Becca Jane St Clair

We won! We won! I’ll have a longer post up later about my experience at my first convention, but I just had to post that WE WON!!!

Lincoln Sounds came away from Region 31 Sweet Adelines convention with a bronze medal in the small chorus (under 30 members) category!! With 501 points, we exceeded the goal we set for ourselves and we were less than 20 points below the silver medallist.

Go Lincoln Sounds!!!!

Wooooo

[Photo courtesy of Linda’s facebook page.]

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A few months ago, I went into Boots in search of face wash. A few friends of mine from us2uk recommended the No. 7 line, so I went to that counter first. The woman I spoke with suggested the Gentle Foaming Cleanser, so I bought a bottle. Since I had a voucher for £5 off, I bought a second bottle before I was finished the first one.

I started breaking out on my chin badly. Regular pimple cream wasn’t taking care of it, but some antibiotic cream did, so I was really confused as to what was causing it. I got to the end of the first bottle of face wash, and was separating it for recycling when I noticed “contains maple”*. Uhmmm….so I scanned the ingredients list (which I had looked at in the store) but still didn’t see maple listed. I was frustrated, but glad to find the source of the spots.

I decided to start googling all the ingredients listed, and sure enough, the scientific name for a sugar maple tree was listed. Because, doesn’t everyone know the scientific name for everything they are allergic to? I sure don’t. And I found out that every type of maple tree has a different scientific name. Fortunately, they all start with “acer”, so I should be okay in the future.

Fortunately, the Boots store let me return the unopened bottle and I purchased different face wash, but I’ve learned an important lesson:

Always read the little blurb on the back of bottles. Even if it is full of adjectives telling you how nice the product is.

*Maple, along with oak and sycamore, make up the bulk of my allergies. Really, I didn’t even think the UK had maple trees!

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Tim and I have visited various attractions the past two years that offer annual passes. We hardly ever take advantage of the offer since in many of the cases it’s an attraction that isn’t local, such as Walt Disney World or something like that. But I’ve been noticing a lot of attractions that are “local” (by local, I mean within a few hours drive) that offer an annual pass when you buy your admission.

Examples include:

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard – Your admission price gives you unlimited entry to HMS Warrior 1860, Royal Naval Museum, and Action Stations for one year, however it is only valid for one entry to HMS Victory, the Mary Rose Museum, and Harbour Tours. Tim and I went in fall 2008. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to return to use our tickets again, but if you live close enough that you can go over the course of a few days, I highly recommend it! There’s so much to see there. Currently, you cannot visit the Mary Rose, as they are in the process of building a museum around her and expect to open in 2012, but you can still see everything else. Touring the HMS Victory was well-worth the banged heads on the lower decks!

Shakespeare’s Houses and Gardens – Entry is valid for one year, and if you download the voucher located here, you can even get a two for one offer on the multi-house ticket until October 2010. Tim and I first went in the fall 2008, and then recently took my mom for a visit a few weeks ago. This time, we used the 2 for 1 voucher (didn’t have one last time) and are planning on returning before our year is up. Just like Portsmouth, there is a lot to do there that all fall under the one ticket. When we went in 2008, we only had time to tour two of the buildings since we also had tickets to see a show at the theatre.

Beamish is another place that gives you a full year for the price of a single admission, and with so much to see there, it’s well worth it. We purchased tickets in September (2009) when my mom and I were visiting, and Tim and I took advantage of the annual pass and took a trip up to Beamish with a packed lunch so it only cost us petrol for a full day out! The first two times I was at Beamish, I only was able to see a few areas, as it was the Winter season. We finally went during the “Summer” season, but there’s still more to explore!

Or, if you’d rather a large variety of places to visit, there are organizations such as English Heritage (Membership starts at £44) and National Trust (Membership starts at £36). Each organization manages over 300 sites throughout the United Kingdom, and an annual membership gives you free admission to ALL attractions they own/operate.

Another website I’ve found useful for planning trips is Enjoy England. Enjoy England frequently offers 2 for 1 deals on many attractions.

Going away for a weekend getaway doesn’t have to be expensive!

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[This post also appeared on the LiveJournal cooking community]

Tim just called tonight’s meal “The Best Burgers Ever”. He might be biased, of course.

I had a package of pork mince in my freezer. It, along with a pack of minced turkey was supposed to be Swedish Meatballs out of the new Jamie Does… cookbook. BUT, when we had Ben and Marie over for Tea on Saturday, Marie requested spaghetti. Since I made spaghetti with meatballs that night, I decided we probably didn’t want meatballs quite yet. But we still needed dinner.

