Shopping

Yesterday, I went shopping. This is not something that I do very often. If I do, I usually go to second hand stores. But the girls I work with at the pub all had beautiful new things from Christmas, and after Christmas sales, and I wanted some pretty things too. So I went.

I was in a store called Debenhams when there was an announcement for everyone, staff and customers, to evacuate the building. I was just browsing, so it wasn't a really big deal for me to leave, but there were loads of people in line at the tills. I saw someone carry a suit outside on its hanger, and it was not yet paid for, he just didn't know what to do with it.

The police closed down not just that store, but loads of others, as well. There was a suspicious looking package, and we all had to wait for the bomb squad to arrive and deal with it. The remaining shops were much busier, but I really noticed a difference in all the restaurants and take aways. More than half the places that you could buy food were closed down, and the remaining ones were chockered.

But I do have something to show for it all. I bought the most wonderful pair of heels. Red satin, and gorgeous. I love them.



All in all, an interesting afternoon.

This is why

I haven't been posting much. I have been working all the time. This is a good change, really it is, as I hadn't been working much for a while. But now, it is almost too much. I work every weekend at the pub, six hours on each of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On top of that, I have worked every weekday, at least half a day, since the 24th of November. So I have not had a day OFF since November the 20th. Unless you count the day I had the stomach flu. And I don't. All that being sick was harder than work.

So I do want to write, really I do. There have been a few things going on, but I just don't have the time to really write about it. I am in bed early every night, and just can't get motivated to do things. I promise that I will write something during the 2 days off that I have over Christmas.

That's right. Just 2 days off. I picked up extra days at the pub because I am just that kinda girl.

Makin' me smile

Here are some things that have been making me smile recently. If you don't share my sense of humour, I'm sorry.

Macy's day parade

Human Tetris

More great Game Over clips

I love this game

Enjoy!

Totterdown wildlife

So I looked out our front window the other day to find this big fella hanging out on our neighbour's front doorstep.
He sat there for about 5 minutes and made a few calls on his mobile before scurrying off down the road.

I hope you all like our new Mortal Kombat soundboard to the right here, enjoy.

Peter, you suck.

Tesco is our local grocery store, just a quick walk up the hill from our flat. This is a story about Peter, the Tesco Nazi:

From: James Preston (st*********ke@hotmail.com)
Sent: 19 November 2008 21:43:54
To: customer.service@tesco.co.uk

This evening my Fiancee, Heather, and I walked up to our local Tesco Express (TOTTERDOWN EXPRESS, 33 OXFORD STREET, BRISTOL, AVON, BS3 4RJ), to buy a few grocery items. While we were there we decided to take advantage of a "3 bottles for 10 pound" wine deal that was on offer. The deal was clearly marked throughout the wine section and we chose three different bottles of wine that were included in the deal. When we were at the checkout one of the bottles did not scan through the till as being part of the deal and the cashier told us that it was not part of the deal, even though the POP signage on the shelf clearly indicated that it was part of the deal. We told the cashier about the sign and suggested that if it was incorrect then it should be removed from the shelf. At this point Heather decided to get a different bottle of wine from the shelf, while she was back at the shelf choosing another bottle she also grabbed the offending incorrect sign and brought it back to the checkout, where me and the cashier were waiting for her. When we showed the checkout operator the signage she decided to call the manager over seeing as the signage did indeed advertise the non-scanning bottle of wine as part of the deal. When the manager, Peter, came to see what the problem was, the checkout operator showed him the ticket to which he agitatedly snapped "Where did this come from?!", Heather told him that it was from the shelf in the wine section and proceeded to lead him to the shelf to show him. At this point Peter became rather indignant and told Heather that she was not to take tags from the shelf and that it was not her place to touch them at all because if someone from Tesco head office had come in and seen a tag missing from the shelf then he could be fined up to 5000 pound (the internal workings of Tesco are none of our business, and we don't care to hear of them). All the while he was telling her this, he was very rudely standing over her and waving the ticket in her face. Heather apologised and explained that the only reason she had taken the ticket was to help resolve the situation. Peter proceeded to put the original three bottles of wine through the till for us. A customer that was at the till next to us saw the entire incident (she was not the only person who saw it as the store was very busy at the time), and as she was picking up her bags to leave, she remarked: "Well, obviously Tesco has forgotten about customer service", to which Peter very snidely replied: "Well, apparantly it has." Needless to say I am disgusted at this shocking lack of anything resembling customer service. At no point were we rude or confrontational, and yet this is all we received in turn. Sure, in the end we did get the three bottles of wine at the promotional price, but the road to getting there was far less than pleasant. I myself work directly with the public in a retail shop and know that if I ever treated a customer in this manner that I would be severely reprimanded by management.

