Scotland

Monday morning (22nd), we set off around 10:15 for Scotland. It was us with two kids in our "estate" Mercedes and the Kruppa Srs with one kid in a rental compact. Shortly before leaving, I tossed a whole bunch of food stuff into boxes including a very large turkey for Christmas dinner. I knew we were in for a long trip when our first toilet stop was 45 minutes later. Then of course, it was another stop for lunch down the road. After lunch we managed to eek out an hour and a half before stopping again. Then we hit traffic around Manchester which slowed us down for a while. But the hours eventually did pass and we hit Scotland at Gretna Green, unfortunately missing the exit for our route. I was supposed to be navigating, but the lady from Edinburgh Castle had called me back right in those moments and I became distracted until we were right on the junction. We then wound our way down a B road to connect back with our route. Now, when I say B road, you must picture a narrow, winding, country road with loads of hairpin turns and hedges on either side of the road. Anyway, our journey did eventually bring us to Scotland's west coast. We then decided to stop and eat dinner shortly before we reached our place. We were the only customers at the Black Bull that cold dark night. Thus fortified, we drove down a few more one-lane, twisting roads complete with hair-pin turns and sheep-crossing grates until we reached the middle of nowhere. Our place proved to be two 3-bedroom bungalows and we unpacked and settled in.

Tuesday morning, Bill felt pretty sick and decided to stay in. The rest of us went for a drive up the coast to explore the area. We wound our way from the middle of nowhere (Dailly) out to Ayr then on to Largs. It was quite a cloudy afternoon and pretty windy down by the ocean, so our explorations were abbreviated. At Largs, you can catch a ferry over to an island, but we decided against doing that. We then took our cold selves back home for some R&R and dinner.

Wednesday was our big outing to Edinburgh Castle. Edinburgh was about a two hour drive from our place, so we left at about 8:30 that morning. After parking in a nearby garage, we began our trek up to the castle. I say up because when you arrive at the castle area, it is perched up high on a hill above and you have to climb significantly to get up there.

We strolled across a bridge, and past a large fountain, then down a wide lane flanked with gardens (somewhat winter-bare). Then, it was onto the streets of Edinburgh, steadily climbing uphill - one of the roads was appropriately named The Mound. Views of the city were wonderful. Finally, a little breathless, we arrived in the castle courtyard.

Our tour of Edinburgh Castle was in general a real highlight! The castle is huge and has many areas to explore. Along the walls, you could view the entire city spread out before you. Beyond that to the west you could see for many miles over to Ben Lomond and surrounding mountains. Over to the north and east-ish, you could view surrounding hills and ocean. It was amazing despite the grayish skies and very easy to see why the castle's location was prime for fortification.

We toured through a chapel that is the oldest building in Scotland, a building honoring dead soldiers, the Royal apartments (Queen Mary would have lived in these apartments), the building containing the Crown Jewels of Scotland and the Stone of Destiny (this is the stone that Jacob supposedly slept on and that every monarch has had under the coronation throne as they were crowned), and the Great Hall. We also ate lunch in a cafe there near those buildings where I partook of my first mince pie ever. I thought it was very tasty. Then it was onward through the dungeons and a few other buildings including another military type of museum. Hours later, we determined we had seen almost everything and definitely enough, so we headed on out.

Then we headed down the Royal Mile, going first into the store where tartans are made and they have an actual tour of the mills downstairs. We then continued further with a brief stop for a few in the writer's museum (something about Robert Burns). Then we detoured over to the Royal Museum to view some great exhibits from Scottish history. After all that, we exhaustedly plopped ourselves down at a Mexican restaurant for dinner before heading back to our place.

The next day was Christmas and the first order of business was for Andrew and Tjitske to be picked up at the airport. I started cooking the giant turkey. Despite not being at home, we were able to produce a wonderful Christmas dinner feast, followed by present-opening for the children.

The next day, I managed to sleep long in the morning which was great! Late morning, we all headed out to a nearby castle ruin - Dulquharran. The drive was about a mile or so away, and then we walked along the muddy road leading to the castle for about another mile. This castle was once magnificent, I am sure. Now, it is an empty carcass, surrounded by tall fencing to keep people out.