Turkey mince lends itself to all sorts of other Italian dishes and assorted “hamburger helper” type skillet meals…but I wasn’t in the mood for that. I was in the mood to experiment with the pork. So I asked myself, “what goes with pork?” and came up with – Apples. Porkchops and Applesauce, Pork Stew with Cider, etc. etc. Tim likes pork and apples together. So…here’s what I came up with!

You will need:

500g package of pork mince
1 apple
1/2 tsp cinnamon
handful of fresh parsley
about a half cup breadcrumbs
1 egg
Worcestershire sauce
pepper (I cranked my rainbow grinder about 30 times)
handful shredded cheese (optional, I just happened to have some leftover)
rolls
handful spinach leaves/rocket/watercress/lettuce/whatever
tomato (sliced)
applesauce (I used homemade, I’m sure jarred would be fine).

1) Peel and shred apple, then use your hands to squeeze out as much juice as you can (I squeezed mine into a glass to drink! LOL)
2) In a large bowl, combine pork, breadcrumbs, parsley, cinnamon, the egg, the shredded apple, and the shredded cheese. Season with pepper and add a dash of Worcestershire. Use your hands to really mix everything together. If the mixture feels too wet, add more breadcrumbs (I wound up adding part of a stale baguette).
3) Shape into patties about the size of the palm of your hand. I have small hands, so I made 10 burgers

I cooked these on my George Foreman. Time varied between 6 to 8 minutes, depending on how thick the burgers were. I topped the burgers with the lettuce and tomato, and then a spoonful of warm applesauce along with some HP (aka “brown sauce”) Sauce for Tim, ketchup for me.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished burgers, but here are the six I have leftover to freeze for the future:

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Tim and I held a reception for his family on the 17th of April so his family would get a chance to celebrate with us. It had been our plan from the beginning to hold a reception in the US and a reception here in the UK for both our families, so no one would feel left out. I think it went over pretty well!

We had the reception at the Duke William Hotel on Bailgate in Lincoln. While we did have some problems with them initially in terms of communication, once we finally got things settled down, it worked well. The staff at the Duke William really outdid themselves in terms of food – we had so much food we almost didn’t have room for it on the table! My mother-in-law’s friend who attended our reception and then a party the following day at a more expensive venue even said that we had more/better food!
The nice thing about having it catered was we didn’t need to worry about the food. Tim, my mom, his mom, his sister, his aunt, and I all met at the venue in the morning to do the decorating, but then we were free for the rest of the day. Tim and I took my mom around bailgate and to the castle square, where the monthly farmer’s market was happening. We also walked around the cathedral, and stopped off at a friend’s ice cream shop for a treat before going to get dressed.

Tim and I had decided we wanted to take some photos over at the cathedral, so he and I took off with his camera and tripod and found a nice spot to take some photos. By the time we got back to the pub, some of our guests had arrived!

Everything was fantastic. My brain started going fuzzy after several glasses of wine and champagne, but everyone had a great time. We soon were left with just family, and we cranked up the stereo and sang and danced until midnight when the landlady asked us to turn down our music! We took that as a sign to break up the party, and packing up our things was super easy since we only had to pack up the items we wanted to keep. The pub would be cleaning the room in the morning. Such a huge difference from the US reception when we had to not only clean up all the food, but also had to sweep the floor and put away the tables & chairs!

Thanks to all who came to make this a fantastic night for us!

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I don’t have a picture of this, but I made this on Saturday when Tim’s brother and brother’s gf were over for Tea and it went over well. As usual, I tweaked the original recipe a bit…

Lemon and Poppy Seed Drizzle Cake

200g flour
200g caster sugar (Yes, I went to the trouble of going out and buying a small bag of caster sugar instead of using regular)
2 tsp baking powder
Juice and zest (grated peel) of 2 lemons
1 egg
1 TBS water
125ml buttermilk*
2 TBS poppy seeds
2 TBS caster sugar

1. Line an 8×8 cake tin with parchment paper and preheat oven to 180C.
2. Mix together flour, caster sugar, and baking powder
3. Beat together lemon zest, egg, and buttermilk and slowly add to buttermilk mixture.
4. stir in poppy seeds. Bake for about 45 minutes
3. Mix lemon juice with 2tbs caster sugar to make a glaze. As soon as you take the cake out of the oven, poke holes in the top with a fork and immediately drizzle glaze.