We live very close to the Totterdown Express and shop there daily. But will not be doing so from now on until we believe that the situation has been dealt with adequately. This I will leave in your capable hands as I am sure that Tesco has specific procedure to deal with such a situation.

Yours sincerely

James Preston

Swimming

Last Friday, I did supply work in a Year 4 class. This is about Grade 3 back home. I took the class for swimming lessons. I had taken my class for swimming lessons last year, so it gave me a reference point for what I expected to happen. I was therefore really surprised with what did happen.

Surprise # 1:

All of the swimming instructors were fully clothed. Because they didn't get into the pool. While teaching 8 & 9 year olds. Many of the children could barely swim (the school is in an underprivileged neighbourhood, and many of the children had never taken lessons before). Yet the teachers stayed on the edge of the pool, and just shouted : “Take your feet off the bottom! Move your arms!”

Surprise # 2:

All of the weak swimmers put on armband floaties before getting into the pool. Most instructors that I know HATE armbands, as they offer a false sense of security, make kids dependent and get in the way.

Surprise # 3:

The weakest kids were being taught to doggie paddle. Kids do it. I know that they do it. But I have never seen it taught. The instructor was telling them “Make sure you keep your head high. Don't take your arms out of the water! I don't want to see anyone making circles with their arms!”

I know that in general, people have a tendency to think that what they know and have grown up with is the way that things should be done. And there is probably a lot of merit to this way of teaching. But I still think that when teaching swimming, you should get in the pool.

Hallowe'en

James had never carved a pumpkin. Not really the done thing in New Zealand. So we decided to rectify that situation. I had bought mini pumpkins to decorate the place, but they were not ideal for carving. With Davy and Steph here, this was great time to get our carve on. Behold, the pumpkin creations:

Davy joined our Katimavik Group on Hallowe'en, so we decided to celebrate the holiday by getting dressed up and drunk. We trolled second hand shops for costume pieces and ended up with some decent costumes. I decided to be a spider, with inspiration taken from Mr. Dressup. He had the coolest spider costume in his Tickle Trunk.


Davy was an accident victim.


Steph decided to go for the fairy princess look.


And James was a zombie. But a zombie that could run.



My favorite part of the evening was walking to the bar. We were taking a picture when a group of people started to walk by. They appologized for getting into the frame. We convinced them to be part of our picture.

Later, crossing through the park, Davy decided to mount a statue of a horse.

While he was on the horse, he got attacked by zombies. Luckily, they couldn't climb the statue to get him!

Visitors!

Over the past several weeks we have had a few visitors. Firstly my cousin Mel and her boyfriend Phil came to stay for a Saturday night. On Sunday we decided to take one of the many boat tours to be had around Bristol harbour. It was a great way to learn a bit more about the maritime history of Bristol and also about some of the many fantastic buildings in and around the downtown area. We just so happened to be there at the same time as The Matthew, which is (a replica of) the boat that John Cabot travelled to and discovered North America on.

Here are a few pics of us all enjoying the tour:





Mel thinks her hair looks messy in this photo, but when you are on a boat your hair is supposed to be messy, like a pirate. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, it was great to see my cuzzy, it will be the last time for quite some time.

Our second lot of guests were Davy and Steph from Canada, Halifax to be precise. Davy and Steph spent the last week or so here. For Halloween we carved pumpkins and dressed up for a night out.


Unfortunately I was working for most of their time here so I missed out on a day trip to Bath and a day trip to Cardiff.

It has been great to have some familiar faces around and I hope to see some more before our time is up here.

