In Training

The dreaded mono

After moving to Britain and then this fiasco - shingles, then 3 simultaneous infections that put me 'in hospital' (as the Brits say), and then leaving my husband and moving back to the States due to immigration procedures you'd think I'd be all back to normal all having fun in the sun with family.  Well, at least military normal! 

I haven't been getting better.  I took a job that was offered the first week I was back and pushed myself so hard every day, but it seemed like I was going backward.  I had to back off my hours to where I was only working six a day, then 4 1/2.  Work is supportive because they knew about my situation, but they are a business and need someone to be there.
I made an appointment with my doctor.  We discussed everything that had happened in Britain. 
She took all my blood to run test after test.

I didn't have infections.  I had Mono. 
Freakin' Mono.  Known as glandular fever in Britain.  Shingles.  Mono.  And a urinary tract infection. 
I shouldn't be better by now!!

No one can even believe I've been doing what I've been doing and I don't say that to brag because I don't want to be anywhere close to superwoman!  I can't believe it. What the hell was I thinking!  I knew I wasn't getting better and I pressured myself anyway.  Probably did more harm than good, but thankfully I haven't relapsed which is the big worry.  And having said all that, I'm actually very healthy not even anemic which is a big thing with women of my age.  I'm just not able to do whatever I want yet, my body won't let me.

I now have to work half days for two more weeks and then try to build up.  Which I thought I was doing anyway.  Very frustrating.  My only thought is to make it to December when Royal will come and save me! 
Because he is superman. 

Stressed Brits

Found the following article at Hot Air

British people crumple under stressful modern life

One in 10 people describes themselves as constantly at boiling point while a fifth start feeling stressed before breakfast....Just over half of the population struggles to sleep at night, while one in two has headaches or migraines, 23% have digestive problems and 17% suffer panic attacks. Two thirds of people admit they now regularly feel at the end of their tether and unable to cope, and 12% said they constantly feel at boiling point. Almost half, 42%, said they spend at least an eighth of the day feeling stressed out and on average, people are anxious for more than two hours a day....The overwhelming majority of people - 71% - believe living in the UK is more stressful than living abroad and 85% believe life is harder now than it was 50 years ago.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure I know why. Allow me to share with you this lovely experience I had this morning:

I got up early because I had been assigned by Royal before he left to cancel some of our bills for our house in the U.K.  Today I decided I'd better get to it so I'll have something to report when he calls.  I chose our Tiscali internet account because I thought that would be fairly simple.  Ha.
 
I call the first phone number and spend 2-3 minutes going through the 'touch one now' menus and finally get to 'touch 3 to cancel your Tiscali account'.  The next thing I know the annoying recorded voice is spitting out numbers saying to call them to cancel.  What the hell had I been doing?  Fine.  I have to wait until she says it again because even though I had a pen and paper in front of me like a good customer speaking to a representative, I was not prepared to write down a damn number right then. 

I call the second number (trying to get extra cash outta me or what) and go through another 'touch one' process until finally I get to 'touch 3 to speak to us about cancelling your Tiscali account'.  Do I want to speak about it, no, I already know what I want and no one is talking me out of it. 

I am on hold for about 9 minutes.  Long distance.  To Britain.  Just as I'm about to hang up, a very nice Indian gentleman answers.  I gave him my phone number and our address.  He asks me,

"Is Mr. Darcy available?"
"No, but I'm his wife."

Well of course either Royal forgot to add my name to the account or the Tiscali bunch screwed it up, which I wouldn't put past them.  Okay fine, I can handle that.
 
"Can I just ask what will happen to cancel the account then?" 
[This may seem silly, like why couldn't you ask a question?  HA AGAIN.  I was the one to set up our Sky Tv account while Royal was deployed earlier this year, and they would not LET me add Royal to the account as well.  When Royal called to ask how we would go about cancelling our Sky, they wouldn't even answer his question!  So this is why I asked if I could ask.]
But this guy was nice and said the following in response

"It depends on why you are cancelling."
Uh okay.  Really doesn't matter I just want it cancelled.  And I'm a free consumer...
"We are moving out of the country."
"First we will need you to send our Home Office a copy of your one-way ticket.  Then upon receiving this they will send you a receipt which will require the signature of the account holder.  This will need to be sent back to our Home Office.  Then your account will be listed as 'cancellation pending'.  Blah blah blah more stuff."