After lunch, we headed out to nearby Culzean Castle. This castle is located high on the cliffs of the ocean overlooking the Firth of Clyde. It is ranked as the second-best castle in Scotland, after Edinburgh Castle. The castle grounds are extensive and are now a country park open to the public. There is a fountain garden, , a walled garden, a swan lake, a cliff walk, a deer park, an aviary, thousands of acres of woodland walking paths, and a few thousand feet of beachfront. The castle itself was closed for the winter season, but we were able to tour around all the castle buildings. You cross a very picturesque bridge after going through a very old archway. On either side are gardens. Then you enter the castle courtyard where the main larger building is to the left, and a smaller building is to the right. The archway leading directly through the building on the right brought us out into a smaller courtyard and gave spectacular views of the ocean and cliffs looking to the north. We then headed back along the front of the larger main castle.

This lea down to the various walks that you can take through various gardens. Nothing was in full bloom of course, it being winter, but you could still how beautiful they would be. Then it was up to the cliff walk. We took the path that switch-backed down the cliff to the beach and explored down there for a bit. The beach was very interesting - course-grained, multi-colored sand, purplish-pink rocks, yellowish covered rocks, and all manner of huge rock formations. There was also a view out to the ocean's left of Ailsa Craig, a large, round mound of rock sticking out of the ocean. A few of these unusual formations can be found around the coasts of Scotland. By this time, it was closing in on dusk, so we headed back up and wound our way through part of the park and back to our car.

As opposed to the strong and impressive fortress profile of Edinburgh Castle, Culzean was a more whimsical and romantic type of profile, with many turrets and decorative medieval columns. The surroundings were stunningly beautiful, both in splendid ocean views and well-planted and tended gardens.

Thus ended our tour of Scotland and its ancient castles. The next morning we headed out to brilliant and blinding sunshine and below-freezing temperatures. We saw incredible countryside views (missed coming in because it was night) sparkling with ice and glistening in the sunshine.

We left Scotland without incident, except for Mrs. Kruppa beginning to feel worse and worse (sick). Upon reaching the same area of M6 near Manchester though, we were literally stopped for a few hours in terrible traffic. Shortly before we got in this jam, we blasted by a truck catching fire - and just managed to make it safely through the view-obscuring billows of smoke before traffic stopped there also. It was frustrating to sit in traffic, but we finally made it home at around 7 PM.

Scotland was very gray at this time of year - not a whole lot of daylight, but was still very beautiful and the castles were awesome. I have come to the conclusion that it would be even more incredible in the long summer hours of daylight. There is no spot on Scotland that is more than 65 km from the ocean. A trip to the Highlands might be well worth it in summer.

The Pros and the Cons of Living in the UK

There are some really great things about living here as well as some not so great or frustrating things. So here are some of the pros and cons that we have personally experienced.

Pros:

Public transportation - most cities or good size towns have buses that run their routes. Corby is especially cheap - at 1.50 pounds for an entire day of transportation. Buses also run between cities and to train stations. We lived for almost four months without a car, taking buses everywhere we needed to go when we weren't walking.

Cheap internet: 7.50 pounds a month for broadband is what we pay. There are more expensive companies of course.

Flowering stuff everywhere: right now, in December, I have a plant in my garden with yellow flowers as well as one with white flowers. During other seasons, there is stuff everywhere you walk - hedgerows with blackberries, flowers, other berries - lots of color everywhere.

Power shower and instant hot water: even in relatively cheaply built homes like ours (typical housing development type construction), they now put in these power showers which have fantastic pressure - I actually have to use it at about half the power. And because they have these boiler units in the kitchen that produce instant hot water, you basically never run out if you keep your hot water on continuously (which we pretty much do, being the wasteful Americans that we are). Most Brits have their hot water come on for a certain period of time, fill the tank, and that is all they use for the entire day, being the very energy efficient people that they are.

Grocery delivery: need I say more! I do. I have a veg box delivered once a week from a local organic farm. This veg "scheme" offers fresh fruits and vegetables, grown organically, dairy products, and even meats. I usually get a different box each week for the variety and some whole milk, also from a local farm. Then I also have groceries delivered from a place like ASDA (Walmart) or Tesco. This is so great - click the mouse a little, and then all my bags of heavy groceries are delivered right to my door.

