Becca Jane St Clair

I’m pretty sure I’ll be switching to O2. Today AGAIN my phone is having problems with texts, particularly texts from Facebook and Twitter. And honestly? I’m fed up and tired of calling customer service.

I was reading the instructions on the O2 website and it seems pretty straightforward for keeping your number, you just need a PAC code and then fill out a form.

Plus, O2 has the LG Cookie in PURPLE, as well as the LG Chocolate. I think I want the Cookie. (Me want cookie!)

So…there you have it. I just need to decide if I want to go into town and buy it at the shop or order it online….

Ah, the long-awaited Beamish post!

A few months back, Tim and I were trying to come up with something to do as a day trip on one of his long weekends. We contemplated heading to one of our favourite railways (North Yorkshire Moors), but then I was on Facebook and saw on Beamish’s page that they were having a quilt exhibit that weekend, so plans were made for Tim and I to drive up and utilize our annual passes on the Saturday. We invited our friend, Helen, and her son, Mark. Helen was unable to attend, but Mark decided to come with us, so we got to experience Beamish “for the first time” through Mark.

Our first stop was the colliery and village, where Tim and Mark went down into the coal mine (I did it last time and it felt weird being able to touch the ceiling at 4’10”!) and we all explored the winding house and the engine shed, where Tim and I were surprised to find work was almost complete on the Coffee Pot engine!

I found where the quilts were and I spent lots of time in there talking with the women working there. The quilts were amazing. Oh, and Jen? I passed on the link to your website to the ladies I was talking to. They were really interested after the saw my bag you made! I found out about the guild of quilters and was invited to find a local group to join..I still haven’t. We have a local quilter’s group in the village, but their blurb in the newsletter always says “not accepting new members” and says that a non-member can attend three meetings and then go on a waiting list…and frankly, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to put myself into something for three months only to find out that I can’t do it in the end and have to wait for someone to quit, move, or die before I can join. No thanks. But the quilts on display were amazing. I asked if I could take pictures and was given permission, so a few photos appear below of just some of the quilts on display. There were both modern quilts as well as some very old ones!

The boys joined me in the quilting exhibit after they explored the tram/trolly shed and some of the other machinery on display. They discovered a model railway track behind the exhibition hall, and so we’re hoping we can find out when running days are to come back up and see it!

All-in-all, it was a fantastic day. Mark loved it and wants to go back (three cheers for annual passes!).

Recently, Tim and I received the renewal form for our annual passes in the mail and I’ve got to get that form sent back this week! I also noticed the steam fair is September 2-5, but unfortunately it’s right before we leave for Austria. As much as we both want to go to it, especially for the “behind the scenes” tour, Tim asking off for a day right before our long holiday might not be such a good idea, nor would travelling up to Beamish (3 hours each way) right before we make the long drive to Austria. 🙁

Here’s some photos I took while we were visiting:

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What a few days it has been for me.

Last week, I decided it was time to upgrade my phone. I’m an Orange customer, and when I bought my phone it was originally to use as a visitor only, so I picked up a barebones phone (a Sony Ericsson W200i. In pink.). Now that I’m living here full-time, I wanted a phone a little bit more like my old us phone (Verizon – a LG EnV), since I was very satisfied with it and if Verizon had used SIM cards, I’d have just gotten my US phone unlocked and popped the Orange SIM in it. Verizon doesn’t use SIM cards, so I had to purchase a new phone.

About a month ago, I went into the Orange shop to browse phones and talked with someone in the shop. I explained the three important things in a new phone:

1) better camera (my old phone was a VGA, I wanted at least a megapixel or 2)
2) the ability to send pictures to facebook
3) a QWERTY keyboard

The sales person recommended the LG KS360. I said thank you, and filed that bit of information away until August, since Tim and I had discussed my new phone being a birthday present.

While I was checking my balance last week, I noticed the phone I wanted was now on sale for £35. With the £14 I had saved up in my “phone bank”*, the phone would only cost us £20. I happily ordered it.

…and then the fun began.

The phone arrived on Tuesday. Since I wanted to keep my current number, I had to call to get things activated. I got sent to a call center in india, where I was told it would take 24-28 hours to activate my new SIM with my old number. Then, he revised it and told me 30 minutes after I expressed shock at it taking so long.

30 minutes passed….no phone active. Called back, got India again. This person reiterated the 24 hours to activate. Fine.

24 and a half hours later….no phone active. Called back, got India. This time I was told that “it hasn’t been 24 hours yet. You didn’t call until 5:59PM yesterday, and it’s only 3PM”. I explained that I had actually originally called at 2:30PM, and the person I spoke with changed the time I called to 4PM. She promised me a call back at 5 to make sure the phone was active.