Remember remember the 5th of November

Last night was Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night. There was a celebration going on down at the local park. I dragged James along with me to see what was going on. The local community had a HUGE bonfire going on, as well as loads of regular people firing off fireworks. Neither of us had our cameras, so we are sadly pictureless. It was a really interesting night for me, as I love fireworks, and because I have never seen anything of the like. It is illegal to set off fireworks within city limits in SK, so the sort of celebration we saw last night would never occur. We ended up walking up to the top of the hill in the park, and just sitting, enjoying all the random fireworks being set off throughout the area. By the end of the evening, the air in the park was thick with smoke from the bonfire and the smell of gunpowder.

I wish you all could have been here.

Mumford & Sons

Two weeks ago, James and I went to a concert here in town. There is a bar called The Louisiana. Why The Louisiana, I'm not sure, but there you go. When you read a list of artists who have played a The Louisiana over the years, it reads like a "who's who" in big name bands, including Razorlight, Snow Patrol, Bloc Party, Coldplay and others. James found a group called Mumford & Sons that he found on MySpace that was plying, and we got tickets.

The venue was tiny, and packed. There was a moment when I had difficulty taking a drink, as my arms were pinned by my sides. At one point, I said to James, who was standing behind me, that I thought I might fall over, as the guy in front of me was leaning on me so hard. James replied that I would not fall over, as there was no place for me to go. He was right.

When records were first created, they were often recorded at live performances, the next best thing for people that couldn't make the concert. Now, with all of the digital remastering that takes place, with multiple takes spliced together so that all the best bits are used, recorded music often sounds better than live. The point of a live concert is more the experience, not the music. I was therefore delighted when I found that the band sounded even better live than on the tracks we had downloaded. We got a great experience with amazing music as well.

As far as our first night out in Bristol, it couldn't have been better.

Hair

I have never had a hair straightener. I used to use an iron to straighten my hair, which is not as bad as it sounds. Many straighteners get far hotter than an iron at its lowest setting. Anyways, I have never owned a straightener because the really good ones cost over 100$ and the cheap ones are not really worth the 30$ you spend on them. I was browsing through a charity shop, looking for pots (really cheap pots rust easily, we have learnt), so I was looking on the "gadgety" shelves. And I saw a straightener for £6. It was not a famous brand name, but it was the same as my hairdryer, which has been doing a good job for me, and it had ceramic plates, rather than metal ones. I figured why not? At best, it would work well, at worst it was a £6 pound donation to charity. I got it home, and was amazed at how well it worked. I straightened my hair before going to the pub, and I had 4 people ask me if I got a haircut, it looked that different.

I love charity shops.

False Advertizing

With my job at the pub, I didn't want to ruin any of my nice teaching clothes with beer, so I bought a few things at charity shops. When I came across this t-shirt, I just had to have it. Because it is just so not true, which makes it hilarious.

Steep

I discovered recently that the (allegedly) steepest residential street in Britain is not too far from our house, Vale St. I decided that I was going to cycle up it just to say that I had. So on the way home from work the other day I took a short detour to do so. I had to lean as far forward as I possibly could while riding up it for fear of toppling over backwards, it was steep I tell you. When I reached the top I felt like I had achieved something, until the road sign told me that I had in fact just cycled up Summer Hill, not Vale St. At this point I thought 'fuck it', and went home.

Today I decided to give it another crack. After checking exactly where it was on Google Maps I made the detour after work to find it. To get to it I had to ride up a hill that was equally as steep as Summer Hill only longer. I eventually found Vale St, took one look up it and thought 'fuck it', and went home. Maybe another day, when I feel more like I have the strength and stamina of a thousand men.


Edit: I have just discovered that it is allegedly the steepest residential street in Europe. After seeing it, I do not doubt it.

Earthrace

You get two posts in one day! I took another day off to recover from exploding kidneys, but I feel better, so I am bored, so you get blogging galore!

Ages ago, at least a month ago, James and I wandered into the city. In the harbour we saw Earthrace. I had no idea what it was all about, but James, being a Kiwi, was quite excited. In case you can't be bothered to click through, the short story is that Earthrace is a boat that circumnavigated the globe running entirely on bio diesel and with a carbon neutral footprint.