*To make buttermilk – Using a 1 cup glass measuring cup, put 1TBS lemon juice or vinegar in it and then fill it to the 1 cup line with milk. Let stand for 5 minutes, then use as you would buttermilk.

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First, I must say that I’m incredibly happy that my mom’s flight managed to land last Thursday. Her flight must have been one of the last to land at LHR before they decided to close the airport, as we were hearing things about cancelled flights on the radio on the way back home after picking her up. We didn’t worry much about her return trip since it was all the way on Tuesday, and we had our reception for Tim’s family on Saturday (separate post about that later). On Monday, we found out her flight was officially cancelled. The email directed me to a link to rebook her on a new flight, and the earliest I could schedule her was on MONDAY, the 26th of April. Please note, Mom was originally supposed to leave on the 20th, and had only been granted 5 days off from work. Fortunately, her bosses are understanding and have told her to “enjoy her extra time” with me, but at the same time, this issue could cut into our future plans for her to visit this Summer.

Of course, we are enjoying the extra time together and managed to do a few more touristy things on her visit. We went to Stratford-upon-Avon on Tuesday since Tim already had the day off, and this weekend plan on going to Woodhall Spa. We were concerned about how we’d get her to the airport on Monday, but Tim’s bosses managed to let him take off Monday on short notice (after he explained why he needed it off).

But still, such a pain. Thankfully, Mom was visiting me and so has a free room to stay in. I can’t imagine what would happen if she was staying in a hotel somewhere!

Even worse is the predictions that the ash might move over the weekend and could disrupt flight again. If her Monday flight gets cancelled, I don’t know what we will do (well, have a longer visit, I suppose!). On the other hand, I’d rather her flight be grounded over the plane going through potential engine damaging ash!

Also, fortunately for Mom, her passport was stamped with the generic 6-month visitor stamp, so we have time if she is stuck longer. Also, the UKBA is allowing anyone who has an expired visa as a result of the volcanic ash stay with no penalties, they are just advising people to hold onto proof that they were originally leaving. See http://blog.us2uk.net for details.

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Tuesday night I went to see a local performance of Oliver! at the Lincoln Theatre Royal with my friend H while my husband and her son went to a steam-up. Interesting to note, I also saw Oliver! on the West End being performed at the Theatre Royal. Just a funny coincidence. The theatre in Lincoln is small….I honestly think my high school auditorium had more seating in it, but it made for an intimate evening. We were back in row L, but had a clear view of (most of) the stage. We couldn’t see the bits that were far stage left, but that was only a few dancers in the full adult company numbers (“Who Will Buy?” and “Oom-Pah-Pah”). Overall, I enjoyed the show. The young boy playing Oliver was adorable. I was worried when he forgot the words to his first big number (“Where is Love?”), but it turns out those were just first-number jitters, as he was word-perfect for the rest of his songs and lines.

My only real pet peeve about the whole performance was some of the actors relying on imitating actors from the most recent West End production, most notably the characters of Fagin and Nancy. I would have loved to have heard the actress playing Nancy singing with her own voice, not trying to imitate Jodie Prenger, but I understand as a singer how hard it is not to mimic someone else’s voice when you’re singing “their” songs!

But we had a great time. Everytime I go to a local performance it makes me want to get involved in local theatre. Perhaps sometime I will!

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Rail Union Announces Strike Dates

Since I’ve gotten a half a dozen emails or IMs asking if this affects us – Yes, it does as Tim is a member of the RMT union. The strike will be April 6, 7, 8, and 9. Instead of doing 4 straight days of strikes, they have opted to do walk-outs in 2 4-hour stints each day. 6am-10am and… 6pm-10pm…basically, the busiest times of day (commuter time). The strike is a NATION-WIDE strike over policy changes. The way Tim explained it to me and his aunt is this – the company wanted to cut some corners and said “hey, we can let people go and still make all our safety inspections. We’ll just change them around so fortnight inspections become monthly, monthly becomes quarterly, and quarterly becomes annually”. The union doesn’t like that. There also were some issues in other regions where people got dropped a grade because their position changed and proper procedure wasn’t followed (if your position gets dropped, you’re supposed to keep your pay!)

There is still a possibility of the strike being called off, but if you are a commuter, I’d try to arrange for alternate plans on those days just in case!

Don’t worry about us. We’re still okay financially. The strike days actually only affect one days worth of wages for Tim, as the 8th and 9th are scheduled days off for him.

