A Little More British Everyday

Sometimes you just get busy livin' and forget that you're livin' in another country. I "talk" with all my Canadian friends via Blackberry Messenger, Skype, Facebook, email. The family sees Elizabeth a reasonable amount via Skype. Sometimes I kind of forget that we are in England, and that we're far away. And then, I notice something and think, "Yep, we live in England now." For example:

Our house keys look like they could open a Treasure Chest.

I own a rain cover for the stroller, and it actually gets used. PS this photo was taken in the middle of summer. Another example of the fact that we live in England.

And then there is the kitchen. Here are a few things that remind me at least 3 times a day that we live in the UK:

We have the big box of tea bags, and Matthew actually drinks it on a regular basis - usually after riding his bike home in the rain.

Since we don't have a dishwasher, it feels like there are always dishes to do - and lately I've been getting chapped hands, like they talk about in dishwashing detergent commercials. Truth: I never believed those commercials before now, and now I wish I used Palmolive.

Our fridge isn't big enough for a 2L bottle of pop (which means that a large proportion of the country's fridges aren't big enough, because we have an average fridge) so you have to have ice all the time because no one wants to drink warm "Lemonade" (which is really "Sprite").

We now buy Branston pickle - only for Matthew. He likes Cheese & Pickle sandwiches now. I think he is more British than I am, and I'm the one with the UK passport!!

 And then there are things that I think are just dumb - like windows with no screens:

which don't seem like a really bad thing until you look in your kitchen sink and see this:

Gross, gross, gross. England doesn't have flying bugs like mosquitos, but they have the sickest and biggest and grossest creepy crawlers ever. I find them everywhere, and it freaks me right out. Gross. I am an expert spider killer, which is probably why it rains so much (isn't there some Old Wives Tale about killing spiders leading to rain??). I don't care about that though, because I have my trusty rain cover, and Eliz doesn't mind being in her little tent: