The UAE Shipment Arrived!

Our shipment of mostly furniture from the US arrived in late August and just last week we finally got all our stuff from UAE. Finally, the house has come together. And just in time, as I start work on Monday. I feel like I've spent the entire summer packing and then unpacking boxes, but it's worth it now to have the house all together.

Next up . . . decorating for Halloween!

TV arrived safe and sound (bummer cuz Brian was hoping he could upgrade!)

And now we have a little Middle East flair to the place.

And the office/craft room is set up - not much space, but it'll work.

To protect the window sills, Brian installed some carpeting - Rogue approves!

Brian also makes sure all the electronics work - wifi, Roku, Skype, etc.

She has NO reason to look this tired, believe me!

British Vocabulary Lesson (Areas Around Town)

When you move to a new city, even in your home country, there are always new areas around town to learn. Add to that the varieties of English language and you've got an even longer and sometimes amusing list.

City Centre - we would call this downtown, but not so in UK. The main hustle and bustle of Bristol is called City Centre (not THE city centre, but City Centre)

There are 3 types of booze establishments and their names are important to distinguish what they are and what they do. Once you know the history, it makes sense, but it's pretty confusing when you first come to town. Of course that confusion might just be made worse by the beer, ale, or cider you've consumed.

• Pub - We'll start with the pub as it's the most common term. It actually stands for public house, which was a drinking establish tied to a brewery. They sold their own brew and were owned and operated by the brewers themselves. While the ownership might be different today, it's still the case that pubs sell from a specific brewery and occasionally guest breweries.
• Free House - came a long a bit later and are drinking establishments not tied to a specific brewery so they can sell whatever beer they like. They were "free" from the brewery's influence.
• Off License - the off license is a licensed establishment to buy alcohol to drink off premise. As opposed to public and free houses where you drink on the premises.

Chemist - a drugstore in the US. Synonymous with Pharmacy. Think Walgreens or RiteAid. Also good to note that you can't buy much in the way of medicines in the grocery stores like in the US so there are lots of Chemists in any given neighbourhood.

Letting Agent - this is a rental/realty office. Instead of renting a place, you let it from a letting agent. Took me a bit to figure this one out!

Surgery - this is the term used to describe a clinic (for people or animals). For example there's a Veterinary Surgery not far from our house. I haven't figured out yet whether all surgeries perform surgery?? ;)

Petrol Station - because it's called petrol or diesel over here, not gas. And I'll tell you, you get this into your vocab habit quickly because it soon sounds really silly to say you have to get gas.

Leisure Centre - this is the gym near our house that I recently joined. I had to throw it in because I think it's great that this place that makes me work, sweat and ache is called a leisure centre!

Well, I hope you've enjoyed your trip around town. Tune in for our next installment where we'll have some fun with common phrases.

Sunday Road Trip: Weston's Cider Mill Tour & Lunch

Our last Sunday road trip took us Northwest again - this time to Weston's Cider Mill where we got a tour of how hard apple and pear ciders are made. Cider is BIG in Bristol with literally hundreds of varieties and lots and lots of mills (breweries?) We had a lovely little tour , some tastes of a number of different ciders, and a great lunch of bangers and mash (sausages & mashed potatoes).  A fun afternoon.

The first two photos are of the original cider press - apples come in, get smushed and the juice gets fermented with champagne yeast. And I think a bit more . . .

 

Apple washing station of the mill

One of the fermentation barrels. We were told it takes about 12 apples to make 1 pint of cider.

Rosie's pig is one of their types of ciders. They deliver all their own cider to their distributors.

A view of the shipping yard. This ain't no small operation!

Tales from the Job Hunt - I'm employed again!

My biggest worry about our move was my job hunt. When we moved to UAE, it took me almost 9 months to find a job. A tortuous and very stressful 9 months that took a huge chunk out of my confidence. Through that experience, I learned that I am not a good housewife and need the structure and challenge of full time employment to keep me happy. Worried about how the UK job hunt would go, I tried to keep a realistic view and often reminded myself that something would come along in it's own time. I also tried to really enjoy the time not working and treated it a bit like a vacation.

And I think the attitude and zen paid off because it's only taken about 7 weeks - whew!

Job hunting is similar the world over, but CVs (resumes) differ. In the UAE, it was important to have a photo, your nationality, age, marital status and job history and to make sure that your CV was EXACTLY what the job called for. Here in UK, all the personal stuff needs to come off and companies are a bit more willing to consider transferable skills. My concern was that the market is competitive and I'm an outsider. Why wouldn't you hire a Brit with the same skill set? (I know, I know, once you know me you can't help but love me, but these Brits didn't yet know me!!)