I just laughed to myself because in my experience (and I had several fun ones while I was there) this is how things work in Britain. 
So when my husband gets back from serving his country with honor, he will be calling Mr. Tiscali and telling them we are cancelling because
WE WERE UNSATISFIED WITH YOUR DAMN SERVICE!! 
Do you need to see any paperwork for that buddy??  Do ya??  (except they probably do...)

This is why the Brits are stressed out of their minds.  In my humble opinion. 

Whimsical world of Thomas Joseph

Those of you from the U.K. might have heard of Thomas Joseph.  As an artist he paints insanely cute pictures and has things like calendars, bags, tea towels & other sort of touristy items.  He actually reminds me a lot of Sandra Boynton, if anyone recognizes her style.

Click for his prints (straight up images, not an animated page if you had trouble with the site above)

Before I left Britain I made sure to buy a few of his small prints for us to put up in our house someday.  I went with 'Isle of ewe', 'I got ewe babe', 'How do ewe deux' and 'I'm nuts about ewe' (last two shown in shop section).  But there are so many that I want!  I like 'Sweet nothings', 'I only have eyes for ewe' and 'Ewe'll never walk alone'.  And 'Highland showdown'!  And 'Ewe are scrum-ptious'.  I could go on...

When hubby gets back to Britain he will have a shopping list waiting!  Luckily he thinks they're adorably funny, too.

Britain missing -the- scent of the wild

I've talked about missing food, family, & weather - that's taste, sound, vision and touch. 
But what about scent.

While living in Britain, I missed the smell of a skunk.  Skunk scent.  You know, driving down a dirt road (or the highway, whatever) and all of a sudden it's there and you can't get away from it even though your windows are up and somehow you think that should keep you safe. 

It's not crazy.  Though I'm also one of those people who doesn't mind the sound of nails on a chalkboard...  Anyway, I know there are people out there who know what I mean!  You know who you are. You people, you just 'get' me.

Apparently, skunks just hang out in North & South America, the Philippines & Indonesia.  So if you haven't ever experienced skunk, y'all come see us.

The Faslane Peace Camp

The Faslane peace camp (and, more recently the Faslane 365 crowd) has been a blight on the landscape of Helensburgh, Scotland comparable to the San Francisco parks from the 1960s - and just about as clean - since 1982.  More importantly than that though, is what a horrible effect it has on the surrounding community and how they frankly just don't give a damn about anybody but themselves.

Most recently the protesters have been so incredibly difficult - things like keeping school kids from reaching school on time most days, but also their very stressful and super important exam days - that many in the surrounding area have started a group and protested against the protesters.  Good on them.  As my father said to me today about liberal protesters in general, "The bigger the issue and the less they can do about it, the more they whine, cry, scream and protest."  I would also add 'and do more to hurt those that have nothing to do with it, and not get anything done in the process.'

Now that you know how I feel about that (!) here are some photographs of the peace camp that I have managed to aquire:

It's plaid! All kinds of style.  More below!

First thing I noticed

when I got back to Texas was the big ol' loud diesel trucks.  This is not helped by the fact that I live in a college town.  Compared to the Matchbox cars of Britain (nothing against the tiny cars, you have to have them over there) it's quite overwhelming to come back to.  Everything is quite overwhelming to come back to.
Man is it good to be home. 

The thing is, I never thought about home while I was living in Britain.  I knew from the beginning that it might be a year or so before I got to visit and there wasn't even remotely a chance that I'd be living back here even after that.  So I didn't think about it.  I didn't think about my old house, my Ford Explorer, my Pockets dog I left behind.  Didn't think about the restaurants, my great old job, the weather, the t.v. I was missing, the shops, the streets, the food. 
I didn't think that much about my family.  That sounds terrible, but nothing could be more true.  I talked to my parents and grandparents once or twice a week each at least.  My brother slightly less, because let's face it - he's my little brother and has more important fish to fry.  We talked all the time and for hours sometimes... I just didn't think about how I missed seeing them and hugging them and going out with them and staying in with them.  Staying in watching a John Wayne film with popcorn or eating homemade tacos around the dining room table.
It wasn't something I decided to do, not thinking about home.  It just happened.  A coping mechanism.  Kept me sane maybe.  Maybe others out there feel the same way, I don't know. 