I’ve posted this to FB and LJ as well.

Recently, we started ordering organic vegetables from nearby Woodlands Farm. It seemed like such a great idea – having vegetables delivered, especially when we’re trying to lose some weight.

However, I’m starting to run into problems. We pay (well, as of next week when the new rate kicks in) £13 for a “Small Mixed Box”, which is a box with both fruit & veg. They have a section where you can state your dislikes (in my case, allergies), and if a dislike is on the list for that week, they will substitute with something else. Two weeks ago, both Leeks and Onions were on the list and as substitutes, we were given celeriac and cabbage. Neither of which I really have a use for, and so I’ve spent the week looking up ideas. I still haven’t found one for the celeriac.

We also received loads of potatoes, jerusalem artichokes, carrots, and parsnips. We use those veg all the time, but that week, not so much. Now that the second box has arrived (on Wed), I have even MORE carrots and parsnips than I know what to do with.

This week also brought a huge bunch (is it called a bunch?) of celary, bok choy (other than stir fry, no clue what to do with this, either), and TWO heads of broccoli (as subs for onions). Which is great, except that we had to throw out last week’s broccoli because we didn’t use it in time and it got fuzzy.

We do seem to go through the fruit in the boxes, though. And anything that’s made for going into a salad gets eaten.

So I’m at a conundrum. Do we…

– cancel the orders all together
– switch to a fruit box
– switch to a smaller mixed box
– switch to a “salad box”

The small fruit box costs £9. Next week’s box contains: mandarins, oranges, bananas, grapefruit, pears, apples, kiwi. With the exception of the grapefruit, all fruits I like, and fruits that would make my aunt’s fruit salad recipe.

The large salad box ( £13) will have: onions, apples, kiwi, celery, carrots, celeriac, lettuce, fennel, broccoli, and tomatoes.

The basic mix box (£9.95), which is smaller than the small mixed will have: potatoes, apples, pears, aubergine (eggplant), carrots, leeks, broccoli, onions, lettuce, bananas, and celeriac.

And I just can’t decide what to do. On one hand, the prices do seem a bit high. They claim to be competitive with getting organics at the grocery store, but if we’re getting veg at the grocery store, we don’t usually seek out the organics. On the other hand….we really want to support small local business!

If anyone has any suggestions on what we should do, I welcome the input.

*

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On Friday, Tim and I attended the second-to-last night of a drama and music festival being held in Lincoln. The Lincoln Sounds were participating in the competition and there also was a quartet made up of our members as well as many of the members also performing in the Lincoln Mix, a combined choir of the Sounds and Harmony Lincs. Harmony Lincs is the male barbershop group that inspired the ladies group to form.

We had a fantastic time. I wish I had been up on stage with the ladies, but being in the audience was just as good. Each group had to perform two songs in different styles. Unfortunately, we didn’t take home the top prize. The men’s chorus beat us by just one point! One point! How awful. But, we’ll get them next year because I’ll be singing ;).

After the festival, there was a party called Afterglow in the oldest building in Lincoln. Tim and I were invited along, and we got to mingle with the members of my group and Harmony Lincs…and I got to sing. Tim had actually never seen me sing before, and he said he could tell how happy it makes me. I am so excited to be a part of this group!

Roll on convention!

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Today’s post is brought to you courtesy of Tim and I wanting to avoid the traffic back-up caused by an accident near Lincoln.

Tim and I went to Tesco a few Fridays ago to pick up some chicken wings, as I had promised my Father-in-Law that I would make him some buffalo wings. On our way into town we noticed there were huge back-ups going the other way. Not wanting to get caught in the traffic, Tim decided to take the long way out of town through some smaller villages and towns. It was a route I had never been on before with some beautiful scenery and winding country roads.

At one point he said to me, “if we turn here, we can see the abbey ruins”. Of course, I had to ask about them! Our short detour took all of about 20-30 minutes, and most of that time was actually walking from the side of the road over to the ruins, as there really isn’t much there to look at. It used to be an abbey called Barlings Abbey.

Barlings Abbey was founded in 1154. in 1537, the abbey was closed by King Henry VIII (when he was closing lots of abbeys, priories, and churches) and all of the valuables were taken away, including the roof! By 1726, only the tower and a few bits here and there remained. The tower fell in 1757 and you can see that some of the stone was used in the nearby farmhouse and farm buildings. Today, all that remains is a bricked up arch, part of the tower base, and lots of rubble. No formal excavating has ever been done on the site, and the remaining wall will probably eventually fall down as well, as it doesn’t have any support nor really a way to support it.