5PM….no call. I called, FINALLY got the UK call center. And guess what? It only took 2 minutes for the person on the phone to activate the SIM.

Problem. SMS and MMS was not working properly. Called back, got India. Their attempt to fix it didn’t work, as picture messages still were not working.

Called back, got UK. Fixed it in a few minutes.

So, my new phone was now active, and the UK person even told me how to transfer my phone numbers onto it from my old phone. When the new phone imported everything, it dropped characters off of people’s names, so the place I volunteer, Cancer Research UK, became “Research U”, The British Transport Police became “Transpor”, and Welton Family Surgery became “Surgery”, to name a few. It also didn’t thread multiple numbers for people, so it would have something like “Tim/M” and “Tim/H” right in a row. It also deleted email addresses, such as the mobile@facebook.com address for sending pics. I figured this was the kind of stuff I could fix manually, so I went into the address book only to discover that a) you only can have 1 number per entry b) the name space is very short and c) there was no place to add an email address.

Went to bed. Thursday morning, Tim and I went into town so I could return the phone to the high street shop. Person in the shop told me he couldn’t help me b/c it was an online purchase and I would need to call it in. Ok, fine. Each number I called told me they were not the number I needed THREE TIMES (so, three wasted phone calls) until I finally got someone (in the UK!) at the right number. This included a call to the India call centre who told me I couldn’t return my phone!

In order to return the phone, I also needed to return the new SIM. This meant getting my old SIM re-activated. I went through all the steps of returning the new phone except for the last step, because I needed to get the SIM re-activated first. I called the number to re-activate the SIM, got someone in the UK, and guess what? It took only a few minutes. I was told that it should have never taken 24 hours the first time. Nice, right?

So, We’re done with the tale, yes? Old phone is working again, and new phone is ready to be returned, right? No.

My old phone was no longer receiving texts and pics.

Called it in, got India. I was told he was sending an update to my phone. He told me it could take a half hour.

30 minutes later….no texts. Called in, got the UK. Again, the woman tried to send the update to my phone and said it sometimes does take a while for the system to make it go, and said she would call me back in an hour.

No call. I called in, and the person I spoke with said he knew how to fix it, but the problem was I was calling from the phone, so he would make a note on my account for me to call in this morning to get it fixed. We speculated that maybe I also wasn’t receiving phone calls, so he told me when we hung up he’d try to immediately call me and if it didn’t go, we’d know it wasn’t receiving calls, either.

No call. *sigh*

After Tea with Lynne and Jan, I figured I had better ring Tim to let him know that I couldn’t receive messages, just in case he needed to reach me or had been trying to. A few minutes into our call, I got cut off. I tried to call back and got a message “you do not have enough credit for this call” and was advised to switch to the “reserve tank”**. I didn’t understand this, because that morning I had checked my balance and I had over £5!

Annoyed and with the resolve that I was going to switch to O2 in the morning, I went to chorus and then home to bed.

This morning, I called back into Orange, and got a lovely woman in the UK named Emma. Emma is why I am staying with Orange. She looked in my account and saw the notes from the previous night and was able to fix it. Then, when I explained to her that I was thinking about switching over to O2 because I was upset with the number of calls I had to make to Orange in the past few days, upset with the India call centre not being able to help, PLUS the calls all coming out of my credit she asked me to hold, and then came back on the line and told me she was giving me some credit (which most of it had to re-pay the reserve tank, but still). Then, she chit-chatted with me as we waited for my phone to start receiving the messages from yesterday, and even talked me through the process two more times when my phone kept losing messages.

Would you like to know the problem? Apparently a single tower was down yesterday and my phone had been programmed to use that tower, so all they had to do was swap me over to a different tower.

I won’t go into what happened when Emma had to (apologetically) send me to the India call centre to finish the return, since once again, the India call centre proved to be useless (and told me again that I couldn’t return the phone, when the paperwork clearly stated “7 day return”) and I had to call back yet again (to the UK) to finally get it handled.

So…I’m sticking with Orange. Because of Emma. Because of finally getting someone who was competent, friendly, and able to understand my frustrations.

Emma, if you’re reading this….Thank you!

(They are sending me a mailbag to return my phone in. It can take a week for this bag to arrive. I have 30 days to send it back now that I’ve called to return it and the credit will go back to my account when they get the phone back, including the money from my phone fund, so while I will be researching some of the other phones available through Orange, I won’t be purchasing anything until the credit goes back on, and I probably will purchase the phone directly at the store to save all the hassle.)

*Phone Bank is an Orange gimmick. For every £10 you top-up by, they put £1 into a phone fund for purchasing a new phone.
**Another Orange feature, where they give you an extra £2.50 in credit you can use if you go dead, and then when you top-up, it repays the reserve tank back.