Countless old castles and such to visit: the historical sights one can see here are fantastic. All over the country are various castles or "houses" (really mansions or palaces) that are anywhere up to a thousand years old, some maybe more. Many of these have opened up to visitors in order to raise much needed money to upkeep their monster estates and pay the unbearable taxes. Even the Queen has opened up Buckingham Palace for this reason - she is using funds to refurbish Winsdor Castle after it was damaged in a fire. You can view the various ones that we have visited in previous blogs. Then , throw in the occasional Stonehenge (over 5000 years old) and Roman ruins in various places (like the baths in Bath) that are in spots all over the country, as well as all the treasures they have ammassed in London museums, and basically you could never run out of incredible things to investigate.

No mosquitos? At least I think so. I did not see a single one when we arrived in the summer, and none of the windows over here have screens, and people just leave windows and doors wide open in good summer weather, so I am going to assume there are no mosquitos.

No poles, wires, lights, and other view-obstructing paraphenalia: There are very few traffic lights - just at certain busy pedestrian crossings and busy city round-a-bouts. There is absolutely nothing overhead. All power lines and cables are burried underground. This makes things look significantly prettier.

So now on to the cons:

Financially starting over: When we arrived, we were able to use our passports to start a bank account here. It seemed as though they needed proof there would be income to start it. We had to wait for debit cards - these have a chip in them, unlike any of our American cards. There are stores that only take cards with a chip and pin. And I could not buy my cell phone (with monthly plan) until I had a card with a chip. The wait was frustrating. We also found out that we could not get any financing. So when we purchased our washer and dryer, we couldn't get store financing but had to pay for the whole thing. We couldn't apply for a credit card, so we had to continue to use US credit cards which made us very dependent on the exchange rate for the true purchase of our stuff. It's hard to start completely over like you are newly out on your own when you have been financially capable for years. The same held true for our recent car purchase - we are not eligible for car financing until we have been in the UK for 3 years! We should be able to get a credit card though at some point in the next few months.

Lack of closets: when they build houses, they do not automatically have closets in the bedrooms. If you pay extra money, you can get built in "wardrobes" but many rentals here have no built in wardrobes either. So where do you hang your clothes? Well, you have to buy wardrobes! In addition, there are no closets throughout the house - like in the bathrooms, in the hallways, etc. So you have to buy storage solution type of stuff for all your things. This is a real pain and even having wardrobes, containers, other storage furniture containing all your stuff is still a lot more cluttery than having nice closets in all your rooms.

Taxes: 33% typical tax rate - yikes! Bill was actually having about 29% or so out of his paycheck. He then opted out of pension, reducing that to about 25%. (you have to work for 15 years in the UK to receive pension benefits) We have now applied for working tax credit and child tax credit which will help to further lower the percentage. There is a process we have to go through before we get this, and we are still waiting on all that. In slight defense of this taxation, we are paying about 140 pounds a month in taxes for National Health Service. That is incredibly cheap for a whole family. But, it is a very socialistic system and therefore heavily taxed. Of course, if the US keeps pace, they will have similar taxation difficulties before long!

The roads: when going somewhere for the first time, we can almost guarantee that we will get mixed up at some round-a-bout along the way. They are not the easiest things to negotiate when you are clueless as to where you are going. Once you know your way around, they are easy. Road signs can sometimes be not-so-helpful, although they are not always bad. I do prefer having street signs on posts at the corner of every intersection. They only put road signs at the beginning of a road, so once you are on it, there are no signs along the way to confirm. Or if you turn onto the road from a street somewhere in the middle, there is of course no sign so you may not know what road you are on. This is the reason why I prefer to have every intersection marked with BOTH streets.

Nickeling and diming: you pay to park in Town Centre, you pay to park at the mall, and a million other little charges like that.

And the jury's out on:

the educational system

the National Health Service - quality of care etc

These are just some of the things that we have positively and negatively experienced here in the UK. Maybe a while from now, I'll revisit the pros and cons. By then, some of the cons may have resolved themselves as we become more established. In the meantime, the pros are many because basically how can I not be thankful in everything when God is in control and is so good and merciful to us?

