The Track Suit

Two nights ago, something happened that I have never experienced before.

My house got appled.

What is this you say? It's when someone throws apples at your house.

I was sitting in my living room reading, after the children were in bed, when suddenly there was a loud "Smack" on my window. I looked over and saw a big wet mark on m window. My first thought was it was a snowball, but there is no snow on the ground. I jumped up and ran outside to yell at the kids doing it, but they were gone before I got outside.

They have a word here for these children running around in adult bodies obvious products of their upbringing by parents who themselves are not worth public consumption. They are called NEDs, which stands for Non Educated Delinquent, and they have a uniform.
A tracksuit and baseball cap with headphones draped around their necks. It's usually a white track suit.

I myself have never owned a track suit, but I bought a couple for Isaac when he was a baby. I saw them on sale at Wal-Mart in America and bought them before we moved over here. There was a really cute yellow and blue one that came with a little racing car t-shirt, and a red and blue one that had a baseball t shirt. Once I moved over here Paul would get annoyed when I would dress Isaac in them, saying people here don't wear track suits unless you're a NED. It took me a while but now... but when I look around... I see them everywhere, and two nights ago they were outside my window, throwing apples at my house.

Wardrobes

I'm not a real estate expert or anything, but I am pretty sure that if a bedroom doesn't come with a closet in America it is considered an office. Bedrooms need two things really, a bed, and a place to put your clothes... most people like to spice things up with a night stand, and a desk or vanity, and maybe a chest of drawers or a dresser, but the necessities are bed... closet... so why am I telling you this??

Because the UK has wardrobes... you know what a wardrobe is... it's the secret entrance into Narnia where the winter coats are kept in the spare room. It's like a closet except you can move it around in the room or take it when you leave that residence. Some wardrobes are "built in" which means someone came and professionally measured your room and decided the best use of space would be a specific wardrobe that is now mounted to the wall, similar to kitchen cabinets.
Occasionally you even get a closet... in my house 2 out of the 5 bedrooms have closets. 1 of the closets is in my bedroom, but it's really more of an attic crawl space. I can't stand up right in it, but I keep my clothes in there anyway, because I am an American, and we keep our clothes in closets. The other closet is in my daughter Aria's room. The previous owners turned what was actually a hall closet into a bedroom closet by knocking out one of the walls in the bedroom, and sealing off the original entrance to the closet. Two of the rooms have built in wardrobes, and one room has nothing at all. I use that as my office. :) It's about the size my closet was in America... granted  I has TWO walk in closets so maybe that's an unfair comparison.

Outlets vs Plug ins

In America, we have outlets.
They look like this:

But sometimes, they look like this:

Sometimes you have to remove a child safety plug because you don't want a baby to stick their finger in the little hole and get electrocuted.That is pretty much the biggest obsticle you have when wanting to get electricity to your lamp, cell phone or appliance.

Here, in the UK, the outlets look like this:

Oh and they're not called outlets, they're called Plug Ins.

Do you see that little switch next to the plug in? that little tiny switch?? That turns the plug on and off like a light. This saves you electricity.

It doesn't save you hassle though.

I cannot tell you how many times I have plugged in my cell phone when it has died or been almost dead only to come back an hour later and discover it is still dead, or now dead because I forgot to turn the plug on!!

It makes me absuloutely furious, and then when my husband turns around and says "How long have you lived here, and you still don't remember to turn the plug in on?" It makes me want to say "How long have we been together and you still thing saying that will make things better?"

Oh and I have lived here TWO years, I lived in America where we didn't have to turn plugs on for TWENTY SEVEN years. That wins. If I'm still forgetting to turn on the plug ins after twenty seven years, then he can say that... the thing is, I very rarely forget. I remember probably 99 percent of the time, its that 1% that drives me insane.

For instance, yesterday, a Wednesday, I am in music lessons all afternoon right up until dinner time, I have no time to cook. So I always make a crock pot dinner on Wednesdays so I make it before my lessons start, and it's ready when my lessons are over... yesterday though when I said goodbye to my last lesson, my husband informs me "By the way, the crock pot has been off all day. You forgot to turn the plug in on."

AAAHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


EXPLICATIVE! EXPLICATIVE! EXPLICATIVE!

I quickly stuck a steak pie in the oven and we ate an hour late.

