July 20, 2011
First off, yes, it rains here just about every day. The sky is never an unblemished Carolina blue (sigh – spoiled by the South) but rather is about half clear and half cloudy. The weather seems to move really quickly: A pretty day will suddenly darken, the rain falls for a bit, and then it too moves by and leaves room for another round of sun. It seems like the trick is to always carry an umbrella or slicker just for those sudden showers. All that rain makes for some really lush gardens, so I’m okay with that. What I’m realizing is going to be hard is the lack of bake-in-your-skin heat. It’s July, people. Sweaters (jumpers) should still be packed away, socks shouldn’t be mandatory attire in the house, and I should definitely not need that extra blanket on the bed yet. I see our chances of melanoma plummeting (and our chances of depression sky rocketing – pass me the Vitamin D!)
Okay, enough about the weather. Funny story – they drive on the opposite side of the road here and don’t seem to believe in street signs. That’s terrifying in a tiny, manual, steering-wheel-on-the-right car with a cracked mirror, going around the ton of round-a-bouts especially the first couple times when with every turn you wonder - Am I going to get in a head-on collision? I’m excited to get visitors so we can let them experience the ‘something is wrong here’ feeling you get riding shotgun on the left side. I remember my parents driving us throughout the UK when I was in high school, before the age of Garmin, and I honestly don’t know how they made it anywhere. The tiny cars and narrow roads make for great driving, though. It absolutely makes you pay more attention to the road and your surroundings and almost counts as an adventure sport.
We have a house! We’re living in a cul-de-sac of officer housing (off base) in a little village called Brampton in Cambridgeshire. It’s a good size, with a great backyard (with an apple tree!), has both English and American electrical outlets, and we only have to pay cable and internet bills. It’s convenient to Chris’ work (and hopefully me in the future – still trying to see about that) and Cambridge (25 minutes away). We’re ready for our household goods to arrive, for sure, but better able to wait it out here than in a tiny hotel room. The neighbors are wonderful – we’ve met two other dentists and an attorney and their families. Other than not having a handful of kids I think we’ll fit in just fine. Chris’ sponsor is another dentist Lanny. He has driven us around everywhere and his wife Brooke has literally fed us for this entire week. Their little girls even made us some art to put on the fridge. Ah-mazing.
My cousin Katherine has spent the past year studying in Bristol, England. We spent last Sunday in Cambridge with her, and ended up eating a delicious lunch at The Eagle, a pub founded in the 14th century where James Watson and Francis Crick announced to the world their discovery of the double helix nature of DNA in the 1950’s. Cool, huh? We also watched the punters and toured Clare College of Cambridge.
A couple funny laws:
1. English electrical code states you can’t have an outlet in a bathroom. (Easy to off your spouse by throwing the hairdryer in the tub while they’re taking a bath)
2. If you kill a quail while driving you can’t stop and get it off the road, but if someone in front of you hits one you CAN stop and collect it.
love, claire and chris
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