Getting a Car and Having Thanksgiving

So a couple weeks into November, as I was biking Philip around in the ever-increasing cold, I realized that I did not think we could go any longer without a car. So into the world of foreign vehicles we delved. As Bill started looking at various vehicles, he would lament that he just didn't know enough about the models over here to know what would be best. We wanted to keep it under a thousand pounds, which in itself was very limiting. He did go around to many dealerships, toying with the idea of spending more than that and looking at quite a lot of different types. After a Saturday of visiting many nearby dealerships, he came home and was checking out ebay some more. And suddenly he came across our car - for a mere 700 pounds! No one had bid on it and the auction was ending soon. We couldn't believe it was so cheap and thought that there must be a catch, but after consulting with Mr. Kruppa, decided to go for it. The next day, we drove over and were very pleasantly surprised by the good condition of our vehicle - a 1991 Mercedes station wagon. The interior is in good condition and it has been running just fine with most things in the vehicle working! And just in time too, as I have no desire to be biking around in this cold weather!!

It has 104,000 miles and two seats that face backwards in the back to seat up to 7 passengers. It has been great having it! Fortunately it came with four months of road tax and MOT (like registration and inspection) so we don't have to worry about that right away.

Thanksgiving:

We were asked by a few people if we would still observe Thanksgiving being here in the UK, and my answer is yes definitely! There are some American holidays that we probably won't go to much trouble for - like Labor Day and stuff like that, but there are some that I feel very attached to. July 4th would be one of those, although we would certainly keep that celebration low key. Thanksgiving is another holiday that I feel attached to; I have many many memories of this holiday shared with my family and others. But not only that, it is a particularly great time to observe and give extra thanks to God for His blessings. I like having each family member at the dinner table stating some of the things they are thankful for. Turkey, stuffing, and gravy is also on my top two list of favorite holiday meals (with tenderloin and yorkshire pudding being the other).

Because Bill had to work and the kids had school, we decided to do a mini Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday night, and we invited the Picketts over for Saturday for a bigger Thanksgiving feast. We ended up having our Pastor and his wife Rosalind over on Thursday night to help us eat our little turkey. This also gave me much needed practice cooking the stuff in unfamiliar territory. All in all, our two Thanksgiving dinners were awesome, and the monster turkey I cooked on Saturday gave us two more days of pure turkey eating!

One thing that is completely unavailable here in the UK is canned pumpkin. So no pumpkin pie! But Ruth Ann Pickett came to our rescue and made one for Saturday with her last can of stashed pumpkin from the US. I also could not find corn syrup, a staple for chocolate pecan pie. I pretty much gave up on dessert, but I was able to find all the stuff I wanted for the meal.

Some of the things that I am thankful for: a great husband, healthy kids, the Lord's provision and guidance in every step of our lives, our Pastor and the church we have found over here, and all the comforts and freedoms that I currently have.

Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral

Friday morning, we made our way down to the Dining Room of Wentworth House for a breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomato, toast, fruit, yoghurt, and in Bill's and my case, many cups of coffee. I was really dragging, but after four cups of very good coffee felt somewhat better. Does this make me a coffee drinker? Well, not really - as I only seem to drink it when I'm out somewhere..... : )

It was a fairly quick job to pack up our overnight stuff and head out to Stonehenge, using my handy iphone for our GPS. The drive was mainly rural roads - winding and curving, and Abby hung in there for a while, but just short of reaching Stonehenge we had to come to a screeching halt at the side of the road for her to puke. (carsick, not a bug this time)

You can just drive to the area and park in the parking lot and walk along the fenced road to see Stonehenge, but we decided to go ahead and pay to walk around inside the fenced area for at least this first time visiting it. I thought it was worth the money to do once - you get to walk around the entire circle area and get pictures from every angle and the audio tour etc. This time, Bill got to have his arm yanked out of socket by Philip, and Abby and I meandered around taking pictures to our heart's content.

Stonehenge seems to have quite a bit intact, and the information states that the sun rising on the stones at different times of year marks the seasons and so forth. This stone circle is over 5000 years old, and dug all around it is a trench and then earth is mounded behind the trench. It is quite a sight. We found it very amazing and spent about an hour or so there walking around the area.

Then it was back to the car to take a short detour south to Salisbury to see the cathedral there. Since it was lunch time, we stopped for some food first. We managed to find our way through the somewhat winding and not-at-all picturesque streets of Salisbury and finally to the parking area for the Cathedral. This particular cathedral has the tallest spire in all of England and is Gothic in architecture.