Cowboys and Scottish Men

When I lived in Texas, I had to work hard not to listen to country music. I like to say that I can appreciate all types of music, but the truth is, that wasn't always the case. I used to really loathe country music. Now, it feels like home to me. So today as I tidied the kitchen... that's right... tidied... I don't CLEAN anymore, in Scotland, we TIDY up the place if it's mingen (messy)...I put on a favorite song of mine. "I need you" by Tim McGraw featuring Faith Hill... and as I listened to his southern voice, and her spectacular voice singing about whisky, and am radio's and Uncle Joe in Oklahoma, I thought "I love Cowboys!" So how did I end up with a Scot?
Cowboys wear cowboy boots. Scots wear ghillie brogues!
Cowboys wear wranglers. Scots wear kilts.
Cowboys carry a gun. Scots have a Sgian Dubh.
Cowboys have Jack Daniels. Scots have Glen Fiddich
Cowboys have a stetson. Scots have a Sporran... which is worn on their crotch, not on their head...
Cowboys sing about their woes. Scots keep calm and carry on.

Yep... definitely different...

So how did I end up with a Scot?
because a Scot came along and swept me off my feet and showed me how much I never knew that I loved the way their wool socks sag around their ghillie brogues after a night out, and how much I love putting my hand up a kilt underneath the dinner table! How much I never knew I loved whisky, and how great it is to have a man carry my lipstick in his hairy crotch purse (sporran), and to top it all off, carry a little knife around while saying words like "chancer" and "rubbish" and "bonnie" and "brilliant". I love how the scots have as many words for drunk as the eskimos have for snow.

Now, if I could learn to love this lack of visible emotion, I'd be all set... in the mean time... I have Tim McGraw to sing me the things I know my husband feels, but is too calm, and busy carrying on to really tell me.

They're just words, they don't control us...

Today, I was talking to a friend and told her I would "have a think" about something...
3 years ago, I would never have used that phrase..."have a think"... I would "think about it".
Other phrases I have not only learned but adopted against my will, but I think they're super cute are:
"You gave me a fright!"
"Have a go"
"Giving me row"
"Taking the piss"
"Hitdabaw"
"Doing my head in"
"Chock a Block"
Ten points if you can translate all of these!

Kebabs

America has lots of awesome food in giant portion sizes. You couldn't ask for more than that, except kebabs.
It was the first meal I ordered here in Scotland. I looked over the menu of fish and chips and burgers and kebabs and thought... a kebab sounds the healthiest, so a kebab I ordered, and when it came out... it looked like this:


Definately not what I was expecting... which was some meat and veggies slices on a stick... This is a Doner kebab, not a shish kebab... a big difference! Needless to say, I wasn't impressed that first time... but later, I learned how to eat one of these... see I took a fork, and ate the meat one slice at a time....and found it...tasty but...lacking something... because it was! This is supposed to be drizzled with chili sauce and topped with a dollup of peppered mayo, and then you roll up the pita underneath and turn it into something resembling a taco, or pita pocket, or gyro... and it is deilicous! Man oh man, could I go for one right now. This has turned into one of my favorite meals here, and I usually get one when Paul goes away on a three day tour to treat myself. Not sure what the calorie count on one of these babies is, and I'm not even sure it's real meat, but however many thousands of calories I'm eating of horse meat, it's worth it!

European Toilets

This is not a post of the faint hearted, so if that is you, I suggest you read no further.
Here is the thing... I have always hated the toilets, not just in Scotland, but in Europe in general, and here is why.
The flush buttons confused me for years, and there is not enough water in the toilet bowl.
I'm all for being green, but not when it makes my toilet brown.
The water in the toilet bowl in America, is quite high up in the bowl. If you do a number two, it floats around in the water, then you flush, and occasionally it leaves a streak, but a second flush will take care of that, and you rarely have any sign that a number two just took place.
Here, you have a tiny bit of water that just covers the small opening in the toilet. This makes it so that your BM hits the back of the toilet bowl and slides down into the water leaving something resembling a  cow patty on the back of your toilet, forcing you to give the toilet a good scrub with a toilet brush every time you drop a deuce, and keeping you in fear of having a number two if you visit a friend who doesn't keep a toilet bowl brush in their guest bathroom.
The amount of water in the bowl is supposed to keep you from wasting too much water, but when I have to flush the toilet three times before I even get the brush out, I feel like this doesn't actually save much on water.
Now for the flush buttons. In germany, we had a big button you pushed on the wall, here you have two bottons either on the wall or the top of the toilet tank. I have never been able to tell the difference between the flush of one button to the other, so for a few years, I just pushed both buttons at the same time. As it turns out, one button is for flushing pee, and the other is for flushing poo. One has a slightly bigger flush, and if you push both together, it does the bigger number two flush. This is to conserve water when you flush the toilet.
Now I have hated the toilets here for years, but figured I wasn't going to be gross enough to say anything to ANYONE until my step daughter, Amy, came to America with us last summer for a family gathering.
We just arrived at the hotel when she announced she didn't like the toilets in America, because it was disgusting to see your poo floating around in the bowl.
Then Paul, my dear husband whom I love but have nothing in common with, agreed with her, and I had to admit that I missed that part of the bathroom experience...
That said, I would much rather have these toilets than the one I had in Ethiopia... a big hole dug in the ground.