In any case, I jumped on the job boards, tapped into my network and started applying for jobs. July/August is not an ideal time for this as many are on holiday, but I did get a few nibbles. I then was called for an interview with a local university and things moved quickly after that. Interview on Monday, offer on Tuesday, salary negotiation on Wednesday and final offer accepted on Thursday. That's lightening fast compared to UAE where things can take up to 6 months to iron out. Heck that's lightening fast just about anywhere. The contract and paperwork takes a bit longer so I don't start until October 3rd. A perfect amount of time to receive our UAE shipment (scheduled for the 19th) and get a bit more settled. I couldn't be happier.

What I learned:

• Salaries are much lower here in Bristol that UAE or US. I'm taking a pay cut, but I think the job will be interesting and the team seems like a good fit. Retirement will just need to wait a year or two.
• Job websites are much more reliable here than UAE. Things are updated in a timely manner and most of the companies I applied for provided a response. Yes, regret emails stink but at least you know they saw your CV!
• Negotiation works! I was given a final word on salary, but when I pushed it, I got a better deal. I guess old age and experience does count for something!
• Public transport and rainy humidity that messes with my hair is now a large part of my work future. :) But at least I won't be sweating or have sand in my lip gloss!

Bank Holiday Weekend: Moretonhampstead, Buckfastleigh and Exeter

In the US we have Labor Day (or Labour Day ;) and in the UK we have the late summer bank holiday, which is the last Monday in August. While the initial reason for these holidays differs, the sentiment is the same - a last 3 day weekend before school starts. And even though we don't have kids, we're never ones to pass up a 3 day weekend.

We decided to head south-ish - not sure why, but that's what we did and ended up in Moretonhampstead, Buckfastleigh and Exeter (say that 5 times fast!).

Saturday: Moretonhampstead
Not quite 3 hours took us to the little village of Moretonhampstead and the White Hart Hotel. A very cute and quaint hotel with a resident cat! Our room was pretty spacious for this part of the world and had a funky bathroom stair you'll see in the photos. We checked in, had a nice dinner and a short walk around town (not cuz we were tired, but because it was only a short walk to go all the way around town!)

The drive was lovely except for a few dicey moments where the road didn't look wide enough for one car, let alone two! I was really glad Brian was driving.

Here are the funky stairs to the bathroom.

Walk around town. Many of the inns, pubs and houses have gorgeous flowers out front. One of the benefits of all that rain is great flowers.

This is a public mailbox - or I suppose I should say post box. I mean seriously - how cute is that?

Old church on the hill

Sunday: Buckfastleigh
After breakfast, we decided to check out the rails and ales festival which was going on in nearby Buckfastleigh. They have steam trains you can ride and at the mid-point of the route they were having a beer festival. Sign us up!

All the conductors looked like retired railway guys and were having a ball.

Scenic view from the train

I caught this one coming into the station

A good shot of the interior. Even though the one way trip was only 30 minutes, there was a cafe car selling drinks and snacks. Looked like they also run a dining car on occasion.

Here's another one coming past us while we were enjoying some ale.

The Rails n' Ales festival. Lots to choose from.

And Otters & Butterflies
Just next to the train station is a butterfly house and otter sanctuary. I know, what? We were there for the 4pm feeding and got a good look at all the otters currently at the sanctuary and heard their sad histories and saw their antics. They are all rescue animals - either from flooding or road accidents and the guy who runs it rehabilitates them, but they rarely go back into the wild. A fun little stop.

These were the smallest Asian otters. So cute. They also had some North American and European otters, which were bigger.

This woman's boyfriend bought her the opportunity to feed them! It actually looked pretty gross - they eat raw fish, hamburger and baby chicks. Ewww. And they bite if you're not quick enough with the food!

Butterflies are really hard to photograph!

Also saw some emerging from their cocoons.

Monday: Exeter
Monday was a gorgeous day - perfect temps, sun and occasional shade - absolute perfect weather to try out the Granite trail bike path near Exeter. We were able to rent a tandem and got back on the bike. We estimate it's been about 6 years and believe us, it felt like longer. But we did all right and had a great 10 mile or so ride and some beautiful scenery.

I mean come on! Does it get any more gorgeous than this?

It looks like we're smiling, but we're really just gritting our teeth against the aches and pains.

A really nice trail - it was once a railway line so fairly flat. Thank God!

We don't do uphill tunnels on a tandem.

Those are sheep and cows in the background.

And it wouldn't be English countryside without a random church.

A Walk through the Nature Reserve

We have a wonderful nature reserve literally just behind our house with some great walking and biking trails. This is just a quick taste - they'll be more once we get the tandem fired up (hopefully this weekend). Enjoy.

yep - ducks! and 4 swans as well that I saw on a later trip

even some off-road trails - there are paved trails, gravel and then this

and a heron or two

pretty little stream runs through the whole reserve

absolutely beautiful and so green