All the Small Things

We have done a lot of staying in this week. Abbie had a stomach bug that kept her up all of Monday night and into Tuesday, which meant staying in for a couple of days taking care of our girl. Eli was a sweet brother, bringing her things and giving her snuggles. They have both been so good, with limited squabbling and lots of happy playing. Randall reports a good first week at work. He went to the company Christmas party last Saturday at Etihad Stadium, home of the Manchester City Football Club, and he has worked this week starting on Tuesday. He enjoys being able to walk just a little more than a mile to work, and is looking forward to getting to a bike shop soon for a new bike. He loves his work and his new colleagues.

Our limited outings this week have been to the local library, the local pub, and a trip back to the Trafford Centre to get phones and Legos. We also had our internet connected yesterday, and got set up with the local council for our council tax. That might not seem that exciting until you discover that you need that piece of paper for some important things – enrolling kids in school and setting up a bank account, for example. And after being here for one week, we have discovered many unexpected little things that are different from home.

Our most important stop this week was to this cozy spot, the Stretford Library. As a family of voracious readers, finding a nice nearby library was high on our list of priorities. The clerks there were very kind and helpful in getting us library cards and welcoming us.

The library is a half mile from our house, right across the street from Aldi and the Stretford Mall. We all found something to read, and we’re excited to go back this weekend and take a better look around. The kids were excited to see that the self check systems were just like the ones they are used to at our favorite library, the Bailey Cove branch in Huntsville. (That library has the best staff around! ❤️)

Our next stop after the library was to the local pub, The Melville, conveniently located just a third of a mile from our house. We arrived around 5 pm to have dinner, and it was really lovely. There were couples and groups of friends and families, and everyone was happy and friendly. I have to say, it’s funny to us that people here have to ask us to repeat ourselves due to our accent!

I had a cheese and onion pie with delicious mashed potatoes and baked beans, and I hope to have it again soon. So yummy! The kids were tickled to get glass bottles of Coke, and happily sat reading their library books. It was warm and inviting, and anyone who comes to visit us will definitely be having dinner there at least once!

So many little things here take some getting used to. There are four different trash cans to sort things into for pickup – rubbish, mixed recyclables, paper recyclables, and food waste – and different cans are picked up on different weeks.

Many of the light switches are outside the door of the room, leading to my dear children giggling while turning the lights out on whoever is in the bathroom. All of the outlets have an on/off switch for each plug. This has led to several instances of “why won’t this work?!” before remembering to flip the switch.

I had heard that the tea bags here are considerably stronger than the ones we have in the US, and that has turned out to be quite accurate. In Alabama, I was perfectly happy to drink my tea black. Here, it is too strong to drink black, even with half the steeping time, and tastes much better with a little cream and sugar. Randall, who likes to grind his own whole bean coffee, would like me to add that most coffee here is instant coffee, and he is not a fan. In my opinion, the tea here is awesome and makes up for the lack of good coffee.

My little Eli really loves his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but it’s difficult to find smooth peanut butter. There is one brand of smooth at Aldi, and it doesn’t taste quite right to him, enough so that he prefers the crunchy peanut butter. Also, if you tell people here you want jelly, they think you mean jello. Eli now delights in asking me to make him a peanut butter and jam sandwich. He is always proud of himself when he remembers the British way of saying a thing, and grins while he says it! Abbie is missing the abundance of pickles we enjoyed in Alabama. At Aldi, they have pickled gherkins. And that’s it. Fortunately, we will be able to get dill spears with our grocery delivery from Asda. That’s right, for £5 a month, you can have unlimited grocery deliveries to your house! I love that.

And then there’s the weather. Rain. Rain, rain, rain. And if it’s not rainy, then cloudy and maybe also windy. But I already knew about that, and came prepared with appropriate outerwear. What I didn’t really understand was the decrease in daylight hours in winter. My dear friend Ash has told me about this very thing in her native Alaska, how the sun came up later and went down earlier, and how that affects one’s mood. While less extreme here than in Alaska, it is still noticeable. Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Huntsville today will have about 10 hours of daylight, while Manchester will have only about 7.5 hours of (rainy) daylight. It will skew the other way in the summer, of course, but for now it’s just weird to wake up at 7:30 and not see sunlight.

Another thing we had to learn about was the radiator! There is no central cooling or heating in this house. Instead, we have windows that open, and many radiators. There is at least one radiator in each room, sometimes two. We have two radiators in the living room, plus a funny electric heater made to look like a fireplace.

All that said, we haven’t yet encountered anything we can’t live with, even though we are missing our people. I hope you are all preparing to enjoy a beautiful holiday with your loved ones! Thanks for reading!