It was really cool to see the ship and be able to climb aboard. It looked very sleek and futuristic on the outside, but inside it looked like a bus from a rock tour. It was really interesting to see the two parts mixed together. Seeing the decals inspired by Maori carvings and paintings made us both a little homesick for New Zealand.

Pub life

Working at a pub is a messy business. You end up with beer all over your hands, your arms, your jeans, your shoes, everything. I get more than the average person on my jeans, as I am constantly wiping my hands on them. This, coupled by the fact that we don't have a washing machine led me to buy some clothes that I only wear to the pub. I have a few shirts and a pair of jeans that I bought at second hand shops so that I'm not wrecking my own clothes that I really like and so that I don't reek like booze in my regular life. I don't wash my jeans after every shift (they would never dry for the next day) but I try to wash them every week or so. For two weeks, I was working a Wednesday night, as well as weekends, which means I couldn't wash my jeans, they wouldn't dry in 2 days. By the time I washed them, I had probably worn these jeans about 10 shifts. I knew they would be gross, so I just rinsed them in clean water, no soap first. I'm sure that if I had drank what washed out of them, I would have gotten drunk. Take a look.

That's right folks . . .

I'm living overseas, which can mean only one thing. It's that time again! I've got it! Drum roll please . . . . .

I'VE GOT A KIDNEY INFECTION! Yaaaay!

Don't ask me why this happens, I don't know. I did go a whole year in Canada kidney infection free. But now it is back. Thankfully, I caught this one early, as I will probably do for the rest of my life. I'm so paranoid about having to go to the hospital again that I run to the doctor the moment something feels off. This time, I had lower back pain and a chill that I just couldn't shake. I was wearing fleece PJs, covered with 2 blankets, shivering, while James sat next to me in his boxers. Not a good sign.

Here in the UK, you need to register with your local surgery (doctor's office). There is no choice of which doctor to go to. So I went to my local surgery this morning, and tried to register. I was told that I couldn't register today, they had no openings, but I could make an appointment for Friday. So I did, and instead went to a walk in clinic. At the clinic, I was asked with which surgery I was registered. I told them that I was not, that I had tried but had been told that I couldn't until Friday. At the clinic, they told me that the surgery doesn't have the right to not register me, that even if they have no appointments available, they need to do the paperwork. They also told me that if I'm not feeling better in 48 hours, I need to go into the local surgery, and force them to see me, as the walk-in clinic can't help me any more. I really hope that I'm better within 48 hours, because I have teaching work lined up for the next 3 days, and don't want to give up a day for a doctor's appointment.

Anyways, hopefully the antibiotics prescribed and the copious amounts of cranberry juice I'll be drinking in the next 3 days will sort me out.

Our home

We live on the top floor here. There are three seperate dwellings. Some dude called Clarence the Beatnik* (*not his real name) lives in the flat below us, and there is supposedly a girl renting the basement flat, but she is from Georgia and is visiting there at the moment (Georgia in the states or the country Georgia I am not sure).


This is the view from our lounge/bedroom. In the background you can see Victoria park. The stepped buildings are very typical of where we live. I must have taken this photo in the middle of a weekday as there are not many parked cars, the street is usually full of cars seeing as nobody has a garage.


This is another view from our lounge/bedroom. I think this is particularly interesting because of the 'spider web' power pole feeding power to all the flats around us (or maybe telephone lines, I wouldn't recognise the difference). Please note the purple house up the road, there is always one isn't there?

The view from our back room is of the local mosque. We don't really use the back room for much, at the moment it looks like an enormous wardrobe with clothes strewn everywhere. Although it will be the guest room when we have visitors.

We bought this table and chairs second hand for £15, and picked up the cushions for a fiver at sainsburys. The table was a very welcome addition to the flat after a week or so of sitting on the floor, it was killing my back.


This here is our bedroom/lounge. We bought a mattress not long after moving in, before this we were sleeping on an air mattress, which was killing my back. As you can imagine we tidied up considerably for this photo, there is usually crap all over the place.

I hope you enjoyed some photos of our place. Soon I hope to get some pictures of Bristol up here, or perhaps on my flickr account.

