Yesterday was Molly’s birthday. We told her that supper could be anything she wanted. Any restaurant, any dish. Whatever. She wanted us to all make pizza together at home. First, I picked her up from school holding a GIANT “7” balloon and we went to Build-a-Bear. She chose to get a dragon from How to Train Your Dragon 3. See below for a picture of Sparkle the Light Fury.

We ate pizza, cake, and ice cream, opened presents and video chatted with family. It was a good evening. We finished it off by surprising the girls with our Saturday plans. The other thing Molly asked for was to see a castle. So today we took a train in to Windsor, one of the main residences of the Queen.

The train ride took about an hour, most of it waiting in stations for connecting trains. Windsor Central station lets out right at the base of the castle, so it’s the first thing you see. It’s kind of surreal to be eating at a McDonald’s and looking out at this:

Touring the castle was very cool, but unfortunately, you’re not allowed to take photos inside. We toured the apartments of Charles II, St. George’s chapel (Kyla got to see the tomb of Henry VIII), and walked the castle grounds. A big focus of the tour is the Royal Wedding (Harry and Meghan) that took place there a few months ago. I took a lot of outdoor pictures and have included them below. In other news, I’ve got a couple of job interviews lined up this week, so here’s hoping one of them pans out.

Sorry for the radio silence this week. I have to admit that I’ve been pretty homesick and just didn’t have the heart to sit down and write.

Last Sunday night, we went up to Swindon for Kyla to resit the part of her pratical exam. We could have gone up on Monday, but the first reasonably-priced train would have had us there with just a few minutes to spare. That was a little closer than we wanted to cut it, so we went up the night before and stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. £30 (approx. $40) and it was honestly a pretty nice place, with breakfast included.

We went to the Swidon campus of Oxford Brookes for Kyla to take her test. The girls and I sat around in a cafe for an hour or so, then we got on the train and came home. Then just a couple of days of agonizing waiting to find out if she passed, or if we were going home.

Tuesday, the girls started school. I’ll be honest, I had a harder time sending them than I’ve had since their first day of Kindergarten. Kyla and I spent the entire day worrying about how they were doing. We shouldn’t have. They both came home talking about how it went great and they’d both made friends.

Kyla’s enjoying her job. She’s still in orientation but will hopefully will be done this week.

Moving to another country has taught me to appreciate some things that I’ve taken for granted. Growing up in the Midwest, a car was a symbol of freedom, a rite of passage, almost downright necessary for daily life. And I’ve always been fortunate enough that I’ve had the resources to own a car, even if the early ones weren’t the nicest. (Don’t think I’ve forgotten you, Ford Fairmont, you ugly old clunker, you).

The last few weeks have really helped us to appreciate what someone without those means has to go through. First of all, I can’t speak of bus travel in big metropolitan areas in America, but bus travel over here is miles ahead of what it is in a similar-sized American city. But it’s still a pain in the ass. Unless you live in city center, the bus IS SUPPOSED to come once every hour. So, you have to time any trips for when it goes by. I say supposed to, but it frequently runs late, as things tend to do. If you have to catch a connecting bus, which is supposed to take you to your job, and your bus is running late…..well, God help you. This nearly happened to Kyla this week. Fortunately she was still able to make it.

But what if she hadn’t? What if, through absolutely no fault of her own, she was late for her third day of work? What kind of impression would that have made? Would she have still had a job? It really has made us think about what some people have to go through.

So, yesterday I bought a car. It’s a crap car. £600, which works out to about $750, I think. 104,000 miles. You have to have two people to open the gas tank (one to push the button, one to pry the door). And the steering wheel is on the wrong dang side! But, I’ve driven around the city about 3 times now and have yet to hit anything more than the curb when parallel parking. And let me tell you, having everything on the opposite side really messes with you. Even the rearview mirror angled the other way is disconcerting.

Now I just need a name for her.

In other news, today we went to Blackdam Ponds, a local park. There’s a little playground, but the big draw is a large, shallow duckpond. It’s home to at least one pair of swans, who had to come over and check us out.