In the center of the back area of the cathedral is a baptism pool that is remarkable - the water is moving and flowing through it, but without a single ripple of movement so that is looks like black glass. Stained glass throughout is original to the building - built in the 1200s. The ceilings are painted with different patterns and colors throughout, and of course there are the requisite tombs of all sorts of people. The choir was rehearsing while we were there and they sounded great in that high church way. The garden cloister area was very pretty with the afternoon sun coming through and all the flowering bushes and so forth. Our visit into the Chapter House revealed detailed Medieval friezes carved around the whole room depicting all the stories from Genesis - most of them we were able to identify. We also got a good look at the original Magna Carta document, which is being displayed there under the watchful eye of an elderly lady!

We spent some time outside the West Front of the cathedral, letting the kids run around in the Cathedral Close (a huge lawn park area) and then decided to wind our way up to Avebury - another 5000 year old stone circle. This particular one is not like Stonehenge - it is very large and used to have around 400 stones around it, and the little village of Avebury sits within the circle. High Street runs right through the circle, and parts of the circle are now sheep pasture. This circle is also surrounded by a ditch backed with a very high embankment of chalk - now covered with earth. It was getting towards dusk while we were there, so our visit was fairly quick.

So when I went to do directions home on the iphone - no service!! Big problem with using the phone as a GPS out in the middle of nowhere. So we followed a route northward, hoping it would be a good general direction. As we hopefully wound our way north, I searched the guide book for a decent map, to no avail. The other difficulty with all this was that my iphone by now was getting low on battery power, so I had to be judicious in its use. Fortunately, after just a few miles, we came upon a good sized town and there had some food and got our route home loaded on the phone.

So that concluded our sight-seeing to Wessex county, a place that I think Caleb and I battled over quite a bit in Britannia, with me finally having to give in due to lack of reinforcements. After these trips I am almost always left with the feeling of "if only we had time to do such and such" or "I'd really like to go back and see this" - there is never enough time to really see everything of interest, and we are mainly hitting the big highlights as best as we can. I found Bath to be very beautiful and would love to spend more time there.

Bath

So this morning (Thursday), after packing some overnight stuff, snacks, activities, etc, we hit the road to Bath. For once, we didn't miss the A14 roundabout thingy, and thus had no unplanned detours. We hurtled down the M5, only stopping for a brief toilet break (and a Costa Coffee I must admit). We arrived in Bath around noon and looked carefully for a place to park. We found a short stay park at the Waitrose (grocery store) and zipped in there. Then it was off to see the sights.

Our first order of business was of course lunch, and we chose a small cafe after wandering a few streets. Thus fortified, we then began our walk up to see the famous curved Georgian house facades at the Circus and Royal Crescent. The streets of Bath are certainly beautiful and unique and the walk was an enjoyable one, save for Philip constantly tugging on our arms to get away. At the Royal Crescent, we went in the Georgian House Museum (?), a house that is fully outfitted to the period. This is at the top of the hill in Bath and overlooks Victoria Park and other parts of Bath.

(the Royal Crescent - elegant homes for the wealthy back in the 1700s)

We then meandered through streets lined with shops - which we wold have loved to go in, but I knew we didn't have time for that and for the Roman Baths and other city center sights. So, with a longing look at Space NK, L'Occitane, Monsoon, and in Bill's case, Orvis, off we went to get a quick snack and drink from the car. We got a new ticket good for another four hours and then headed to city center.

The next two hours were spent going through the Roman Bath Museum - very cool! They have excavated this site - a temple, and very extensive baths, several of which they keep filled. The water naturally runs into the baths at 115 degrees F - and I think 13 liters a minute. We had a plan - and it was a very good one, but did have some flaws. We thought we would get Philip to just "happen" to jump in the spa (bath), and OF COURSE we would have to jump in to rescue him. And if we just "happened" to have our swimsuits on at the time, well, what a coincidence!!!! The main flaw here was the weather - after all, it is Autumn and the outside temp might be in the high 50s or so. So how were we going to go about in our swimsuits without freezing? With no answer to this dilemma, we abandoned the plan, at least for now. I do have to say though, that without ANY coaching on our part whatsoever, Philip did come very close to getting in the spa. I feel very proud of my restraint in preventing him from getting in.