I still get a small thrill touching stones from the 12th century. I can’t help it. It thrills me to the bone to touch pieces of history. I really should have become a historian!

Barlings Abbey is located seven miles east of Lincoln. The site is in private ownership with public access through the farmland (provided you stick to the designated public footpaths) and is free. We actually were only two or three miles away from Tim’s grandad’s house in Langworth, which is only about four miles away from our house!

For more information, see: http://www.lincsheritage.org/community_heritage/guides_information/witham_abbeys/site.php?key=barlings_abbey

Selected photos. More can be seen on facebook:

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Could someone reading this on the blog (http://blog.beccajanestclair.com) please attempt to leave me a comment? I’ve been getting a few complaints that the comment feature isn’t working properly, and before I try to trouble shoot it, I need to know what the problem is!

Thanks!

Several times a month there is an outdoor farmer’s market in Lincoln. Tim and I managed to go once last year while I was visiting, but many of the stalls had already closed for the day, so this time we made sure we got in by noon. There were about nine stalls. I don’t know if this is a normal amount or not, but I suppose I’ll find out as it gets warmer out. I did notice the windmill stall (sold bread & organic flour) was missing, so hopefully they will be there on a different day.

I’ve managed to misplace all the business cards, so apologies to the businesses if I skip links. I will be sure to post some links next time! (I also neglected to pull my camera out. Whoops!). There were three stalls devoted to meat, two to cheese, one for bread, one for fudge, one for jams/jellies, and one for organic veg. Oh, and there also was a stall selling ostrich burgers, so that actually makes ten stalls, not nine.

We were on a mission. Tim’s younger brother and his girlfriend were coming over for dinner this past Sunday, and a request had been put in for “giant Yorkshire puddings filled with bangers and mash”. We thought since market was on Friday, we’d scope it out and check out what options for fresh (and possibly bizzare/unique) sausage there was. I let Tim pick, since he and his brother (B) would be eating it. Brother’s girlfriend (M) and I decided we were going to have chicken, as bangers and mash just didn’t appeal to us. At the pork stall, Tim found some apple sausage as well as ale sausage. Reports are both were good…..I could smell the apples in the apple sausage while I was cooking them!

My second mission was to speak directly to the people at Woodlands Farm about their organic fruit and vegetable delivery service. I saw on their website that would deliver to our village on Tuesdays, and I wanted more information and needed to ask them about what to do in relation to my food allergies. The man we spoke with was really helpful and he had examples of the sizes of the boxes with him as well, so you could figure out what size box you wanted. We’re getting our first box today, along with a dozen organic free-range eggs. If we like it, we’ll be putting in a standing order.

Of course, we had to buy from the two cheese stalls. Our first stop was the Lymn Bank Farm stall. They had loads of tasty cheeses and offered you toothpicks to taste. If we had stayed any longer at their stand, we’d have eaten all their samples! We settled on three – Apple Smoked, Cranberries, and Double Barrel. We intend on working our way through the rest of their cheeses at some point. What we’ve had so far was super tasty! The other cheese stall was the stall for Lincolnshire Poacher Cheese, a regional speciality. They also made several varieties and let us sample each before deciding on their Barrel Poacher (a strong, sharp cheese). According to their website, they even sell in the US (at Zingerman’s of all places and a few places in Philadelphia, too) and you can mail-order it. I highly recommend it!

Just around the corner from the organic vegetable stall was a jam and jelly stall. Unfortunately, I can’t remember their name other than it had the word sin or sinful in their name. I’ll get a link next time. We chatted a bit with the two ladies who ran the stall, and it turns out the one was married to an American and she knew exactly which jar I was headed to (pickles!). We also picked up a cranberry and orange marmalade, and something called Banofee Jam. Ah, they’re called Saints and Sinners. Helps if you check the labels of the jars you bought!

The last stall we gave our business to was a stall selling Lincolnshire Plum Bread, another regional favourite. I hope I’ve got the link right, as I’ve thrown out the paper from the loaf! The bread is quite tasty, but it’s more of a dessert or snack bread than something I’d want to eat a sandwich off of.

Oh, no, I lie. We also stopped at the ostrich burger stall. Tim tried it last time and thought it was tasty, so that became Lunch. We also discovered they sell kangaroo meat, so we might have to try it out.

After the market, we happened to be walking past the Corn Exchange market and I suggested checking out the meat stand in there. Turns out, it was a great idea, as they were selling 3 packs of bacon for £5. It’s turned out that each pack has had 12 slices, so that’s a lot of bacon for very little money!

If you’re ever in Lincoln, be sure to check out the farmer’s market:

Lincoln Farmers’ Market 1
Where: City Square [This is the area right outside of Wilkinson’s as you walk along the river]
When: 1st Friday of every month, 9am–4pm

Lincoln Farmers’ Market 2
Where: High Street [Usually the stands are set up in the open space near Barclays Bank]
When: 2nd Wednesday of every month, 9am–4pm

Lincoln Farmers’ Market 3
Where: Castle Hill [I haven’t been here yet, but I imagine it is in the area between the castle and cathedral]
When: 3rd Saturday of every month, 9am–4pm

[information taken from the Times Online]

Here’s a picture of our haul:

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I have had the misfortune to require a doctor after office hours twice this week. In the US, if I needed my doctor after office hours I would have to call into the answering service, leave a message, have my doctor (or the doctor on call) paged by the answering service, then wait for a phone call back from a nurse or secretary to tell me what to do (usually wait until the following day or head to the ER as those were the only options). Here in the UK, you call your regular GP number and if it’s after hours it will connect you automatically to the after hours operators. They will take down your information (I needed to provide my NHS number and tell them a bit about my problem plus give a phone number I could be reached at) and you’ll get a call back from a nurse a few minutes later. That nurse will ask you more questions (obviously, their first goal is to try to diagnose you over the phone and to make sure it’s not a true emergency). In my case, it was determined that I did not have a life-threatening emergency requiring A&E (Accidents & Emergencies, AKA the Emergency Room in the US), but that I did need to see an after hours doctor. Fortunately, we live only about 6 miles away from the county hospital that provides this service.

The after hours GP at the county hospital is located right next to A&E. For being after hours, it was surprisingly fairly empty both nights. The first night, there was one person waiting to be seen and 2 waiting for test results. The second night had a few more people, but it still barely made a dent in the waiting room seating areas!

The first night I went in, I saw a GP. He was able to access my NHS files to see what I was being seen for by my GP and what prescriptions I was on. After giving me an exam, he decided I needed to be put on more antibiotics and a heftier pain killer than regular paracetamol (closest US match: Tylenol/Acetaminophen ), so he wrote up a prescription and the nurse directed us to an “all night” pharmacy.

The pharmacy turned out to be the local Boots store we visit on occasion. They have a walk-up window instead of you actually going into the store so it was a little chilly while waiting!

But we were soon home and only spent £14.40 (the visit to the after hours was, of course, free and included in my NHS care).

The following day when I called, they did their best to reassure me and calm me down (I was having a problem related to the previous night), but in the end it was determined that I needed to see the Nurse Practitioner at the after hours just to be on the safe side. My visit with the nurse took 10 minutes or so, but it was enough to assure me that I was okay, and enough to assure the nurse that I wasn’t in any danger.

This is just one more reason in a long list of reasons why I really like the NHS and wish a similar system existed in the US.

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Thursday has just become my town day/social day.

After spending time volunteering at Cancer Research, I’ll be walking up the hill (steep hill!) every Thursday to go to Tim’s aunt’s house for Tea (dinner/supper). After Tea, I’m headed over to rehearsal for the Lincoln Sounds, a female barbershop quartet group and a member of the Sweet Adelines international.

Last night was my first rehearsal, and a chance for me to get the feeling of the group. I was immediately asked to join in and sight-sing, and had a blast! I forgot how much fun singing was, to be honest. The choir director had me join him in another room during their break to test me out with some scales to see where I would fit, and well, let’s just say his compliments to me left me blushing when I returned to the group! The director was fairly impressed with my singing (!) and thought I could do one of three voice parts* – what he called Soprano 1, Soprano 2, and Alto 1, but the ladies in the choir call them “tenor”, “lead”, and “bari”. Cue a fight for me between the three section leaders!

In the end, the leads/Soprano 2’s won out, because I had been rehearsing in their section standing in front of the section leader and she really wanted me. LOL.

