7:4 ... at Least til I Think of More

Seven things I’ve learned in England

1. To treat collective nouns as plural. On a good day, I can tell practice from practise too.
2. To think in pounds. Calculating how much stuff here would cost in US$ is flat-out depressing. Conversely, considering American prices in £ is sterling!
3. The Window Tax. All those bricked up window-shaped non-openings on buildings, in exactly the spot you think there ought to be a window? That’s the Window Tax.
4. Americans are loud. Mostly. But we do have nice teeth. Again, mostly.
5. To like football. You know, the soccer kind. And, perhaps more impressively, cricket.
6. That it will take nearly half a day to wash one small load of laundry.
7. Being polite and being nice aren’t the same thing. Most people here are mostly polite most of the time, whether they like you or not. But when someone is nice, they always mean it.

But I still don’t get it…

1. Celsius. Nope. Can’t do it.
2. And, come to that, metrics in general. A kilo? I know how much that is, but how heavy is that?
3. Marmite. Eccles cake (pass. for obvious reasons). Meat-flavored crisps.
4. French wine. I don’t know nearly enough about French wine. Or Australian, Italian, or South African. Clearly, I was too steeped in California wines. Happily, this is one I am content to keep working on. Steadily.

Awash in Bitterness

See. The thing is. I actually love a good storm. Flashes of lightning, booming peals of thunder, raindrops the size of olives.

What, it turns out, I don't love is continuous rain all Summer long.

A few summer squalls? Fine. Cool, even.

Forty days and forty nights of start-building-the-freaking-ark-rain? Um, no. Not so much, thanks.

On the plus side, at least my tap water is still potable. For now. Or so I think...

Outside work tonight, with reflections of raindrops.

A Very English Summer

The thing about Summer here is that it’s, well, not so hot and, yes, rainy. And, unlike the chronic sufferers of the Twainian coldest Winters in San Francisco, you can’t drive 20 minutes and end up somewhere hot.

On the upside, this makes for a very green country—rolling hill after rolling hill of lush, luxuriant, Technicolor (or colour, as the case may be) green. My office is nestled in a park that boasts endless stretches of herbage upon which countless bunnies cavort in gluttonous delight.

Traveling around pretty England is a feast of emerald to jade to sage. Everywhere in England is green. Everywhere, that is, except my front garden.

Perhaps it’s not maliciousness on my lawn’s part but a kindly desire to make a California girl feel at home. I look out my front window and here and there see tufts of tawny-trying-to-be-green almost-lawn. But mostly it’s a sad state of miserable, half-hearted growth. It’s my own mini golden hills of California, but without the sun.

I’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with gardening skills.

In the Driver's Seat

So, I've been driving in England for a while now. and I'm doing, you know, sort of ok. As long as I don't have to leave my comfort zone. Which pretty much means from my house to work and to the local Tesco. Anything that doesn't fall within that zone, is not even to be considered. Cos the thing is, driving here is pretty absurd. Yeah, there's that whole other side of the road thing. That's not great. But you know what really gets me? It's the size of the roads. You'd think it would be a given that you'd need at least enough room for one car going and one car coming on a two-way road. But, in England, you'd be wrong. So even within my tiny 2-mile (it might even be less, but let's pretend) comfort zone, there are many Roads Not Taken.

This evening on my way home (at a decidedly and purposefully non-rush hour, thank you very much) it occured to me that it feels a lot like driving in a videogame. That same adrenaline rush of cars speeding towards you and having to dodge quickly out of the way. Because I'm on the wrong side, not -- this time! -- because I forgot, but because on the already ridiculously narrow road there are too many cars parked on my less-than-half to actually use it.

This wouldn't be so bad except that I am crap at driving games. And I don't get to restart if it goes badly.

Then there are roundabouts. The thing about roundabouts is that they're kind of like people--I'm mostly okay with the ones that I know, but the ones I don't know are sort of scary. Even knowing the rules doesn't help. I think I understand the concept . But then when I come up to one I don't know, it seems foreign all over again.

So finally I get home... which is located picturesquely on a gravelly, small lane... and up a tiny little incline is my garage, which I could practically span the width of with my arms and I have to navigate my car inside, hopefully without wrenching off any mirrors. I'm almost used to the smallness factor and maneuvering the car in just so. It's the fact that I can't help brushing elbows with all of the spider residents that still gets me down.