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Here’s the vlog I promised in my earlier entry:

Link, for those of you who can’t watch embedded video: http://www.youtube.com/v/vuuLwoL3MnY

A few weeks ago, Tim and I went camping in our garden. One of his co-workers alerted him to a great deal at Halford’s – a 4-man tent, 4 sleeping bags, 2 air mattresses, & 2 lanterns for £90 online marked down from over £200. We also tacked on to the purchase a cooking kit which has a burner, 4 pots/pans, 4 plastic containers, utensils, and a carrying case for £25, and then we picked up a kettle at Tesco for £6. We thought we ought to try to put together the tent – a) to make sure we knew how it went together before we book a pitch somewhere, b) to make sure there aren’t any defects with the tent or gear, and c) because it’s been on the warm side and last week I told Tim I wanted to sleep outside.

It was….

-Chilly. We unzipped two of the sleeping bags and used one as a pad for the air mattress and the other as a cover. But unzipped it isn’t quite big enough to cover both of us if we aren’t cuddled up, so I wound up covering myself with the spare blanket I grabbed last night (my Penn State stadium blanket) But it was also…

-Hot. Tim and I always are warm at night because both of us are human furnaces. It was difficult trying to sleep in it because if our bodies were touching, I felt sticky from the combined body sweat. But then when we weren’t touching/cuddled up, it was chilly!

-Small. The mattress, despite claims of being a double, is smaller than our bed upstairs. I wound up moving practically off the mattress close to the “bedroom” wall in order to try to put some space between us, and Tim rolled (in his sleep) towards the other wall. Another word to use might be…

-Cozy. Even though we have a huge 4-man tent, the side “bedrooms” are only large enough to hold the air mattress. It was nice when Tim and I were cuddling before bed, but once I zipped shut the door to the “bedroom”, it felt really small.

-Hard. The air mattress lost air overnight, but I think that’s fairly typical when using an air mattress. I’m wondering if we should get a bedroll/mat type thing for underneath it, since my back started to get cold from feeling it seep through the mattress. I think Tim has one already, but it might just be for a single mattress. Alternatively, since we have 4 sleeping bags, we could always line the floor with a sleeping bag, then put the mattress on top or even just get a tarp to add a layer between the mattress and groundsheet. I’ll talk it over with Tim and see what he thinks. (also, how did I manage to sleep on an air mattress at Mom’s for years*?)

-Noisy. Lots of wind that kept waking me up. I know at least twice I woke Tim up, too. Actually, I’m awake now at 5:30AM because I needed the loo around 4 and figured I might as well stay in here until I’m tired enough to go back to sleep.

Fortunately, the tent is a “two bedroom” tent. Our plans are/were to use the second “bedroom” to store gear, but I might suggest we take along the second mattress and set it up for moments like this. If I’m going to be awake well before Tim, I’ll need somewhere to go/something to do. I could keep a book in there and just move my pillows and a blanket if I couldn’t sleep, that way I wouldn’t disturb Tim trying to read until I felt tired again.

We still need to get a folding table (for dining/food prep), and some kind of cooler and then we might have everything we need to go camping. Our first big trip is scheduled for this September, when we’ll be camping in Germany & Austria! I’m really excited. Originally, we were going to take the train the whole way and stay in B&Bs and things, but even with adding in the cost of petrol, camping will save us money. The average campsite cost is €6/night, and with making our own food, we’ll even have money leftover for a few nights out at nice restaurants or for some souvenirs!

I practised cooking with the gas stove, and while I completely trashed the pan (fortunately, I was able to clean it!), I still managed to cook breakfast 2 mornings – the first morning I did scrambled eggs and sausage, and the second bacon & fried eggs. Tim even bought a device for making toast on the stove that works pretty well!

The tent we purchased IS kind of big for just two people, but the hope is that this will be a long-term investment even after we have kids. If we can keep the tent in good condition, there’s no reason why we wouldn’t be able to use it in the years to come.

….now to find a place to store it! I’m hoping it will fit in the loft after we get the flooring laid in there, but for now I guess we’ll have to store it in one of the bedrooms, since the workshop and shed are a bit full of workshop/shed stuff!

There also is a video, but youtube is taking too long to upload it, so I will have to post it later, as I’ve had this window open for THREE weeks…..

*Long story short – when I moved to Michigan in 2006, I told Mom to sell my bedroom suite because it was a four-poster twin sized bed and I knew I wouldn’t want it in the future. I had an air mattress (with bedframe) to use in my house in MI. After I broke my foot and had to move back to PA, my old bed was gone, so I set up the air mattress. The plan was to eventually buy a new bed, but I just never had the money for it, so I lived on the air mattress until the bedframe finally broke and then I yanked the mattress off the sofabed and used that on the floor.