Laundry

A few people were curious about how we did laundry here in the Harder-Preston Household, so yesterday as I was washing, I took an inordinate number of pictures, Cockeyed.com style.






This is my washing machine. I fill it in the shower.









I love this laundry soap. It is 100% natural and biodegradable. It smells great, and I can refill it from at the organic store up the road. Yay for less waste!















This is how it looks as I do laundry. The water is cloudy from the soap and the dirt that I am washing out!










After agitating for a few minutes and scrubbing the dirty spots, clothes get the soapy water squeezed out and put into another bucket for rinsing.









We rinse in the shower. Typically things get rinsed 2 or 3 times.















Since we hang all our clothes to dry, fabric softener is essential. This is also from the same line of environmentally friendly products.
















Here is the salad spinner that helps dry our clothes.












It's not very big inside!













Here is a shirt in the spinner.







Here are two pairs of socks. I rang these socks out as well as I could before putting them in the spinner.







And here is the water that I spun out of the socks! Look closely!






After all of that, the laundry is hung on various drying racks and chairs and curtain rods. And that is how we do laundry!

Especially for Tamara

So, Tamara has this incredible knack for finding great purses at Value Village. With that in mind, here is a picture of my new purchase. I got it at Scope, which supports people with Cerebral Palsy, for £1.50, or about $3. I was quite impressed. Although, it was not quite as good a deal as the Paul Frank purse for £2 that I did not buy last weekend, but should have.

Maybe I'd rather be bored

So, I worked last night at the pub. Sunday night. Man was it boring. When I got there at 6:00, there were two people in the pub. And it didn't get much better. I was complaining about how boring it was, wishing it would get more exciting. Be careful what you wish for . . .

Completely without provocation, a fight broke out. 6 people in the entire pub, one of them in his 70s, the other 5 in their 20s. One guy hits another and the other three pull them apart. The trouble maker gets thrown out, and the other 4 boys apologise to me for causing a disturbance. My boss had gone down the road with his fiancée for supper. He asked why I hadn't called him on hos cell phone, and I told him that the whole thing was over before it really started. I could have called him, but nothing would have changed.

If that was the excitement, I'll leave it, thanks.

Belly dance

I had told myself that I really could not afford to take dance lessons of any kind without a job. So good thing I got a job at the pub! I went to belly dance class on Wednesday. There were about 40 girls in the class, and I felt bad for about 30 of them. The teacher was really not very good. She would demonstrate a move one time, then say "it is good, ya?" and expect everyone to follow along. I didn't mind, since this is year 3 of belly dancing, and I knew what she was doing, but I would have gotten very frustrated if that had been the entire instruction. While we were doing a copying a move, with no instructions of how to do it other than "push!" the instructor would circulate, helping maybe one or two students. With 40 in the class, there is no way she could have seen everyone.

All in all, I had fun at the class, and got a good workout, but I learnt nothing new, and I don't think I will for the whole term. I need to decide if I am doing this class just f the workout, and if so, I think I will continue.

I has a job!

Somebody actually employed me! I have scored a job at an electronics retailer called Maplin. And thanks goodness for having done so, I was starting to wonder how the hell we were going to pay next month's rent. The pay is shit, but it is a job, and I will keep looking for a better job. I might even look at getting forklift certification, or construction site certification which will lead to higher paying jobs hopefully.

Things have been kind of slow around here in between looking for jobs. We have been trying to keep our spending to a minimum until we get a few paycheques under our belt. That's not to say we have been standing around staring at the wall. Our new library cards are being used frequently and we went to the Bristol Museum the other day. I still just get a kick out of going for a walk and stumbling across fantastic old buildings that have been standing here for centuries.