There is an “audition”, but at this point I think it’s a basic formality, since they all want me. They give you three weeks to learn the audition pieces, and then six to learn their “Sing Out”** songs, but I really don’t think I’ll need that long. I catch on quick! I’ll also then become a member of Sweet Adeline International, which is pretty cool. The group is also excited because since SA is a US-based organization, the judges at competition are from the US, and the groups get skill points for diction and for using an American accent. Apparently the Sounds lost some points on it last year, so I’ve been asked to help with diction as well!

*In the past, I sang Soprano 1 for four years, Soprano 2 for one year, and Alto 1 for one year.

**Sing out is when they go to other places to perform.

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One of the new requirements under the BCI bill is volunteering. Volunteering will cut 2 years off your citizenship wait, reducing it from 5 years to 3. Since I enjoy volunteering, I decided to look for a place to volunteer starting now. This way, when the requirements finally get posted I’ll hopefully be on my way to fulfilling them.

I started my volunteer stint (will be 4 hours each week) at the Cancer Research UK charity shop yesterday. The day was on the slow side, but still enjoyable and I picked things up pretty quickly.

My basic responsibilities are all on the sales floor. When items come in they go upstairs for pricing. Someone will bring the priced items downstairs and people like me will go around placing the items on the correct racks (and in size order). I also am responsible for keeping the racks neat (make sure hangers are all going the same direction, nothing is falling off, sizes are in order, etc) and for operating the till (register). The people I worked with seemed somehow surprised that I picked up working the till so quickly, but once you’ve seen one till, you’ve seen them all. The money is different, though. I found myself looking for a £1 paper note (which doesn’t exist) a few times, and I forgot all about the £2 coin so when someone needed £4 in change I handed them 4 £1 coins! The other big difference is the size and types of coins – a 10p coin is the size of a US quarter, and a 5p is the size of a US dime. the UK doesn’t have a 25p coin, but has a 20p and also extensively uses a 50p coin as well as the £1 and £2 coins.

…But I’m learning.

I’m looking forward to this a lot. Not just because it’s a requirement to obtain citizenship, but because I honestly like helping people and volunteering.

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I took the bus into Lincoln today because I had a few errands I needed to run.

I got off the bus at the “top of the hill” near the Cathedral, as my original plans were to talk to the people at the pub we want to use for the reception in person, but that didn’t work out. As I was walking down Steep Hill (yes, it’s called that) I happened to spot a volunteer sign in the window of the Cancer Research charity shop. Since my application for OxFam must have been rejected (never heard back from them!), I was still looking for some place to volunteer, both as something to do, and as part of the new requirements for seeking citizenship in the UK. I walked in, asked about volunteering, and 10 minutes later I was “hired”. I’ll be working every Thursday from 1-5PM, which goes nicely with my other activity on Thursdays – an all-female Barbershop group (part of Sweet Adelines).

After landing the “job”, I went to Primark to replace some of the items I accidentally shrank in the wash* and then to Boots (drug store) to use some coupons that expired at the end of the month, and to place an order for photos to be printed to go with my insurance claim form. Then, it was the trek over to the other side of High Street to Argos to make a return. Right as I got to the barriers for the train, they went down, so I sent a text to Tim. He called and played “big brother” on me by looking at me through his CCTV! Item returned and new item purchased (I needed a new small crock pot), I walked back only to get to the crossing right as the barriers were going down again.

I met up with Tim and we went shopping for Mother’s Day cards and Birthday cards and then decided we’d just go look at eyeglass frames at one of the discount stores. I found frames for both regular and sunglasses that I liked (and they were only £70) and so we asked about making an appointment, and there happened to be an opening right then, so this afternoon I had an eye exam and got new glasses and sunglasses! I pick up the glasses on Thursday.

We also did our weekly run at Tesco, and now I’m busy (at midnight) finishing roasting a chicken so I can use it tomorrow in a stew I’m making for Tim’s grandad.

I just need to keep my eyes open for another half hour….

*Last week when I did the wash, I forgot that temperatures were in Celsius and I set it for 60…..60C is a hot water wash, not the lukewarm water wash I thought it was.

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I’ve officially lived in the UK for one month, as of….well, right now, since my plane landed at 530 in the morning on the 21st of January. I’m settling into married life and life in the UK, and things are starting to get sorted –

*I’ve been added to Tim’s bank accounts and have received my debit card
*I have my NHS number and card and have been in to see the GP several times
*I have an EHIC card, so I’m covered if Tim and I jaunt into the rest of the EU and I need a doctor
*I have my NI number, so I can open savings accounts and get a job (if we decide I should)
*I have a library card, which has proven to be quite useful
*We joined the co-op and started earning a small bit for dividends
*I’ve been contacted by a local choir and have been invited to attend rehearsal this week

….the only thing left is for me to sort out the Provisional License, I think. As that requires sending off my passport for a month, I wanted to make sure I got everything else taken care of first.

