Englishisms

There's whole web pages devoted to this topic, so this is definitely not an attempt at being comprehensive. As most people know, people from England and people from America speak slightly different forms of English. This was made clear to me on my girls' first day of school where talk of time tables (schedules), tutors (home room teachers), key stages (not quickly translated), maths (math), etc. had my head spinning. Now that we've been here a while, here are some of our favorite "Englishisms."

I've asked the girls what slang they hear in school. Here's their list: 
rubbish
prat
you lot (instead of you guys or everyone)
brilliant (not as in smart, as in great)
mad (instead of crazy; as in, "You like Justin Bieber? That's mad!")
messing about (instead of messing around or goofing off)

pocket money (allowance)

Pretty much the same as what you'd hear in a Harry Potter movie!

I'm guessing this sign is a little tongue in cheek. Still, the English really do understate things compared to Americans, which I love. It's not "great coffee" or the "world's best cup of coffee," it's "really rather good." The modesty of it makes me smile.

In America, stores and ads are apt to say something along the lines of "Buy it today!" Here, it's a little more gentle. I generally see the phrase "why not" used. "Why not get a chocolate?" Or, "Why not try it on?" Either that or it's "might we suggest." "Might we suggest these leggings and booties?"

I love the impact of the understatement. One day I was reading a news story about a London theater that had the ceiling collapse during one of their performances (if you didn't hear the story, everyone was evacuated from the theater and ambulances were called for injuries, but no one was seriously hurt and the damage turned out to be more along the lines of plaster than structural). This is a quote from the story: "...things started falling and smoke, and I thought it was part of the show until something hit me on the head very hard. I thought, that's not quite right." No, not quite.

One of Mike's favorites is their use of the word scheme. When I think of the word 'scheme', I think of underhanded plots - visualize Dr. Evil petting his cat or Mr. Burns drumming his fingertips saying "Excellent!" But here it's used anywhere I'd used the word 'plan'. Mike says they are always having meetings at work to talk about one scheme or another. Yet these schemes are in my opinion quite dull, instead of taking over the world or something along those lines where I'd use the word.

My favorite phrase of the moment is "all talk and no trousers." As in this sentence from a weather report, "The predictions have been wild at times, but so far the weather's been all talk and no trousers when it comes to the white stuff." 

One of Mike's favorites is 'jiggery pokery' (think 'shenanigans'). He actually heard someone use that in a meeting once, but has been sad to find that it is not in common use. 

Some words I've heard on t.v. shows or read in books, but I've never heard anyone say: knackered, cracking or fairy cake. 

And there's some words we don't like, for no particular reason. Anya hates 'trolly' (cart) and 'lolly' (popsicle). Camille says she will never adjust to 'trousers' for 'pants', and I can't abide the term 'hen party' for 'bachelorette party'. 

My award for cutest name for the least-appealing food goes to 'bubble and squeak'. Doesn't that sound intriguing to order? When actually it's some leftover vegetables mixed with mashed potatoes shaped into a patty and fried. A fritter, I guess we'd call it? Actually, not my cup of tea.

Snowdrops

I once lived in Rhode Island. Like all places, there's many nice things about living there. One thing I just never got used to though was the winter. I swore the winter started early November and lasted solid without a single sign of spring until about mid-May (then it would be spring for three weeks before hot, humid summer set in). In contrast, here in England it's only the end of January and walking around there are signs of spring everywhere. I can so get behind a place with five months of spring!

Saturday Mike and I went walking at Anglesey Abbey to see the snowdrops in bloom, the first flowers of the year.

Such a cheerful sight!

Snowdrops make me want to start spouting poetry or recalling fairy stories, but I'll hold myself back.

I think they're my new favorite flower. For now.

 Winter branches...

...filled with signs of spring.

I must say the girls and I were so looking forward to experiencing a snowy winter. Not visiting some snow, but waking up with the surprise of a snow-covered ground, and hopefully with the even better surprise of an official school snow day. But visiting the flowers today I think I've got just a little bit of spring fever and might be able to trade in my enthusiasm for snow with enthusiasm for a nice, long spring.