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There’s so many things I haven’t yet blogged about that I need to, so I’m making myself a handy list to remind myself what I need to write about in the comming weeks. I always hope I can bang out an entry each day, or at least a few times a week, but real life just catches up with me.

Sweet Adelines Region 31 Convention (all the way back at the first weekend in May!)
Beamish
Train ride across Hadrian’s Wall
Garden 2010 update
Beckenscot
Richmond
London
Abbey
Tattershall Castle (From Mom’s visit!)
Lincolnshire Life Museum (from Feb!!)
Trolley Museum

…yeah, looks like quite a bit to catch up on! I better start blogging….

This past Saturday, Lincoln Castle held their annual Armed Forces Day and my chorus, Lincoln Sounds, performed. Armed Forces Day offers free admission to the castle and grounds. Everything is open at the castle, so it’s a great day out for anyone who hasn’t yet experienced the castle. On the lawn, each branch of the armed forces, as well as their youth programs, organizations for retired service men & women, widow/widower organizations, and support charities set up booths with information, demonstrations, and exhibits.

The youth organizations all appeared in uniform and participated in a group march from the castle to the cathedral and back, including one of the military bands.

The whole concept of an Armed Forces day was “foreign” to me. As far as I know, we’ve never done anything like this anywhere in the US, and Armed Forces Day is a country-wide event in the UK. I’ve seen various booths set up for each branch of the US military at fairs and expos, but usually they were only there for recruitment. It blew me away to see all the crowds there. An email my chorus received told us they had over 8,000 people come through the gates! That’s absolutely amazing. All money raised at the event went to Help for Heroes, an organization for wounded soldiers (of all branches of the military).

Check out the Armed Forces Day website to see when an event is in your area!

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We’ve hit a heat wave in the UK this past week (or two, actually!) and I’ve been spending time away from the computer and outside in the garden….until it got even too hot to do that.

Yesterday, we were melting. I had just finished making dinner, and standing in front of the hot stove/oven had overheated me. I went outside (where it was cooler!) and watered the garden before coming back in and Tim suggested we head on over to the Yarborough Leisure Centre to have a swim. Entry costs £2.90/adult for casual swim, which gives you about an hour and half of swim time.

It was….interesting. Nothing like what I expected, and nothing like what I’m used to in the US. In the US, I’ve always had community pools at my disposal (either in my development or within a short walk) and your fee for using it was always included in your annual fees. At the pools where I grew up, you would walk in, flash your pool pass, and then head into the gender segregated changing rooms/toilets. At this one? We all got herded into one single changing “pavilion” (I believe that was the word used) which had coin-operated lockers (£1) and individual changing stalls (with locks). Men, women, and children all together in the same room with plenty of attendants on hand. If you needed to change, you were expected to use one of the changing rooms, and the only shower facility was the group shower area (so no way to really wash with shampoo/body wash, etc. unless you went into the gym’s segregated changing facilities). To say that I was shocked was an understatement. The attendants didn’t even say anything when Tim and I went into the same changing cubicle post-swim.

After you changed into your swimming costume (US: swimsuit/bathing suit) you went through the showers (required before swimming) and handed your ticket to a lifeguard. He then handed you a colour-coded wrist band (though mine was large enough to go on my ankle) based on what time you entered. Along one side of the lifeguard station was a strip of bright lights. When your time was up, a buzzer sounded and a coloured light lit up based on your wrist band colour.

Despite the crowds of people waiting to get in and milling around the changing room, the pool itself wasn’t too crowded. I imagine the colour-coded wrist bands help. Tim and I swam a bit, and did “water aerobics” until our colour lit up. Then, it was out of the pool, back into street clothes, and home with just enough time for Tim to get ready for the overnight shift.

We’re hoping to swim again soon. Our plan is to eventually feel comfortable enough to attend lane swimming instead of open swim so we can get in more exercise, but it’s been a while since both of us swam, so we’re taking it slow!

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When you’re a kid, you don’t really think about where food comes from. An adult (usually a family member) puts a complete meal in front of you, and you eat it. Pretty simple. As you get older, you might even start helping to prepare those meals, doing small tasks like mixing or pouring. You still don’t really give much thought about where the food actually comes from, again, you just eat it when it’s placed in front of you. The same thing happens when you are away at college/university. A cafeteria worker puts food in front of you. You know that somewhere behind the buffet line there is a kitchen and staff who make things, but you hardly give it any thought.

Eventually, you might move away from your family, and into your own home. You’ve entered the “real world” and you’re probably spending too much time at work to really think about preparing food. Purchasing pre-made meals sounds like a good idea. You don’t know who made them, or how much work went into them, but they’re good.