Check back in a few days for the next chapter.

We finally got internet yesterday! Sorry I didn’t update then, but we were all just too busy reveling in unlimited data again.

To catch you up:

Sunday we had lunch at the local pub (my pre-broadband refuge for blogging). It’s not as nice as some pubs in the area, but it’s not a dive, either. The regulars seem to know to mind their manners, and mouths, when there are children in the common room, even with a football match on the telly. Lizzy and Molly had common stuff: hamburger and chicken breast sandwhich, I had curry, and Kyla got BBQ pulled-pork nachos. They weren’t quite like they would be at home, but pretty close.

Side note: In my (admittedly limited) experience, while you can get blocks of all kinds of foreign and exotic cheese, shredded cheeese comes in three flavors: mild British cheddar, medium British cheddar, and mature British cheddar. See the theme? Colby jack? Mexican blend? Right out. Nowhere to be found. And British cheddar is white instead of orange, like we’re used to. Kyla and I like it, but the girls are still resisting, which makes cooking less than fun.

Monday we were invited to visit a sweet elderly lady who lives in the neighborhood. We met her at church our first week, then this Sunday she walks up and says, “So, when are you coming around to see me?” So, we went for tea on Monday morning. Her house even has a name: Potters Barn. Isn’t that cool? It’s a pretty house on the end of a nearby lane. She and her husband built it about 65 years ago, but the interior is done in the style of a 1700’s cottage. We loved it.

So, we live in a fairly modest housing developement that’s about 10 years old. We’re surrounded, however, by much bigger and fancier homes. They’re not huge, but they’re the size of a typical American home, just an area where “American-sized” easily runs $1 million. Every time we tell someone our address, they say, “Oh, THAT’S a nice area” and I feel like I have to add the disclaimer that we’re in the housing development, not the Lane.

We didn’t do much for New Years. Watched a movie with the girls and then they and Kyla turned in early. I stayed up until midnight, which was probably good as there was no way I’d have slept through it anyway. I know that fireworks on NYE are a thing at home, but holy crap, they make up for the lack of Independence Day here on that night.

On Tuesday, Kyla started her job. Yeah for income! Since it was New Year’s Day, the buses weren’t running, so she had to take a taxi, at time and a half because of the holiday. She had a good day, though. She enjoyed meeting her coworkers and said that the sense of camaraderie in the ward is great. I spent the day applying for jobs.

Wednesday and Thursday have brought much of the same. I’m setting up accounts with all the local utility companies, getting car insurance, etc., in between job searches. I have about 50-75 applications out at the moment, so I’m hoping I get a nibble on something.

Tomorrow I pick up our car. Like I said, it’s far from something special, but it does mean a bit more freedom than we have now.

“Boxes within boxes.” That’s how the guy at the cell phone store described “official” life in England, and right now, I would have to agree. More on that in a bit, but first: Christmas!

Sunday was a church day, of course. Again, the people of London Street URC have embraced us in a way that reminds me of my last church, only here we’re just average parishioners, not the pastor. We received a few Christmas presents from members, including one book on the history of the URC that I’m looking forward to diving into. Rev. Kay preached a sermon that finished with the giving of Christingles (click here for some of the history of them). After a long winter nap, Kyla and the girls made Christmas cookies from scratch. They weren’t attractive, but they turned out pretty good.

Christmas Day (Tuesday) was the big day of the week. The girls opened presents, then we walked up to top of town for church. It was a wonderful service, but the real fun was afterward. The church hosts a Christmas Dinner for anyone in the community without a place to be. Everyone from the homeless to the mayor was there. The mayor was actually the host of our table. We have a lot in common politically, so we got on extremely well. So much so that he gave us a ride home after the meal. And we really needed it. It was two plus hours of solid eating.

