Unexpected England

I've had a hard time blogging lately, mostly because I'm in a high state of ambivalence that my time here is quickly coming to an end. Ever since the other week when I was looking at the

church bulletin and realized that due to conferences and travel plans, Camille only had three more Sundays at our lovely Cambridge church (now two - boo-hoo) I've been feeling a bit paralyzed. One minute I'm happily thinking of our Thanksgiving plans with family back in the U.S., and the next I'm ready to cry realizing that this or that outing is just not going to happen, or is The Last Time I'll... Time is running out.

So, I'm going to avoid dealing with that, and instead share a few random pictures of things that surprised us this past year. 

This is a PG version of English place names that don't translate well to American English. Many are much more racy.

English people seem to be very fond of one piece pajamas. When Anya's school had a wear your pajamas to school day, she reported that she was one of the very few without a onesie. Frankly, you don't often see English people wearing onesies AND riding a horse, so I'm not sure if this was a one-time special occasion or just a cozy way to go for a morning horse ride.

I picture all of England as rolling countryside and cute, stone villages. So passing a modern outlet mall is a little shock for me.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that the above sign means "no bicycles," not "special bicycle path." The white circle with the red border means "not allowed." They don't seem to use the universal circle with a diagonal line. 

Anya was surprised to see that people still have milk delivered the old-fashioned way. I looked it up, and it's really only 13% of the country that has milkman delivery. That's still higher than United States' .5%. We don't really care if people buy their milk from the grocery store or have milkman delivery - we just like the way the bottles look on the front steps. 

The girls were also surprised to find that "humbug" isn't just an exclamation used in The Christmas Carol. It's also a candy. 

This is a town quite close to where Jane Austen lived. Coincidence?

That's all I have for now. I must get back to panicking about our move.