So here I am, married, and for the first time cooking every single day. I don’t use pre-made meals and I try to make most things from “scratch”. Sometimes we buy a loaf of bread, but I most often put to use the bread machine we got as a wedding gift. I make things like spaghetti sauce and sweet & sour sauce from base ingredients. I don’t even buy pre-formed hamburger patties, preferring to mix my own mince and shape the patties by hand.

Tim got this brilliant idea that we should have a burger party sometime and make mini burgers out of all the types I make. Of course, mini burgers require mini buns, and I decided I might like to try my hand at making my own buns. I searched all over the internet, and most of the recipes seemed a bit too involved for a beginner. I don’t count my bread machine as experience at all, and the only other bread items I’ve made on my own have been things like banana bread and blueberry muffins. Nothing that involves kneading and punching and rising at any rate. I did finally stumble on a “no knead” roll recipe that I might like to try, but it involves 12 hours of rising! Which means that I either have to wake up really early in the morning to mix it together, or I need to stay up late at night to mix it together. Neither of which really appeals to me, but I still might give it a go one week when Tim’s on the overnight shift (since I never seem to sleep on those) and I need something to do.

A few days ago I was reading my Betty Crocker cookbook looking for ideas for meal planning and I stumbled on a recipe for regular dinner rolls. Now, this wouldn’t be interesting, except that there were directions for making cloverleaf dinner rolls, and as I looked at the picture in the cookbook I had one of those childhood epiphanies – this is where the Thanksgiving rolls my Aunt Beatie makes come from. Her rolls are slightly sweet, perfectly shaped, and pull apart into thirds giving you extra room for butter. She makes them ahead of time at her house in MD, and then heats them at Aunt Janie’s house before we eat.

Well, I just had to try this out for myself. Since I have a bread machine, I followed the directions for making the dough in the bread machine, and I even left the dough in the bread machine to rise (since it calls for a warm place!). Here’s the recipe. I copied it off of the Betty Crocker website, so it uses US measurements. I keep a handy chart inside my kitchen cabinet for easy converting, but I also keep a set of US measuring cups.

1 cup water [cookbook calls for room temperature]
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
3 1/4 cups Gold Medal® Better for Bread™ flour [used regular bread flour]
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons bread machine or active dry yeast [The cookbook only calls for 2 1/4]
Butter or margarine, melted, if desired

1. Measure carefully, placing all ingredients except melted butter in bread machine pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select Dough/Manual cycle. Do not use delay cycle.
2. Remove dough from pan, using lightly floured hands. Cover and let rest 10 minutes on lightly floured surface. [this step was not in my cookbook. Cookbook advised to let rise for 1 hour, then if you could poke it and not have the hole fill in, you punched it down, then did step 3]
3. Grease large cookie sheet with shortening. Divide dough into 15 equal pieces*. Shape each piece into a ball. Place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Cover and let rise in warm place 30 to 40 minutes or until double. (Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.)
4. Heat oven to 375°F. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Brush tops with melted butter. Serve warm, or cool on wire rack.

For cloverleaf rolls, use a cupcake/muffin pan and divide roll into 45 pieces, then put three pieces in each cup.

Here’s what my rolls looked like:

Not quite as perfect as my aunt’s, but close enough!

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I’ve just watched the season finale of Glee, and I’ve been trying to catch Gleeful: The Real Show Choirs of America that aired on E4 on Monday….and from what I’ve seen so far, it really doesn’t paint a very positive view of choir in the UK. My children are not going to experience the thrills of musicals and singing pop songs in harmony and showtunes….and it just really upsets me that my children won’t discover music in school the way I did. Like the one American they had on…I started singing in choruses when I was 6! And anyone who knew me when I was younger (which is a handful of you reading this on LJ, more if you’re reading this on FB) knows that music was a huge driving force in my life. At one point, I think I was involved in 6 or 7 music groups between school choirs, band, church choirs, bell/handchime choir, etc….not to mention the annual school musical! I really can only assume the reason HHS didn’t do a show choir was simply because a) we already had 5 choirs b) we put money into marching band shows and the annual musicals and wouldn’t have had money to go into a show choir.

But this isn’t about me being sad that I didn’t have a show choir to be part of. I was pretty proud of what I did accomplish, and was awarded several awards for my involvement in music.

Do British schools really NOT have music education/choir? One of the British women spoke about choir being “once a week. We started with a hymn, then we sang another hymn, and oh, then we sung another hymn”. It just breaks my heart that my children might not get that exposure to music at school. Not to say I won’t be educating them about music on my own, but there’s something really special about performing on stage.

I mean, all is not lost. If Tim and I have a girl, and if she enjoys singing, she could join Sweet Adeline’s Young Women in Harmony when she is 7 and/or LABBS (and Sweet Adeline’s) Ivy League. I can only assume that BABS has something similar for boys.