It began with some crackers and pâté. Didn’t tell Kyla and the girls that means it had “liver” until later. Then they brought some crisps (potato chips) and other snacks. Then they served the meal. Turkey, dressing, gravy, peas and carrots, Brussel sprouts, bread sauce (no idea), chips (fries) and fried potatoes. Dessert included a traditional English pudding. We opened Christmas crackers, wore the silly hats, sang hymns, the pastor gave us presents, and we went home just in time to see the Queen’s Christmas speech.

On Wednesday, I went for a little walk by myself. Just south of Basingstoke is a little village called Cliddesden and I decided to explore. I had to cross the M3 motorway by footbridge to get there. I’ve included a picture below. About 50 miles in that direction lies downtown London. I also included a picture of a nice little thatch-roofed house I found. I had no idea that was still a thing.

Thursday was a mix of fun and “boxes within boxes” frustration. In the morning we had an appointment at the bank to FINALLY get our bank account. Opening an account is such a chore, especially for foreigners, that you can’t just walk in and do it, an appointment has to be made. It took close to an hour and a half and it’s applying for an account. They very much have the option of refusing, so it’s a bit nerve-wracking to go through the process. On the other hand, you can open an account without putting any actual money in it, which seems weird to me. Having a U.K. bank account is absolutely critical. I couldn’t get a job without one. Kyla can’t get paid without one. No car insurance without one. Not even a cell phone contract. We’ve had to be on a Pay As You Go plan. Maybe it’s as complicated for an immigrant in America, but man, it’s something you take for granted growing up in your home country.

After that bit of officialdom, we had been invited for lunch by a couple at church. They live just north of town in a small village. They’re a wonderful couple, both retired schoolteachers, both extremely gracious to the girls. After a meal that began with a cup of tea and ended with trifle, the couple played board games with the girls before giving us a ride back to Basingstoke.

On Friday, now that we have a bank account, I could finally get us set up with the utility companies. They’d turned everything on, of course, but they had this thing about getting paid, so I spent the morning calling and logging onto web sites getting Direct Debits set up. In the afternoon, I went to look at a car in a neighborhood east of town called Old Basing. It’s old, but for $800, what do you expect? It’s got an automatic transmission and no mechanical problems, so that’s all I’m really looking for right now. Which leads to the next frustrating moment: the purchasing of auto insurance.

The fact that I’ve been driving for 21 years with no accidents and only one ticket means absolutely nothing over here. From their point of view, I’m a new driver. So, the first step was establishing that I’m not. Thankfully our insurance agent, Laura Sanders from Allstate, was able to send me a letter establishing our clean record. BUT, even then, part of what they look at is credit score, which again, doesn’t exist over here. Despite our good to great score in the States, here I’m a bum. So, the first quote we got, through a recommended agency, was $1200/year. Not unaffordable, but considering it’s for one car worth $800, that’s kind of insane. I was paying not much more than that for 2 cars, both newer, one significantly so, back home. Our bank offers auto insurance and they quote us $850, which still seems high, but at least not ridiculously so. I’ve also got a quote request in with Geico, who provides insurance to expats through partners in the U.K. The upshot is that they supposedly take your US record/credit into account, so we’ll see how that goes.

Today we decided to have some fun. We went into town center and had lunch at a little cafe. I had a Full English breakfast, which was fantastic. Then we let the girls spend a bit of their Christmas money. (We’re spreading it out so they get to enjoy it for longer). Lizzy got a GIANT unicorn, which she had to carry back on the bus. Molly got a smaller unicorn and then a stuffed fox.

I know these posts are rather infrequent right now, but again this is due to a lack of internet access at home. The hub arrived in the post yesterday, and it’s supposed to go live on January 2nd. After that, I won’t have the excuse, er, the inconvenience of coming to the pub for wi-fi. Check back late next week for another update.

So, as I mentioned in the minor update the other day, we are safely moved into our new home. Unfortunately, we don’t get internet access until January 2nd. Any of you that know me knows that this means the longest 2.5 weeks of my adult life. I’m currently holed up in the local pub, drinking a Guinness, sacrificing to bring you all the latest news. But, you didn’t log on to hear me gripe, so, let’s catch up on the last few days.

