Bike with Bear

Today our friends Richard, Shannon and Maddy came on a bike ride with us.  We were happy to show them this beautiful area that we enjoy so much.  The wild rhododendrons were in bloom in the woods and the sunlight filtering down on them was beautiful.

Maddy had a pretty posh setup.  Her dad fastened bear securely with a bungee cord (second only to duct tape in universal utility).  Maddy and bear enjoyed the trip - the rhododendrons were so exciting that Maddy was out cold - although bear appears to still be wide awake. 

Forgetting my laptop

Yesterday morning I did the dumbest and most annoying thing.  I forgot my laptop at home.  I remembered when Steve and I were almost all the way to work, so we continued on, I dropped him off, and then I headed back for a round trip home to pick it up.  Sad:-( 

Pillbox bunkers

Our Saturday walk, after passing the aggressive cows, took us along the Thames for a mile or two of the Thames Path.  At one point we saw a very cool bunker, and poked around a bit. 

It was well concealed from the river behind some trees and was at a location with a good view both upstream and down. 

I found online that these are called ‘pillbox’ bunkers and that they are quite a few remaining from WWII, scattered around England particularly along the coasts and rivers.  While searching I also found this article on one that has been cleverly incorporated into a home’s landscape design.

An easier move

We are getting ready to move for the 4th time in 9 months.  This move will be the easiest of the four.

1. We are moving to a place no smaller, and just a wee bit bigger than our current place. 
2. We don’t have to divest of much (just a few things I should have gotten rid of when we moved here*)
3. When we get there we won’t have to buy much new to make it work. **
4. This place was so small lots of things are already in boxes.***
5. We have been inside the house before and have pictures, so we know what space we’re dealing with and I can envision what will go where.
6. I’m packing the boxes – so things that belong together are going in the same box – less chaos on the unpacking end.
7. And the biggest reason…we have less stuff!!!!

* Things I should have gotten rid of when I got here include the metal bed frame for the box spring we had to throw out because it wouldn’t fit up the stairs.

** Like when we moved to England and we had to buy lots of electrical appliance that run on 240V and new, smaller furniture.

*** Stuff already in boxes: all my extra linens because I don’t have a linen cabinet; all our bathroom stuff because we don’t have a bathroom cabinet; two boxes of kitchen stuff I am going to keep, but didn’t fit in the kitchen cabinets here; Steve’s stereo speakers; one box of linens for a queen size bed that I should have left in America because we didn’t even try to bring our queen size…

Stampede

We took a long walk Saturday between a few villages out to the west of our house.  It was a very windy day (thus preempting the bike ride we had originally planned) but beautiful none-the-less. 

At one point on our walk we were on a quiet country lane besides a field with grazing cattle.  All of a sudden the cows started walking towards us, then running towards us. 

After this shot I got a bit terrified as all these cows were running straight at us and there was nothing but a little wire fence separating them from us.

They stopped when they all got smushed up at the fence and stared at us expectantly.  I think they thought we were bringing their afternoon snack.  Thank goodness they didn’t think ‘we’ were the afternoon snack.  (yes, yes, I know cattle are herbivores, but just wait until a herd starts running at you)  We kept walking and when I looked back the cows were looking very sad, as they figured out we did not have their snack.

Doc Martin

Although we don’t watch much telly, we have stumbled across one really good show – Doc Martin.  It is about a doctor in a small village in Cornwall. 

The show is in many ways similar to a show that was on in the early 1990s in America called Northern_Exposure.  I loved that show as a kid.  Steve only saw it a couple times in syndication. 
NE was about a doctor in a small town in Alaska.  The similarities are uncanny.  Both very small, remote towns; awkward, neurotic doctor; receptionist who was quirky and never did quite what the doctor wanted; cute ‘girl next door’ local love interest; cast of eccentric townspeople…I could go on and on.  This basic premise for a comedy/drama series probably works with slight variation in any culture in the world:-)

Telly

We own a television here - but we don’t watch it very much.  Mostly this is laziness on our part.  We haven’t taken the time to figure out what programs we would want to watch.  My friend Wendy recently sent me a primer on some good shows, so I’ll have to check some of those out.  We do have one program we like, I’ll write about that tomorrow.

That said, it doesn’t take long to make several simple observations.  There are many strange things about UK TV.

• A lot (probably most) channels are not on all day.  They may only be on for prime evening time, or just during the day.  (as opposed to the states where channels are on at least 5am – midnight)
• You pay for broadcast TV but satellite is free.  You pay a TV tax for the broadcast of the BBC (you must pay if you have a TV) but you can get lots of satellite channels for free, just paying for the premium ones.
• They seem to be obsessed with Football (soccer).  It’s on all the time.

Another reason we don’t watch much telly is that I miss sTiVo.  I’ll blog on that for Sunday.

Zune

One of the things Margie brought over from the States for me was a Zune.  I have never owned a music player before, as I hadn’t seen a need.  But now that I am in an ‘open plan office’ (cubicle) I find I need music to keep me focused.

A ton of our music is in .wma format, and I didn’t want to re-rip our CD collection, so I got a Zune (a cute red 8gig flash model).  I’ve never owned an iPod so I can’t compare, but I’m really happy with the Zune so far.  Great device interface and an easy to use client application.

Now I’m addicted to correcting the metadata on our big, disorganized, digital music collection.  10+ years of accumulating digitial music with no real organization system = chaos.

Eight years

Who are those kids?  Oh, that’s us, 8 years ago today.  Time flies.

Our ‘backyard’

We live in a really lovely area.  So lovely in fact that the overnight destination for our anniversary trip was just 15 miles away from our house.

We ate dinner and stayed overnight at The Crown at Pishill.  The pub dates from the 15th century, and today it is an honest English pub with very good food and a friendly staff.  It is set in a beautiful, secluded valley, the pub is really the only destination for many miles.

The Crown’s only accomodation is a cottage, shown at left above, and that is where we stayed.  It has a ’self service’ full English breakfast.  It takes a long time to cook a full English breakfast we found.  After finishing breakfast we looked at the map for a good walking destination.  We drove over to Turvill, the most ridiculously charming village I’ve ever seen.  We parked in the village and walked out southwest of town and then out to the West of town.  The pictures speak for themselves.

On our way home we had to stop at the Stag and Huntsmen  for some of the ridiculously good apple crumble (we held out 8 days before returning for the crumble).  We calculated that we’ll be an hour’s cycle from Hambleden at our new place…