Tim and I are at least 3 years away from having any children of our own, and a long way away from starting music education, but it still makes me think and makes me want to find a music program for them to be involved in…or at least try. Obviously, there’s a possibility that our children won’t inherit my voice or my love for singing/music. Our children might not even inherit Tim’s love of trains…and that’s alright. But we both want to be able to expose them to our interests and at least have them try them out before deciding they’d rather do something else (Just watch. We’ll wind up with footballers for kids or something).

And a big you suck to the British Comedian who says “what good is this” and doesn’t think it should be taught in school!

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Tim said he loves my burger combinations, because it’s an adult update to a favourite kid meal. Tonight’s meal was Turkey Pizza Burgers.

No pic, but here’s the recipe:

500g minced turkey (ground turkey)
2 TBS green pesto sauce (I used Bertolli)
2 TBS tomato sauce (not ketchup, sauce that comes in a jar. I used leftover pizza sauce)
handful of shredded cheese
1 egg
1/4-1/2 cup breadcrumbs (start with 1/4, if it’s still too wet to shape, add the second 1/4)
salt & pepper
sprinkle of oregano

Mix all together and shape into palm sized patties. Cook until done (on the George Foreman this takes 4-5 minutes). Serve on rolls with lettuce, tomato, and fresh basil leaves.

I am well on the way to becoming the burger queen :). Next up? Trying my hand at creating sweet and sour burgers.

I volunteer once a week for Cancer Research UK in their charity shop on the high street in Lincoln (if anyone wants to visit, I’m there on a Thursday and we are located near the base of Steep Hill across from the Slug & Lettuce). My job is mostly downstairs in the shop – running the till, putting clothing and other items out on the racks/shelves, and general tidying up. Sometimes I also help W, the other volunteer with picking items for the window display, make price labels for B, our manager, and set up displays. I love volunteering and helping out…but the biggest benefit of working in a charity shop? Shopping in a charity shop.

Charity shops in the UK are different from shops in the US. In the US, the two big shops are Salvation Army and Goodwill. At SA you can get t-shirts for $0.50, jeans for $2, and even prom dresses for less than $10. You really have to comb through the racks of clothing to try your luck at finding something branded. I remember one time I found an Express skirt for $2, but most of the time it was combing through lots of discount chain brands and promotional items.

Charity shops in the UK are different. First of all, most big charities (Cancer Research UK, British Red Cross, British Heart Foundation, OxFam, etc.) have their own shops where they sell commercial goods for fundraising, branded items, and donated items. Some charities have multiple shops, such as the OxFam bookshop or the Heart Foundation furniture & appliance shop. Signs in the window at the British Heart Foundation shop advertise used televisions starting at £15 and other used appliances for under £100. I wish I had known of their existence when we had to buy a new washing machine in February!

Since I started volunteering in March, I think I’ve spent around £30 total in different charity shops (though most in the one I volunteer at!). But if I had purchased those same things on the high street? I bet I would have easily spent £300. I shop for high street branded items – I’ve scored per una (Marks & Spencers) blouses and tops for £3-£5, a dress from Evans for £7, a dress from Monsoon for £4, and assorted practically new books for £1-£3. And a quick glance at M&S shows a shirt similar to the one I purchased for £3 selling in their shop for £22, a new-with-tags shirt I paid £5 for selling at £25, and another new-with-tags shirt I paid £4 for selling at £19. And the dress from Evans would have set me back at least £25, and the Monsoon dress at least £55!

And I can’t forget about books. If I forget a book when I go into town, I usually stop in at the OxFam shop and pick out a book and spend £1-2, less than the cost of a magazine. I’ve even picked up the latest Phillipa Gregory book at the charity shop for £2. Buying books used is a great way to expand your collection if you don’t have much to spend. I also decided to purchase cookbooks at charity shops and used book shops instead of £25-30 at Waterstones.

So please, if you’re looking for some new clothing, consider checking in a charity shop first. Not only will you save some money, you’re money will go to a good cause. Or even better, donate some time to your local charity shop!

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For those of you who don’t know (and really, unless you’ve stumbled on this randomly, if you’re a friend or a family member you know), I have severe arachnophobia. Spiders make me scream, cry, and run away in fear…even just looking at photos of spiders can cause me to hyperventilate. It all started when I was in high school, at least as far as I can tell. In the same summer, my friend Beth and I found what everyone assumes was a Black Widow Spider while on a trip to Maine, and then a few weeks later when I was away at camp in North Carolina, I woke up from an afternoon nap to have a spider crawling up my arm. I’m sure I probably didn’t like spiders when I was younger, either, but my first real memories of being truly afraid of them was when I was around age 14.