Wednesday morning we took a quick bus up on to Chineham (kind of a suburb of Basingstoke) to the office of the Estate Agent. We signed the papers, got the keys, and took a bus back to the AirBNB. Well, that was the plan, anyway. I got us on the right bus, but going the wrong direction, so we had to ride it all through its route to get back to Basingstoke. Fortunately, it’s a short route, so we still made it back in plenty of time. Snapped this great picture of St. Michael’s Church on the way back.

Back at the AirBNB, the taxi company showed up with a minibus (what we would barely call a minivan in the States), so for once it wasn’t a challenge to get everything in the car. Away we went to our new home.

I’m uploading a video that gives you a tour. Since this is a public blog,  I’m not going to give the exact address, so if you want to send us anything (a card…..housewarming gift….large sums of cash), send me an email and I’ll give it to you. 

Obviously the house was empty when I filmed it, but I’ll upload a furnished one soon.  One thing we noticed, all the appliances (what they call “white goods”) are made by “Neff”. I can’t help but see that as a bad omen.

We spent all of Wednesday afternoon and evening waiting for furniture to be delivered and then assembling beds. We did get a very small Christmas tree, which the girls decorated in true Geek Child fashion.

On Thursday, Kyla went shopping while I spent literally. the. entire. day. assembling a dining room table and chairs. It looks good, but I spent so much time on it, I can barely look at it now, so you don’t get a picture.

Friday morning, it was my turn to go shopping. I walked from our house to the mall, which takes about 20 minutes. It’s not terrible, definitely do-able, but this lazy American definitely misses his automobile. On the plus side, I found out that Starbucks has actual, honest-to-God, unsweetened ICED tea. A large cost about $4, but at that point, it was worth it. I even took a picture of it.

Friday evening was a lot of fun. Our new church was working together with a bunch of other churches in the area for a Live Nativity. Again, we hit the bus, this time to another small town called Tadley. There we met at the Church of England building for a bit of craft time before processing to the United Reformed Church for the live nativity, petting zoo, and then refreshments (mince pies and hot chocolate!).  I took a few pictures, but frankly most are too dark to bother with.

Today (Saturday) was kind of a lazy day. We went grocery shopping this morning (On the Saturday before Christmas! No idea what we were thinking.) and then came home to relax.

I have to admit that the last few days I’ve been feeling pretty homesick. Without internet or video games to distract me, my thoughts have been free to roam, even while I’ve been assembling furniture. Also, there’s a lot of things you take for granted when you’ve lived in the same country all your life. Right now, the big issue is a bank account. You have to make an appointment to open an account, especially if you’re from overseas, and the nearest available was Thursday, the 27th. Doesn’t seem like a big deal, but having a bank account is required for A LOT around here. We can’t get car insurance, therefore no car, without one. You can’t start a cellphone contract, so we’re on the Pay As You Go plans. A bunch of stuff that you never even think of.

Well, I think that catches you up. Church tomorrow and then Christmas festivities this week. I’ll be sure to take a lot of pics of those.

Sorry for the lack of updates. We are still alive, we are in our new home, but we won’t have broadband until 2nd of January! I plan on taking my computer to a library or cafe this weekend and post a proper post, but just wanted to let you all know we are well.

Saturday was a mostly a transition day. We had to check out of the hotel at 11am, but couldn’t be into the AirBNB until 1500 (that’s 3pm in American Time). So, we checked out, drug our 8 suitcases, 4 backpacks, and 2 kids out to the lobby, where we sat for an hour, probably annoying the desk clerk. Then we took said baggage to the travel center where we ate lunch and waited another couple of hours. Then walked it all back to the other side of the hotel to the taxi pickup. THEN brought it up a flight of stairs when we arrived in Basingstoke.