It’s been a wild and crazy month, but I do love it here. I love being with Tim and we’re slowly getting the house sorted (and re-decorated) and everything is falling into place. We’ve even got most of the reception here planned already!

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As most of you know, I’ve recently moved across the ocean to be with Tim. In addition to shelling out nearly £600 for my visa (close to $1000), plus extra for the expediting, we also spent a fairly decent chunk of money shipping most of my personal belongings across the ocean.

Since I wasn’t moving an entire house or taking any furniture, I contacted a shipping company who would take my boxes and seal them on a pallet and put them inside on of their containers to ship it across the ocean. We paid over $600 for this service (I think it worked out to around £400 on the credit card)….and I’m very disappointed.

The whole thing went seemingly painless – I did all my packing and used well over 300 sq ft of bubble wrap on my breakables. Most of my boxes were the same size, having come from my mom’s office the last time they ordered envelopes. Nothing weighed more than 50lbs (even my book boxes), and everything was clearly labeled. Two of the boxes were labled exactly to the specifications of the shipping company for fragile items – “FRAGILE” on all sides, and “TOP LOAD” in large letters on the top and two longest sides.

I had things covered well. Tiny things got wrapped in bubble wrap and went inside larger things, plates were wrapped the whole way around and stacked on their end, anything hollow (like a pitcher) got filled with clothing or plushies, and each box of breakables was lined with both bubble wrap and blankets/clothing.

Would you like to see the state of some of my boxes? Just scroll down to the gallery.

Yeah. Now, before I get into this further, let me talk about delivery.

I received a phone call on my mobile on Thursday while I was at the GPs from the delivery company. The man I spoke with on the phone told me that he had sitting in front of him my instructions for delivery (which mentioned things like our narrow driveway and that you couldn’t see the house number from the road, so look for number 9 and we’re attached). The man assured me the delivery driver would bring along a dolly (I’m not sure what it’s called, but the thing used to move pallets around in a warehouse) to get the pallet up our driveway (which is pretty long). Yeah….no dice. The delivery driver plopped everything at the bottom of our driveway (our very wet and slighyly muddy drive) and said he didn’t have room for the dolly so did we have a wheelbarrow? We did, so Tim dragged it down to the end of the drive. I thought for sure the delivery man was then going to ferry my boxes up to the house (as this was the service I paid for!)…nope. My husband had to move all the boxes 100ft between the driveway and our walkway. It’s a good thing he had been home from work that day or I’d have had an interesting time trying to move everything before the rain/snow started!

Boxes inside, I decided to rip into the two most important boxes – the fragile/top load ones. Oh, and did I mention that the top load boxes did not go on top? And one of them had a box of books on top of it? Honestly, what was the point in writing in large letters “TOP LOAD/FRAGILE” if it was going to be ignored? On first glance, I thought things were fine, as two of my nanny’s plates appeared to be fine, and all my regular dishes looked okay. Off I went to the GP (again. still having arm issues), and then out to Tesco for our weekly shopping.

When we returned, I started unpacking, and boy, was I in for a lot of heartbreak. All but THREE of the antique dishes (my nanny’s dishes I specifically asked my aunt if I could have before I moved because I liked them and wanted something of Nanny’s) are broken. Also broken is the base to a very large brandy glass (it#s supposed to be a candle holder), BOTH Princess House* cappuccino mugs (that my mom and I specifically bought off eBay so we’d both have sets!), the infuser to my glass teapot (shattered beyond repair or even recognition. Only knew it was what it was because that was missing!), a salad plate from the everyday dishes set, and several other items.

At this point, I’m really upset, so I fired off an email to the shipping company, forgetting that Monday was a federal holiday in the US. Fortunately, someone was in the office and wrote back to me requesting photos of the damaged boxes. All he could tell me so far was “I have learnt that all your boxes were placed at the top of the container when it left Charleston.” and “Seriously this does not normally happen when its packed correctly which seems you did exactly right.” I haven’t heard back yet, but since I paid for insurance on my items, I’m expecting to be able to claim some money back. Not the same as having your belongings, but a nice gesture as an apology.

*Princess House is an expensive glass sold in the US. AFAIK, it’s not available in the UK.

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