I have just remembered a story that you might find amusing. Back when we were staying at the hostel there was a particularly rowdy group of schoolboys also staying there as part of a football tour or something. Now I don't mind rowdy kids, just so long as they are more or less kept under control by an adult or two. But it seemed that the coaches really didn't give a rats arse what their kids were up to. The young lads made it their modus operandi to tear around the dormitory halls and up and down the stairwells screaming and swearing every fucking night, anywhere from about 10pm onwards into the wee hours of the morning! The first night this happened I was so damn tired that I managed to fall asleep regardless. The second night it kept me up well past midnight and woke me up only briefly at about 2am. The third night however, I could stand it no longer. At about 1:30am I snapped. I waited until the little fuckers sounded close to my dorm door and then launched myself out of bed and stormed towards the door. Swinging the door wide open I was immediately confronted by about 6 young boys staring at me from across the hallway, not 4 feet away (their room appeared to be directly opposite mine). I then proceeded to scream at them in the most terrifying voice I could muster, "It's two'o'clock in the fucking morning! You little cunts better learn how to shut the fuck up real quick or you'll all be sleeping on the fucking sidewalk tonight!!!" (actual transcript, by the way), all the while threateningly waving my finger at them like the angry old man that I was. They went dead silent until one of them managed to croak a feeble "sorry". I was left there for a brief moment staring at them, fuming. I realised what a sight it must have been, me standing there in nothing but my boxer shorts, face red with rage, spitting at them as I screamed. I hastily retreated to my dorm, realising that I must have woken up everyone that hadn't already been awake, most certainly anyone in my dorm anyway.

When Tamara called, she asked if we had made any new friends. Well, we have not. We haven't really met anyone. Tamara said that we should go to the local pub and try to meet people. I have done one better. I got a job at the local pub.

The pub is just up the road, about a 4 minute walk. We were trying to find the laundrette, and we passed a pub with a hiring sign in the window. I dropped off a CV, on Thursday and had my first shift last night. Things went pretty well. I was a bit shaky on pulling pints at the beginning of the night, but 200 pints later, I think I've got it. I made a few mistakes, nothing too major. In Canada, you typically pay for the alcohol, the mix is free. Shot of vodka? $3.50. Vodka and coke? $3.50. Here, not so much. Shot of vodka, £2.20, vodka and coke, £2.80. I didn't realize that on the till, I had to add the pop as well, so I undercharged for drinks for half the night. But that was not the worst part. There was a group of rowdy boys that were buying rounds. One of them bought 3 gins. The pub does not have rocks glasses, so they get poured into the same glasses as pop and highballs. My co-worker took this order, and poured the drinks while I was collecting empties. While she was pouring the drinks, the boy that had ordered wandered back over to his mates, leaving the glasses on the bar. I saw nearly empty glasses on the bar, with a small amount of clear liquid in them and thought that it was the remains of melted ice. I dumped 3 shots of gin down the sink.

If after that, they still want me around (and the do) then it looks like I have a job.

August 28th

By this time next year I will be married to a girl that dries her clothes in a salad spinner.

James may be the washing machine . . .

but I'm the dryer!

We have learnt that the major drawback to doing laundry by hand is that it takes forever to dry. I have often hung all my clothes to dry, but this is after they have been through a spin cycle in the washing machine. This leaves them only damp. When you are washing by hand, you do not have the luxury of a spin cycle. This means that clothes are often still dripping wet. We do our best to get the water out, squeezing them, and wringing towels, but not wringing most things as we don't want to stretch them. We hung a few t-shirts and socks yesterday, about eleven a.m. It is now nearly 9 p.m. The clothes are nearly dry. We looked on-line to see if it were even possible to buy a wringer or a "mangle" as they are known here in the UK. Well, no, you really can't. Instead, while looking, I came across this. James and I want to buy on when we get settled in New Zealand. But it got me to thinking, and it reminded me a lot of a salad spinner. And I wondered if that would work the same way . . .

Today, we were in yet another second-hand store. We have visited about 5 already, and they are great. In this particular store, they happened to have a salad spinner. For just over a pound, I though why not? let's give it a try. It's not perfect, but it works OK. After squeezing two pairs of socks the best I could, I put them into the spinner and gave it a whirl, and managed to pull over a quarter of a cup of water out. I know that is not a huge amount, but it is still water that now doesn't have to evaporate. For now, it is my new toy, and hopefully our clothes will start to take less than 48 hours to dry.

five pounds!?!

