Random Notes On Our Move to England

Things we did that were smart:

A few days before we left, we ordered British Pounds from our bank. Most airports, banks, etc, charge around 3% and we got a slightly better fee % than that. Not only this, but it was one less thing to do at the airport upon arrival and we immediately had pounds ready for taxi and food..

We ordered (from Amazon) some plug adapters for our electronics - camera battery charger, laptop, camcorder - (these already run on both 110/240 volts, so you don’t need a converter) so we were all ready to go without having to go to a store for that. We also bought Joseph a UK Nintendo DS cord (around $4). These were all cheap, and all our electronics are good to go.

We bought a Family Rail Pass. This pass saves you 30% at least on adult train tickets and up to 60% on child fares. We used this the first day of our arrival, and also today when ordering the train tickets for London.

I packed some trail mix and Cliff bars even though I knew we were getting food on the plane. As it turned out, these came in handy during our long morning and afternoon of travels north from London.

Neck pillow - I should have bought this years ago - I would have been much more comfortable on all those plane rides.

I packed our wonderful bath sheets (huge towels) and that was a nice little luxury to have right away.

Things I would Do Differently:

They always say to pack a change of clothes in your carry-ons, but I didn’t do this. Abby and Philip were the only ones with changes. We could have packed slightly better to include changes of clothes, although toiletries are a bit more of a hassle with the 3 oz rule. Still, I will probably do this from now on.

Observations on Corby:

The bus system seems to be very great so far. If you consider the cost of owning a vehicle - payments or maintenance if it’s older, insurance, gas, and general maintenance stuff like oil changes - then paying L1.50 to ride around the town for a day seems to be a pretty good deal. You would probably spend more than that in just gas going around to the different stores. Today I hopped on with my week-long pass right up from our home (1 min walking) rode for about 12 min up to Towne Centre, got off and shopped at TK Maxx for the mirrors I wanted, hopped back on the bus and rode another 12 minutes or so back to the stop with my purchases. I also saw several people getting on with babies in strollers and there is a place on the bus especially for them. There are stops in seemingly every neighborhood so wherever one would live, there would undoubtedly be one close by.

Almost all the buildings in this area are made of brick. Some are stone, but most are brick. Some modern structures are not, and are glass or concrete etc, but as you ride around the housing developments, they are all brick. Here at Brooke Weston, things seem to be made of concrete block.

EVERY intersection in Corby is a roundabout. The only stoplights are for busy pedestrian areas to cross the street.

The weather is very changeable. Sunday it went from light rain to sun about a dozen times throughout the day. Some days it is light rain in the morning, and sunshine in late morning and afternoon. The sunshine will be interspersed with clouds here and there. The cloud systems seem to blow through very fast. It is very handy to have a light rain jacket with you and just take it on and off as needed. So the raininess is not a constant thing, but just something that happens here and there.

Corby is opening a direct train to London on December 10th. Right now we will be taking the bus down to Kettering first, then catching the train. The Corby train will take 50 minutes to London.

Corby already has a large Swimming Pool and kids’ swim playground that we plan to visit maybe today. They are currently under construction for the Corby Cube - which will be an 50M Olympic size pool and sports complex.