Bath does have a Thermae Spa that uses the natural springs, but they don't allow under 18s and it costs 55 pounds. Strike out there! Anyway, the excavation of the Roman site is really neat - with chunks from the temple - original stone floors - of course the original baths - some partial mosaics - and many other things recovered.

We emerged from the museum, after a quick glance into the Pump Room which was closed because of the time, and headed over to see the Bath Abbey. This was a nice break for me. See they have all these things called pews, and I sat right down to rest my now weary feet. I no longer had Philip yanking on my arm to get away - another break for my weary arm! There was hardly anyone in there, and the people were very laid back, so I let Philip roam around. Well, after getting the obligatory pictures of the interior (finally, a place that actually ALLOWED pictures inside), we went in search of some dinner. By this time, it was raining a bit, so in the interest of not getting too wet walking around to peruse the restaurant choices, we zipped right in to Pizza Hut. Then it was a short walk back to the car park and a short drive here to our hotel.

(inside Bath Abbey - beautiful fan ceilings)

Wentworth House is a very large old house - now obviously converted into a hotel of sorts. We have a very reasonable family room here for the night and are looking forward to a hearty breakfast in the morning.

Burghley House

House - they call this a house?

So today, Bill and I dropped all children off at school and then hopped in the rental car to go visit Burghley House. It's located in Stamford which is very nearby - takes about 35 minutes to go the 20 miles or so. This house was built by William Cecil who was Elizabeth I's State Advisor. Since then it has been the Cecil's family home and still is. They have opened it to the public (as many castles and so forth are) to pay for the exorbitant taxes and repairs/upkeep of the place. Recently, it was used as the set for the new Pride and Prejudice movie.

Inside, you tour through a wing of guestrooms - the beds look like this. Every room is chock full of art. Aparantly a few different Earls and Marquesses throughout their history took it upon themselves to tour Europe collecting vast amounts of valuable art and other furniture and various treasures. Some were sold off years ago to pay for upkeep of the place before they got the brilliant idea to open it to the public. But there remain enough to occupy you for hours touring through the house.

You can't completely tell in this picture, but this house has a lot of painting on the walls and ceilings. Room after room is painted - ceilings and walls with various legends. If a room is not painted on the ceilings and walls, then pictures hang on every wall.

Every piece of furniture seems to be a treasure in itself. There are all sorts of beautifully veneered woods like this table, gold overlay, and the fireplaces are made of solid silver. Some rooms have beautiful tapestry on the walls instead of paintings. The Great Hall houses the library and has over 3000 volumes of pricelessly old stuff.

After going through the rooms open to the public, we went out to the Garden of Surprises. This would be a great fun place for kids in the summer - it's like a water garden with all sorts of water features that you could get completely soaked in if you so desired. It also contains some quirky things like a maze of mirrors, and modern sculptures. Exiting out of that we took a short walk through the Sculptured Garden. This is a tree/schrub/bushes type garden with various meandering paths and a lake. Scattered throughout are all sorts of modern art sculptures.

We were pretty hungry by this time, so keeping a close eye on the time, we went back into the House grounds to the Orangery Restaurant for a late lunch. We ordered one beef and wild game casserole and one steak and kidney pie to share between us - just to keep with the authentic British experience, and they were both very tasty. Then it was a short trip home to pick up the kids from school and get ready for church.

Moving in to the Rental House

The much awaited day had arrived! Friday night (Sep 26th) we packed as much of our clothing as we could in preparation for our Saturday move. Saturday, we caught an early bus up to High Street where the rental agent's offices were located, and we signed all the necessary papers and handed in a sizable chunk of money in exchange for the keys to our new rental. We then took the bus back to the bungalow and had some lunch. Bill was able to borrow one of the school's maintainance vehicles to move our stuff over to the house, so he went and got that. What we had to move at this point was all our clothes in luggage that we had brought, plus the things we had bought in preparation to go into a house. This included the Yamaha Clavinova (ebay purchase), some bookcases, a TV, and some other household items purchased from a missionary who was returning to the USA. We spent the next few hours taking trips back and forth to bring the stuff. Fortunately, our new home was just up the road - about half a mile or so.