When we first got to Bristol, I was hoping to find a second hand shop to help furnish and fill our flat. We found one, but it didn't have much in it. I was really hoping to get great mismatched dishes like Tamara and Deron got at ValueVillage, but the store we found didn't have any, so we got new ones. I would have preferred second hand dishes, even for a slightly higher cost for environmental and consumerist reasons. I'd rather that my dishes weren't shipped from Asia, and I'd rather that they weren't wrapped in plastic and cardboard.

Today, nearly a week after buying dishes and the like, we came across a GREAT second hand store. We hadn't noticed it before because it is only open 3 days a week. We got wonderful things. Interestingly, much of the smaller stuff doesn't have prices on it, so when we took our assorted items to the counter, the employee just looked at it and said "Five pound? Sound good?" Here's the haul:

There is a copy of Fast Food Nation that I have been told to read dozens of times, but just never have, a small tea pot just right for two cups of tea, a mug for James' coffee, a canister to keep our brown sugar soft and a sugar bowl for the white sugar. Oh, that's right, and BOGGLE. Original old-school BOGGLE. Take that, Laura and Dom! We have the big noisy shaker, and everything.

And now, du coq à l'âne, from the rooster to the donkey, or, and now, about other things, if you'd prefer. As you have read, James and I are doing much of our laundry by hand. This is a move to save money, as we don't want to use the laundromat, or laundrette, too much, but also in a move to save water. We have tried, over the past year to be more aware of our consumption, both or resources and general consumer goods. This is why, when we finished our first quart of milk (not a litre, let me tell you) I filled it with water and placed it in the tank of our toilet. This way, we are saving over a litre of water each time we flush. Over the time that we are here, we figure we will save about about 2000 litres of water. I encourage each of you to do the same. Take a 1 litre plastic bottle, like a milk jug, or anything similar, fill it with water, screw the lid on, and place it inside the toilet tank. You will save water and money on your water bill.

Totterdown

Our new place is in Totterdown. Totterdown is a nice neighbourhood just south of the river in Bristol, only about a 25 min walk from the city centre. It is a very cosy top floor, one bedroom flat on what I used to think was a steep road, but after climbing it a dozen or so times it doesn't seem that bad. It is not the most modern of places, but the price is right and we are not living in the ghetto. We have spent maybe 150 quid on setting the place up so far. We have almost a fully stocked kitchen and plastic bins galore for storing our clothes. We are sleeping on an air mattress and I wake up most mornings with a sore back, I really can't wait until we find a real bed. The trouble is that we really need to find a very cheap bed because we will be paying to have it delivered. Last night we walked up the road and bought a small patio table and chairs from a guy that advertised them on gumtree.com. It only cost us 15 pound and the guy lived close enough that we could carry them back to our place. It is really nice to sit on something other than the floor.

So I guess we will need jobs to pay for all this, right? Heather is really just waiting for the start of the school year for the work to come rolling in. I signed up with a recruitment agency last Friday and they seemed very optimistic. They seemed to think I could be working before the end of this week. I told them I would take any job that they had, that may have been a mistake, but really I just need a job, any job right now.

I have just tried to upload photos onto the blog and it has failed on me five times, so I give up. Just visualise an enormous castle on top of a hill, with fast cars parked in the driveway, and that is pretty much where we live.

BBC SCORE!

We had mentioned to a few of our friends that we wee probably not getting a TV here in Bristol. We don't watch much TV, and it would not be worth the cost of tracking one down. Our English friend Dom assured us that was the right decision, as the BBC put many programs on the Internet for streaming or downloading. We checked out the website last night, and it ROCKS! There are loads of programs available, and in really great quality too! now, we can watch TV if we want, and with no commercials, too. I'm never watching real TV again!

I am a washing machine.

Our new flat has a fridge, it has heating, it even has a hinged front door. But the one thing that it doesn't have is a washing machine. I figured I would just wear my clothes for as long as possible, until I could stand the stench no longer, and then just biff them out and buy new ones. But really, that is just a bad idea, and expensive. So today I am proud to announce that I did my first ever load of laundry by hand. That's right, by hand. We purchased a small tub and some eco-friendly, skin-friendly laundry detergent from Asda and then I went to work. It was fairly painless to be honest, almost relaxing, and very satisfying. We will see how long it takes for the novelty to wear off.