This evening, Tim and I were out in the garden taking some pictures, and I happened to look over at what we now call “my tree” because I dug out all the junk and weeds around the bottom of the lilac and planted some flowers, herbs, and vegetables. I spotted what looked like a ball of something very tiny. I thought it might have been a spider’s web and the spider might have caught a lot of tiny bugs or something, so I asked Tim to get rid of it (fear of spiders = not wanting them around “my tree” because then I wouldn’t be able to even pull weeds there). Uhm. He tried to touch it and about a hundred (Tim will probably say it was less) teeny tiny spiders started to move. A momma spider LAID AN EGG in my garden and the damn thing hatched.

Fortunately, Tim was able to yank up the plant it had formed on (it was only an offshoot of the lilac) and tossed it in the green refuse bin….but now all I can think about is those little spiders and how some of them might still be in my garden, building webs in my flower beds and even possibly crawling into the house.

Sometimes, I really hate my fear. And, it’s stupid because everyone tells me that there are no poisonous spiders in the UK…but I still am scared of them. We bought an electronic “spider repeller”, and while it’s kept away the bulk of the spiders, we still get some…that Tim always has to catch and release outside.

Maybe I’ll be able to sleep at some point tonight….or maybe the thought of the spiders will keep me up all night.

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When my mom had her extended visit courtesy of volcanic ash, we decided to take advantage of Tim’s day off and took Mom to Stratford-upon-Avon. Tim and I had previously been there in October 2008, but we hadn’t seen all the attractions, and it’s just a nice place to go!

Fortunately, the weather agreed with us, and we had a fantastic day. We started with Shakespeare’s birthplace and walked on floors he once walked on as a child. We even got treated to an impromptu performance of selected scenes from Macbath, Othello, Romeo & Juliet, and several other plays. The performers were more than happy to continue to perform for us as the crowd kept asking for more!

We had a picnic lunch along the Avon before we wandered over to Nash’s house and gardens where they are currently doing “Dig for Shakespeare” – an archaeological dig to try to find the original house! Dig for Shakespeare includes a display where you can touch artefacts they found and I got to hold a 500yr old brick and some Roman coins. Pretty nifty.

After that, we headed to the car to drive out to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage. We just made it before they closed, and as we were the only people there, the guide went above and beyond in talking to us, showing us everything, and telling us stories that had been passed down.

We had an absolutely fantastic day, and since the Shakespeare homes offer an annual pass with your admission, we can go back again within the year without having to pay again!

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I contacted Boots via email about the face wash, and got a very nice apology email and was asked for my mailing address for them to refund the cost of the original product. Imagine my surprise when I received a gift card in the mail for £15 – twice the amount of the original product!

I have to say, Boots went over and beyond the call of duty on this one. Both times I spoke with someone from Boots – in store and in email – I made it clear that I had purchased BOTH bottles with £5 vouchers and both times I was refunded the full price of the product and then some.

I have switched to a different No. 7 face wash that does not contain “Acer”. It doesn’t feel as nice as the foaming wash does, but it does the job. Now I just have to figure out how to get rid of the bumps left on my face from the old facewash!

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Since I promised I would blog about this…

My friend Lynne had some lamb visitors at her house a few weeks ago. Her daughter’s husband raises lambs, and these were lambs that were rejected by the mother. Since they were all visiting Lynne this weekend, the lambs had to come along, too. Mom and I got to feed them their dinner!

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About a month ago, Tim and I took advantage of our annual passes to Beamish we got in September when we were there with my mom. I finally got to see sections I hadn’t seen before, including the farm and I got to pet a lamb! (which was trumped a few weeks later by feeding a lamb, but that’s another story!) But one thing was missing…

The Westoe Netty! It used to sit right outside the train station area, and when Tim and I were there, you could walk up to the netty and we took photos of Tim pretending to use it and me looking confused.

Oddly enough, a photo website has photos of the Westoe Netty posted on the 23 of April, only two weeks after Tim and I were there, so I’m really confused!

I’m trying to track down information from Beamish if the Westoe Netty is still there or not. Maybe it was moved and we didn’t see it since we only went to the sections I hadn’t been to before…who knows?

If you have any information about the Westoe Netty at Beamish, please leave me a comment!

But first, here’s some photos Tim and I took while we were there:

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Over the weekend, Tim and I went to the Trolleybus museum at Sandtoft with Mark and Helen, and I spotted this:

Baby TARDIS, anyone? After all, we’re told they are grown!!

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I know I keep posting recipes instead of blog content, but I love to cook and I love experimenting with new recipes and twisting them into my own, so here’s three recipes I’ve been playing with recently – Roasted Tomato & Spinach Quiche, Cranberry Turkey Burgers, and Lemon Herb Chicken Traybake.