(picture from our entrance door facing into lounge and back garden)

(kitchen - facing front to road)

After a few weary hours of moving stuff and simultaneously trying to clean the bungalow we were leaving, we made a quick run to the grocery store for supplies and a ready-made meal, then headed home. We tried to unpack as much clothing as possible - onto the floors - so we could at least access it the next day, and then got our beds ready. The church members were kind enough to give us zed beds (like a cot) and bedding for the children, some pots and knives for basic cooking, some chairs from the church for sitting on, and things like that to get us through the week until Friday when our container of stuff was being delivered. Bill's Dep Head also dropped by a small round table on Sunday that he didn't want anymore. Bill and I used a horrible air mattress that we had purchased cheaply for the week. So all in all, we ended up having enough stuff to get us through the week.

(view of lounge into back garden)

(our luggage unloaded into the master bedroom)

The house we have chosen to live in here in Corby is a town house - attached to four others. There is a courtyard area with garages for each house - we have our own garage that I am not sure would actually fit a car but is still very useful for storing stuff. I don't think I have actually seen anyone else try to fit their car in the garage either - they all park outside! The house is narrow and tall - about 16 feet in width, but going up three stories. We chose this house for several reasons - the bedrooms are very big by UK standards and were much bigger than in any other home I viewed. The faucets in the kids' bathroom and our bathroom are both mixed - most sinks here have separate taps, which I personally dislike, as you either freeze or burn your hands when washing. The kitchen came with a fridge and dishwasher already - here in the UK, rentals consider appliances as furniture and you usually have to provide them yourself! (I did have to purchase a washer and dryer) The back "garden", although narrow, is very beautifully shrubbed in a rock garden - very low maintainance - (this is a good thing) - and has a patio area. The other big draw for this particular house was the fourth bedroom - a very large room that could also be used as a family room; we are using this as a playroom for the kids and that is reason enough to have this house! So although we have had to cut back on space somewhat, I think we have plenty enough in this town house to be quite comfortable.

(view of sheep farm and pasture across the street from front of house; they are currently putting in a large lawn area right across the street just before the sheep pasture)

(the back garden)

Friday, Oct 3rd arrived, and soon the shipping container and the movers arrived. It was a long day of getting everything into the house and put in the correct room. Once the movers had left, I began some organizing efforts that Bill helped with when he got home from school. Later in the evening, Pastor Pavitt, Pastor Tooley, and two Crown College kids came over to move a few things up to the third floor - which was very kind of them. We ended up finding all the bedding for our beds and got them all set up just in time to wearily fall into them that night. There were three small problems we encountered during all of this. The first was that my triple dresser just absolutely would not fit up the stairs. The movers tried, and then we tried later, but there was no way. After being initially depressed : ) I decided to roll with the punches, and my dresser is now our hifi center for the TV. Second, Bill's chest of drawers (matching my dresser) fit up the first set of stairs, but it would not go up the second to our bedroom (master suite is on top floor). So he ended up putting it in Abby's room. Third, we put on our much loved heated mattress pad, and then read that the Watts are 360! Yikes! We had not had time to check this before we left so we had no idea how much we would need to convert. I had some 100W converters, but obviously they weren't going to do the job. Anyway, all that aside, we were overjoyed to get back into our very own talalay latex foam bed and all our soft and wonderful bedding! Every single night, I am thankful for that bed!!!!!

Saturday, Bill rented a minivan and went to pick up our two other ebay purchases. First was a dining room table with six chairs that we purchased for 50 pounds. We really got a fantastic deal with this set - the table is very large oval and additionally has a large leaf to extend it out. It is solid mahogony and is beautiful. The chairs are sage green and also solid mahogony and very attractive and comfortable. I love the set! The other purchase was a table with four chairs and a matching sideboard. The table is square, but has extensions that you pull out from under the table top and they slide into place on either side. They can then just as easily be slid back underneath. The sideboard is high, with nice storage compartments. We purchased this set for the playroom - for a game table and storage for all the games for 100 pounds. This set is a 1930's style and is also solid hardwood and in great shape. Yay ebay!

The following week was spent organizing stuff into places in the house and purchasing all the little things that you need to start off a household. We worked pretty hard though and had it mostly done going into the weekend. Then Bill was off from school (for a two week holiday) and helped me finish up the rest on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

We still have a few things that we need to purchase, but we ought to be able to get all that done early this week. There are of course some mundane things to be done in setting up household accounts etc, but we anticipate that this week we will have time for some sight-seeing by Wednesday or Thursday. Then I will hopefully have something much more interesting to blog about.