The AirBNB is nice, though a bit small. Great location, about 5 minutes walk from town center, a pub across the street, and WE’RE NOT STEPPING ALL OVER EACH OTHER. At least now we’re able to cook our own food, which is saving us about $50 a day over last week. So, we’re just leaking money now instead of hemorrhaging it.

We were anxious to get back into a routine with church. I’d been scoping out a few churches in the area. The ones nearest our house seem a bit too fundamentalist for me, but there are a couple of “mainlines” in town center that sounded good. The plan was to visit the United Reformed Church this week, the Methodist Church next week, and the Church of England the week after that. However, I don’t think we need to shop around any more. The United Reformed Church was one of the most genuinely friendly and welcoming churches I’ve ever stepped into. It’s a cousin to the United Church of Christ (both are descended from Congregationalist Churches) and we just seemed to fit. There were very few kids there, which I thought would be a problem for Lizzy and Molly, but they both loved it. Lizzy went on and on about the sermon (which I didn’t hear because I was in “Children’s Church” with Molly). I don’t think Lizzy’s ever even listened to one of MY sermons this carefully. After the service, we were invited for tea and mince pies in their reception area. A retired couple sat with us and talked about the church and the area. Turns out that he retired from Eli Lily (their UK headquarters is in Basingstoke) and he knew exactly where Greenfield is! 4,000 miles from home and we’re lead to someone who knew one of our former homes. As I said, we left and all promptly agreed that we’d found our church home.

Today we went to visit the girl’s school. As I mentioned in the last post, schools are very different here. Much smaller. Both gave it a “thumbs up”, though they are a little bummed about having to wear uniforms. They’re both missing Stockwell and their teachers there, but I think they’ll adjust quickly.

Finally, rather than a random fact or trivia, in closing today I will present you this picture I took of a dog on a pub stool. Her name’s Millie and she lives upstairs. Comes down to visit whenever she wants and begs to be put on a stool whenever someone opens a packet of chips.

Next time: Moving into our new home!

This week has definitely been a roller coaster. Hang on for the recounting.

Monday morning, we got up first thing and headed for Basingstoke to look at homes. The first place we looked at was, well, kind of a dump. 

I mean, Kyla was ok with it, and it wasn’t the worst place I’ve ever lived, but it definitely would have been for the girls, and I want to give them a little better.

We were on the way to the second place (which looked and sounded PERFECT, right down to the location), when we got a phone call that it had been taken. We had the taxi driver drop us at the mall, so we could regroup and make a new game plan. They do Christmas “bigly” over here, so of course, we got some pictures of the girls while we were there: 

We then went to visit a second place, which was ok. It was on Elizabeth Road, which we thought was auspicious. We liked the house, but the layout was very weird. To get to the master bedroom, you had to go THROUGH another bedroom. The other alternative was to turn the living room into a bedroom and that bedroom into a living room. Possible, but not ideal. We were mulling it over when we asked the realtor if he had any other properties with three bedrooms. Luckily we did, because this place is everything I pictured in our little English home.

I didn’t really get good pictures of it because I was so excited, so I’ll post some when we take possession in a few days. But it is perfect. Good neighborhood, nice sized living room, all-new kitchen (with dishwasher, clothes washer AND dryer, the latter of which is not a given in this country). Two and a half bathrooms, which is unheard of. Two good sized bedrooms and a Molly-sized bedroom (meaning tiny). I instantly fell in love with the place. The price is within our range. The only downside is it’s across town from the hospital. Public transportation is not ideal to get Kyla to work, but it’s adequate, so we took it.

By Monday night, we were living large.

On Tuesday, Kyla had to go take her big test. The girls and I just hung around the hotel and rested.

On Wednesday we had to pick up what’s called our “BRP cards”. They’re basically our visa/identification card and they can only be picked up at certain post offices, the nearest of which was Reading. And they couldn’t be picked up by one of us, all four had to be present. So, on a train, and then a bus, we went…which was actually kind of fun when you’re not worrying about eight suitcases. Being from the Midwest, public transportation was not really something we had a lot of experience with, but we’re picking it up quickly.