Roasted Tomato & Spinach Quiche

I found this recipe on the LJ cooking community, but I modified it slightly…or a lot, depending on how you look at it.

This was enough to make two quiches – one in my quiche dish, and the other in an 8-inch pie plate.

You will need:

300 grams baby plum, cherry tomatoes, or regular tomatoes (if you use regular tomatoes, chop into pieces about the same size as cherry tomatoes would be)
1 package frozen spinach, thawed and drained (I stuck mine in a colander in the sink, then pressed a tea towel over it to push out some of the water)
50g Feta cheese, crumbled (or “reduced fat greek salad cheese”)
300g crème fraiche (or sour cream)
300g milk (yes, I realize milk is a liquid and can’t be measured in grams, but I used the Crème fraiche container to measure the milk)
8 eggs
salt & pepper
2 shortcrust pie crusts

1. Roast the tomatoes – spread tomatoes on a cookie sheet and brush lightly with olive oil. Roast for 15-20 minutes at 200C. When they are done, lower the oven to 190c.
2. Mix together eggs, creame frache, milk, salt, and pepper.
3. line 2 quiche dishes or pie plates with crusts.
4. Divide tomatoes, spinach, and feta between the two dishes
5. Divide the egg mixture as evenly as possible between the two dishes and bake for 45 minutes

My second recipe is for Cranberry Turkey Burgers. Again, I found the recipe online as a link from a blog I regularly read, though right now I can’t remember which blog it was (if it was you, remind me so I can link you)!

So…my version!

Cranberry Turkey Burgers

You will need:

1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 tbs dried Sage
500g turkey mince (ground turkey)
1 cup dried cranberries
1 egg
Salt & pepper
Handful of grated cheese (optional)

Combine all ingredients and shape into patties. Again, I made them about the size of my palm and got 10 out of the mixture. Grill until done. I did it on a George Forman and they only took about 4-5 minutes in batches of four.

I served it with cranberry ketchup and fresh salad leaves from my garden. The recipe for the ketchup was on the blog I found the link on, and it was quite simple. Just combine equal parts cranberry sauce with ketchup. Again, if it was your blog, please leave me a comment so I can give a link!

And the last recipe was created this morning. I had wanted to make the Spiced Chicken Traybake recipe I clipped out of Prima magazine, but when I tasted the spice mix after mixing it, I decided I didn’t like it, so I created my own spices as I already had everything else ready!

Lemon Herb Chicken Traybake

You will need:

Chicken legs (I bought a pack of 4)
Diced swede (I wound up with a bag of “root vegetables for mash” that also had parsnips and carrot)
Cauliflower
3 TBS olive oil
2 TBS fresh thyme (I used lemon thyme)
2 TBS fresh oregano leaves
1 TBS dried basil (If I had fresh, I’d have used it)
1 TBS dried sage (ditto)
1/2 TBS lemon pepper (if you don’t have lemon pepper, use regular pepper)
1 lemon or lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 220C. Boil the swede/root veg for about 5 minutes (just to get it slightly tender). If you used fresh cauliflower, boil that too.
2. De-skin the chicken. I didn’t do it this time, but I will in the future as there was a lot of fat in the bottom of the pan, and most of that comes from the skin.
3. Combine herbs and olive oil
4. Spread swede (root veg) in the bottom of your roasting tray and arrange chicken on top. Put cauliflower in the gaps between chicken.
5. Brush oil mixture on chicken and exposed veg, cut and squeeze lemon over dish.
6. Bake for 45 minutes, or until juices in chicken run clear.

Serve with gravy and roasted potatoes. Gives a roast dinner a new spin!

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I often get asked what the process is for staying in the UK permanently, so I thought a post about it was in order. First, I want to explain that any information I post below is valid as of 13 May 2010. If you have found this post at a later date as part of a search or in the archives, there is a very big chance the information is out of date.

I am in the UK on a two-year spousal visa. Tim and I had to pay £585 for this very elaborate sticker. After the two years are up, we will need to apply for a further visa for me to stay. Under the OLD system, this would have been called ILR – Indefinite Leave to Remain, and would have meant I could permanently stay in the UK and could apply for citizenship if I wanted to, but it would not be mandatory. When the BCI (Borders, Citizenship, and Immigration) Bill was passed in July 2009, the decision to remove ILR as an option as of July 2011 was made. As I will become eligible for my next visa in December 2011, I will fall under the “new rules”…

All we know is it will be called “Probationary Citizenship” and if you want to stay in the UK you will HAVE to apply for citizenship. The few details released are that the road to citizenship will take 5 years or 3 years if you do volunteer work…but this is all we know.

As soon as we have more information, I’ll let everyone know.