House Tour, Part 2

Here's the second part of my house tour. This picture is facing our front door. I feel I have to explain that I realize my decorating style has gone a step or two beyond "minimalist" and into a style that can only be described as stark. It's not exactly what I'd choose, given ideal circumstances. When we moved here we decided to keep what we brought to a minimum, not knowing how much it would cost to ship and whether my husband's company would cover the expense both ways. If I could do everything over, I'd bring a few more things with us, including a few pictures and decorative items.

Is this kitchen about as far away as possible from your imaginings of what an English kitchen would look like? It features an Ikea dishwasher, stovetop, double oven and refrigerator. I don't think I'd ever go quite this modern myself. I will have to say though, that I don't think it could do better at maximizing storage for the amount of space it has. The oven wall is about half traditional cabinets and half pull-out cabinets. I've actually never had a kitchen with so much storage space.

Our eating area, between the kitchen and office space. Ignore the laundry basket I didn't put away in the background.

 Our well-used computer space.

This is the same space, looking towards a small bathroom, small laundry closet (both newish and not worth picturing) and upper balcony.

Our office area is under the skylight and bay window from the spare room.

Our living room. The doors usually can slide all the way open, which is really nice in the summer. I tried opening them for the first time since early fall for this picture and got the door stuck open in the half-open position you see in the photo. I hope the property manager comes soon, because it is a little chilly with it open in January. Back in the summertime the door easily slid open and closed.

A view from the other direction. 

We have a little brick shed in the back of our garden.

This is the view from my front door on this gray morning.

Many of the homes on my street feature one of these. Do you know what it is? A boot scraper.

They also often have one of these rings. Handy for tying up your horse - or bike.

And there it is. I hope you've enjoyed the tour, even if it probably wasn't what you were expecting.

House Tour, Part 1

I got a special request for a house tour, so here it goes. I'm proceeding despite the fact that I'm pretty sure that your imaginings of my English home are much better than the reality. I live in a traditional English terraced house, on a traditional English street. There's even a sign in our window that declares that someone I've never heard of lived here in 1891, so it's at least that old. But, there's very little traditional about the inside of our house, as you'll soon see. At some point the house was extended, and the kitchen was moved from the back of the house to the front. Very little in the way of period details remain. (If you want to see a tour of my neighborhood, I did that here: http://infinitedealofnothing.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/welcome-to-my-neighborhood.html)

This is the sight you see as you walk in the front door.

At the top of the stairs is this landing with a skylight.

When we first moved in I imagined myself spending winter afternoons sitting here in a pool of sunlight; however, I'd forgotten that the winter sun doesn't rise high enough for that. It's still nice to have a house full of natural light in the dark days of winter.

Turning the other direction you see a hallway that leads to a spare room, Camille's room, a bathroom, and a staircase that leads to the top bedroom, which Anya has claimed.

 The top bedroom is a small room with a steep roof and skylights on each side.

This is the view from Anya's bed to the other side of the room. The room is so small I found it difficult to find an angle that takes in the whole thing at once.

Anya's room has the best views in the house. This is the street side view from her skylight.

Anya and Camille looking out the back side skylight.

Here is the view from her back skylight. The flat roof is the rest of our house, and then of course the roofs of some of our neighbors' homes. Cambridge seems to have many occasions that call for fireworks and we generally have a great view standing on Anya's bed and looking out her skylight.

Now we're back down one floor to the street side bedroom that Camille has claimed. Camille's room has the only hint of period detail in that her room has this (nonworking) fireplace. The rest of the room barely fits her double bed and a little desk.

This is the bathroom, obviously. Everything in it is fairly new. You can kind of see that like most English bathrooms, it has a radiator that doubles as a towel warmer.

On the back garden side of the skylight is the master bedroom and master bath. The whole area it occupies is part of the newish extension.

I'm not going to include a picture of our spare room (another small room) and our master bedroom (smallish square room filled with way too much furniture for its size to help compensate for no closets). This is the view from our master bedroom into the back yard. It looks like you'd feel lacking in privacy because of all the windows facing the bedroom from the brown house. The house is unoccupied though, apparently due to some bitter divorce or court proceedings or some such, so we don't have to worry about it. The green space is ours. You can see a stone wall that separates our space from a shared private walkway out to the street and then the start of our neighbor's back space.

There's part one of your tour. Next time I'll show your our kitchen, office, living room and garden space.