Now I'm back, and it's pretty much for good.  Was very sudden. I'm back and staying with my parents who are so very kind to let that happen!  Back without my husband and many of my belongings.  I miss my husband.  I'll be seeing him again in mid-December for a month... but being back in Texas without him, even though we've never been here more than three weeks together, it's not the same.  Not as much fun.  Life without him around is no good.

All that being said (kinda ramble-y I know) I AM HOME.  I missed it so much that even when I think about it now I start to tear up.  Funny that didn't happen much when I was actually gone.

For anyone keeping track of my beef consumption: I've had about 5 incredibly greasy incredibly GOOD cheeseburgers as well as a perfectly cooked steak and steak salad.  It's a good life here in the U.S. of A.

British Fridge Theory

I had an epiphany the other day --

British fridge/freezers are T-I-N-Y compared to their American counterparts.  Definitely something I have had to get used to (especially with a muscular fit-crazy Royal Marine Commando that eats constantly. Seriously. Constantly).

Then it occured to me, I know why.

They are made that way to force the consumer to go to the grocery store more than once a week because you can't fit more than four flippin' burgers in the freezer (yeah yeah, not literally of course). 

Because we all know that the more you go to the store, the more you buy.  And don't even get me started on going when you're hungry or don't have a list....

Just think how much it helps the British economy!

This is not to say that I don't L-O-V-E spending money on British food, I love eating British.  I just know that if we were going to be spending more than a couple years living in Britain, we would be broke.  Because of the tiny fridge/freezer.

5 Foods I Will Miss

after moving back to the States
in no particular order

1.  PG Tips - most of the British are always surprised to hear that I've been drinking hot tea since before I can remember, but it's true.  After moving here and trying all kinds of tea (Royal joked that we were running a tea shop) I finally found PG tips... and fell in love

2.  Dolmio Spicy Bolognese - (spaghetti sauce for us Americans) besides my parents homemade sauce, this is THE best spaghetti sauce ever!  And as I mentioned in the last post, pretty much the only way I can eat beef.

3.  Kinder Bueno - my favorite candy bar (chocolate, wafers & hazelnut cream) goes so well with tea.  Or anything.

4.  Several here: Blue Ribands, blackcurrant juice, Muller yogurt (especially Corners), and scones & cream of course!

5.  Almost anything from Marks & Spencer Simply Food (don't actually have a site for exactly that, but at least there's pretty food).  Royal and I can't afford to shop there all the time - the boy eats like it's his last day - but about once a month I get to get all giddy walking up and down the beautiful fresh food & already prepared food aisles!  Really, for me, it's heaven. 

Pat from Past Imperfect mentioned Yorkshire Pudding in the comments of another post, but I have to say that I won't miss that when I move because my Mom makes excellent Yorkshire Pudding!  Really really wonderful - it's the best tasting stuff!

Top 5 Foods I Miss

since moving to Britain:

5. As fantastic as British chocolate is (and it really is) I do miss American chocolate & the various bars
4. Several here: Cool Whip, El Pato Salsa de Chile, Oreos, Jet Puffed Marshmallows, Log Cabin Syrup, Pace Picante - as you would expect I could name a million more, but as I'm writing this these are the ones that pop into my mind
3.  Good ol' biscuits and gravy. Yum!
2.  Authentic Mexican dishes -- my favorite food, only number two because
the number one food I miss is...

The sun!!  No wait, we're talkin' food here aren't we... so

1. BEEF!!

Much to my dismay, I actually don't like the taste of British beef.  So besides occasionally drowning ground beef in spaghetti sauce, I've had to completely give it up.  I miss it so SO much.  Hamburgers, steaks, roasts, stews, soups...  Did I mention steak?

Another personal post

Yeah I know.  Eventually I'll get around to feeling 100% better and get back to my old posting ways and that's a promise.  But gotta say, that for now I am enjoying my Mom's last few days here so it might be another week or so before the every day thing begins. 

Still feeling better every day - been getting out in the sun when it's there and taking walks to get my legs back in shape.  Scotland, at least where we are, has not been touched by the horrible flooding that is hurting so much of England.  I can't imagine what those families are going through, been thinking about them every day since it happened. 

Found out that hubby is leaving again fairly soon - blech.  He started summer leave today and hopefully we'll be able to at least take a nice weekend away before he goes back!

Thanks y'all for being so supportive, and still checking the site even after all my posting stops and starts!