48°
Forecast: A Little Rain
Sunrise: 6:31 AM
Sunset: 7:43 PM