Reading is a cool OLD town. It was settled in the 9th century and was granted “town status” in 1086. We didn’t get a lot of chance to sightsee, but just taking a bus through city center was fantastic. Also, it has a road called “St. Mary’s Butts”. The 12 year old inside me is still chuckling three days later. 

Thursday was NOT a good day. We began by going to the hospital for Kyla to meet her new boss and fill out any paperwork they needed…only to find out that they didn’t have the paperwork in order. No one had done it and apparently it hadn’t occurred to anyone that it needed to be done. So, instead of starting work on December 17th, she’ll be starting on January 1st. Not devastating, but definitely a bigger hit to our bank account then we’d planned. I was stewing on that most of the day, when we found out that Kyla failed 1 of the 6 stations of her test. It’s common (the test only has a 56% first time pass rate), but still frustrating. She only has to re-do that one station, but at a cost of about $700 USD.

On the plus side of Thursday, we also got to really explore Basingstoke for the first time, and the city center is gorgeous. A high street full of shops and pubs that sits on top of a hill coming up from the train station and mall, brick paved streets in the town center, just everything I imagined in an English city. We had supper in a little pub on the high street before returning to the hotel. 

Today was a mixed bag. It began by finding out that the public schools here don’t have to accept every student in their “catchment area” if they don’t have room. Children are guaranteed a place in A school, but it can be anywhere within the borough (which for us is a city the size of Evansville). The school closest to our house has a spot for Molly, but not for Lizzy. They have someone who’s moving over Christmas break and they are “fairly confident that we will be able to offer Elizabeth a place when we return to school of the 8th January”, but man, that has me nervous. The day redeemed itself by finding out that all our rental paperwork went through. All we have to do is go into the office tomorrow to pay the deposit and the place is ours. We also walked to a park down in Fleet today, so it was nice to get out of the hotel in a way that wasn’t running errands or spending money.

So, like I said, a whirlwind of emotions this week. I’ll admit that I’ve been discouraged and wanted to give up numerous times, but Kyla keeps pulling us through. Her sheer, cussed, Neff-stubbornness is actually being put to good use for a change. 

I know this has been a long post, but to wrap up, here’s your random Life in England trivia for today: beds don’t have sheet sets like we do in America. The mattress has a fitted sheet over it, of course, but that’s it. The only other blanket on the hotel beds has then been a duvet. I don’t like it. I want my fitted sheet, then a sheet over me, then a blanket, THEN a duvet or comforter. I want to be able to control the amount of coverage over me depending on how hot or cold I am. I’m going to have to import a proper sheet set and blanket when we get into the house. 

Kyla pointed out that today we have officially been in the UK longer than we were on our last trip. It’s harder to see this as a vacation and more like the beginning of a life.

On Saturday morning, we checked out of the AirBNB and headed to the Manchester Piccadilly train station. Had lunch there, then got all of our bags onto the train for Basingstoke. Fortunately, this train had much more room for luggage than the last one. It was a bit rowdy as there were large groups of people heading into Birmingham and then London for work Christmas parties. We sat with a very friendly, but loud, group that was pre-loading the alcohol before the party. However, one of the young ladies was from the Basingstoke area, so she was able to tell me a bit about the place.

The train ride lasted about 3.5 hours, mostly of utter boredom, especially for Lizzy as there was no wifi. We arrived in Basingstoke and took a taxi out to the hotel in Fleet (about 10 miles outside Basingstoke). It’s a Days Inn beside what they call a Motorway Services Center. It’s a big building that has a small grocery store, deli, KFC, McDonald’s, pizza place, etc. So, the food is largely unhealthy, but relatively cheap, and this way we know we won’t starve.

This afternoon we took a taxi into the Fleet high street, an area full of small shops (basically what “Main Street” America used to be, everything from groceries to hardware stores to pubs and even a mall). The mall, which they call a Shopping Center, was comfortingly familiar. Tomorrow we head out to look at homes. Fingers crossed!