Living Without a Car

One sunny, warm day last September Anya exclaimed after riding her bike home from school through the park, "Man, I LOVE riding my bike to school!" I thought then of doing this post about how it is to live without a car. I resisted though, knowing that living without a car in the summertime is not the same thing as living without a car in the wintertime. Now that we've lasted seven months without a car, living through summer, fall and even some of winter, I feel like I'm in a good position to write on the topic. 

Surprisingly (or not), there are some positive points to not having a car.

1. Saves money and hassle

We don't pay car insurance, car taxes or car payments. We also don't have the hassle of buying a car and then turning around and needing to sell it in under two years.

2. Neighborhood

Part of the reason we can afford our very central, spacious terraced house in a neighborhood that I adore is that we're saving money on transportation.

3. Traffic and Parking

Cambridge is not a town for cars. You can often travel faster by bike than by car because of all the traffic. There's very little parking in Cambridge. What parking exists is somewhat expensive and confusing (and constantly monitored by city employees issuing tickets). They also have a system of one way streets and traffic-control bollards that have me intimidated. 

Anya had an evening party at school in December. I'd wanted to get the Zipcar to pick her up, thinking it would be cold and dark by the time she finished. The Zipcar wasn't available though, so we had to walk. I was surprised to see that virtually everyone else was picked up by walking parents also. It's just easier to walk in Cambridge.

4. Forces Exercise

I'm kind of a lazy person by nature, so it's nice that I basically have to get some minimum exercise to get the things I need done in my day. Today, for example, I didn't set out to exercise, but biked 4 miles dropping off and picking up Anya from school, biked another half mile to a mile going to a friend's house and back, and walked a mile or so doing some other errands. Even when I don't feel like going out, I generally feel a little more energetic and refreshed once I get going. 

We're not the only ones in Cambridge making do without a car.

5. Prevents Arguments

I have a daughter that does not like to walk. I know from past experience that if we had a car I would never be able to leave the house without hearing, I'll politely phrase it "requests," to drive. As stated earlier, most of Cambridge is easier to get to on foot. As driving is generally not an option, it greatly reduces the amount of discussion over the matter. 

How we live without a car:

1. All the grocery stores deliver

2. We live within a 5 minute walk of:

     2 grocery stores, a dry cleaners, a mall, an optician, an office supply store, 3 pubs, 1 fish & chips place, 1 Thai restaurant, Camille's school, a bike repair shop, 4 coffee shops (including Starbucks), a fruit and vegetable stand, 2 drug stores, a movie theater and much more! The key to living without a car is definitely choosing your location very carefully.

3. Zipcar

Zipcar is a car share program where you pay an hourly fee to borrow the car. The fee includes gas and insurance. There is a Zipcar handily located a block from our house, and 2 other locations within a 10 minute walk. Zipcar doesn't work for everything. It would be really expensive to use as transportation to work, or anywhere where you're going to drive someplace and leave the car sitting for a long period of time. But for picking up something heavy from a store, driving your child to or from a non-walking distance event or other somewhat local short-term use, it comes in handy. 

4. Car rentals

I should say we kind of live without a car, as we do use Zipcar and rental cars for weekends or trips.

5. Train

Mike commutes to work with a combination of bike and train. A couple of days this week he had use of a car to get to work. I was surprised to find that he actually spent more time away from home commuting by car than by bike & train! It's also very handy using the train to get to London - about an hour ride, and you don't have to worry about parking or congestion fees. 

6. Bikes

Almost everywhere in Cambridge that isn't a 5 minute walk from our house, is within a 15 minute bike ride. Biking to Anya's school, a mile away, is actually just as fast as driving there (according to Google Maps anyway - I've never driven there). I've got my bike set up the Cambridge way now - with mud flaps and a basket (sadly, the cute wicker front-baskets wouldn't fit on my style of bike). 

But even with all the ways going carless in Cambridge is easy and promoted, there are still negatives.

1. Riding the bus
The picture above of the girls on the bus was taken very early in our time here. The charms of riding the bus wear off quickly, as anyone who relies on the bus well-knows. The only reason we have to take the bus is that my church is located 2.5 miles from my house in the outskirts of Cambridge. Dealing with getting there has been my number one obstacle to not having a car. Taking 45 minutes getting to church - walking, waiting for the bus, paying for the bus (it's surprisingly expensive), driving a very leisurely route - is much less appealing than simply getting in your car and being there in 10 or 15 minutes.