So do we have many readers? Please leave a comment if you are reading our blog. I do like an audience.

The blue light district

We were in Asda, a Zellers-type store the other day. I went to the washroom, an noticed that all the lights above the stalls were blue. I thought it was a power saving feature, that blue lights were calming of that blue lights encourage people to spend more. I was wrong. James let me in on the secret today. It is hard to see blue things under blue lights. Like veins. The blue lights in the stalls discourage junkies from using the stalls to shoot up. Who knew?

Bring on the visitors!

We have a place to house anyone that comes to visit! James and I signed a lease to a flat this morning! It was kind of a rush job, but staying in a hostel is expensive, and we had been browsing ads online for nearly a year, so we knew what kind of price range to expect. We had heard good things about this area, and I got the okay from the employees at Protocol (the agency I'm working through) so we jumped at it. It is about a 20 minute walk from the downtown core. We have a Tesco Express (a tiny supermarket) about a 5 minute walk away, so we can get fresh food daily. This is nice, as we have only a bar fridge, and no freezer. We also have virtually no cupboard space, so close groceries are good.

We bought a few things today to make the flat livable. We have an air mattress, which we will hopefully replace with a real bed and keep for visitors. We also bought some dishes, sheets and a duvet cover. We are trying to buy the least possible, both because we are not yet working, and because we found out at the end of last year how hard it is getting rid of a flat full of STUFF. The less we buy, the less we need to deal with then.

We had quite the adventure cooking our first supper in the flat. We set off the heat detector 3 times (I learnt that the trick is not to reset it, but just switch it to mute) and the smoke detector 5 times. It was an adventure.

Hopefully we will get some pictures taken tomorrow to post and show you where we are living. Right now, we have too much stuff everywhere to take pictures.

We also spent time tonight laughing at this. You should go check it out.

Where?

A couple of days ago, we had made an appointment to view a flat to let (an apartment to rent). We decided to take a cab, as it was fairly far away, and we had been walking a lot already that day. As we got into the cab, James explained to the cabbie why we were headed out that way. She was a bit surprised, and James asked if it was a good place to live. She replied that it was fine "if you don't mind living in downtown Mogadishu". Turns out the area is a bit of a ghetto, where it is not particularly safe to be white after dark. Needless to say, we did not take the place.

By the way, could someone please get a Zellers over here? There is no place really similar that carries all different types of products like they do!

Bristol calling.

I think Bristol is just what the doctor ordered. Heather and I have been feeling rather under the weather since we arrived in England. A combination of jet lag and hauling around several thousand kilograms of luggage between tube stations, bus stations, hotels and hostels has left us utterly exhausted.

We arrived in Bristol early this afternoon. It is a Beautiful city. It is clean, the people are friendly and the beer tastes good. After some serious luggageering (this is my new word for touring about loaded up with bags and packs like a donkey) we finally found a YHA hostel to begin our stay. The hostel is very nice. It is clean and tidy and seems to have all the facilities that we need for now. The WiFi is free, provided you purchase something at the cafe, I chose a Samuel Smith's Organic Lager and Heather is trying the hot chocolate.

Bristol is sweet, in your face, Gumby!

We made it

So we are now in London. The trip over was long! We had a 6 hour layover in Toronto, which we used to our advantage to visit the Hockey Hall of Fame. It was about what I expected, pretty interesting. We got out picture taken with the Stanley Cup and saw some interesting memorabilia. We will hopefully post some pictures shortly.#

We got to our hotel with a minimum of fuss. It is small, but nice. We are just outside the Wembly Stadium, where the English Football team plays international matches. We are spending part of today in true Kiwi fashion, watching a rugby game.

In other news, pounds are wider than dollars (NZ or CAN) so they do not fit in James' wallet, and he needs to get a new one.

Enjoy the rest of the Olympics!

I should be doing something else

Last night Heather and I had our farewell party. I took this as the perfect opportunity to get absolutely smashed. Oh what a mistake, I have been ill all day. I still have bags to pack and stuff to organize before we get on the plane to Toronto tomorrow. But I really can't get excited about packing and travelling right now, so instead I am messing about on the internet. End transmission.