2. Requires planning
Using the train, Zipcar, or rental car requires some planning. We've had times we've wanted a Zipcar at the last minute but none were available. We had a time when we had a weekend trip all planned, but not a single car in the greater Cambridge area was available (We'd messed up our reservation. Curse you Day-Month-Year instead of Month-Day-Year!). We've wanted to go to London at the last minute, when for some mysterious reason the only tickets left were insanely high-priced. Having your own car gives you freedom to be spontaneous!

3. Rain and Cold
Rain storms are charming when you are in your pajamas at home with a cup of hot cocoa and a book. Not so charming when it's 40 degrees, windy and rainy and you need to get on your bike and get somewhere. It is NEVER charming then. (That said, I must say that it seems miraculous/magical how very little it has rained when I've needed to be out in proportion to the total amount of rain we get).

So, if we had to do it all over, I think we'd get a car. Except if that meant giving up our house and neighborhood, I don't know! I love where we're at. The number one reason, for me (Mike's is avoiding commuting in bad weather), is that the girls would prefer to have one. To me, living without a car is kind of a fun adventure. Our whole time here is a fun adventure! It's not the same for my girls. Just having a car would be one less thing they needed to adjust to, and for that reason, I think we probably should have got one.

My dream of retirement has long been to live in some central, walkable neighborhood. I love the idea of walking out my door and being able to get to entertainment, restaurants, groceries, etc. After living here, that's still my dream, but our place will have a little garage with a little car parked in it for all the times when walking is not so convenient.

Lacock

We're finally coming to the end of my vacation posts. I'd feel bad about posting so many, except my life in January is really not all that exciting. Going over my vacation in excruciating detail is still more exciting than hearing about my new vacuum or how I organized my receipt drawer. 

One sunny (!) day, we got our kids to come along with us on a visit to Lacock. Doesn't Anya look excited to be along? 

Lacock is a type of outing that Mike and I love, that generally our kids have no interest in: cute, old town, beautiful scenery, historic buildings to visit. Except that Lacock has a movie tie-in that made it fun for the kids - some of the Harry Potter movies were filmed here. I didn't even tell them that Lacock was also used as Meryton in Pride and Prejudice. They're a little disdainful of my P&P obsession, so no need to turn them off.

I seem to have a rather large proportion of our outings planned around movie or book locations. I justify it by: one, it sometimes gets the kids interested in places they'd normally not be interested in, and two, movie location scouts generally pick places that are beautiful, well-preserved and representative of a certain era.  They're great places to visit that we might not have known about without the movie tie-in.

We saw the house used for Slughorn's temporary residence, but didn't take a picture. This is just another random, cute street.

Lacock is a compact little village. It's very easy to walk through the whole thing, even for people who might avoid walking in general.

I'm pretty sure this is where the scenes were shot of people arriving to the Meryton assembly. If only the people of Lacock would ban all cars, then we could get the full effect. 

I took this over-exposed picture of this house just because I thought it was cute. We later learned that it was used as Harry Potter's family home in the first two movies. 

Lacock has an abbey that is beautiful on its own and also was used for some of the school scenes in the first two Harry Potter movies.

Here's Mike! He doesn't get shown much as he's a better photographer than I am. 

Can't you picture a group of Hogwarts' students passing by at any moment?

This room was used as a classroom in the films. 

This cloisters was used for some of the school outdoor/courtyard scenes.

The grounds of Lacock Abbey are beautiful. What I saw of them anyway. By that time we were ready to eat.

One nice thing about visiting English Heritage or National Trust sites is that you can always count on them having a tea room for a nice snack. 

Although the kids joined us this day, you might have noticed they weren't involved with a number of our outings. They got new books and electronics for Christmas, so they enjoyed entertaining themselves at our rental for most of the time. Happily, our rental came with access to a swimming pool, so when we'd get back they had fun playing around in the pool. Mike and I got to do what we wanted and enjoyed not dragging unhappy children on outings, so we managed a vacation where everyone was happy!