Prepaid Gas and Electricity Meters

What is THAT?? Yep... exactly.
Someone had the audacity to say "Hey! We have prepaid phones and prepaid visa cards, lets make a prepaid gas meter! The home owner will have to have a key that they put an amount on and once that amount is used then the gas gets shut off and they don't have any heat or hot water or a way to cook until they add more money onto it! We will charge them extra for the key, and the meter and a few other taxes here and there as well so they will end up paying 10% more (according to the BBC) on their gas then they would if they had a normal bill, but this way there can never be any debt on the account. Nevermind if the family using the meter has two small children who rely on hot water to heat bottles and have baths and...oh yeah... STAY WARM! If the meter runs out of money at 9:30 at night when all the shops are closed, they can just go without for 12 hours. Let's only put it in poor districts too... nobody cares what the poor think if they complain and if an upper class family moves into the area on accident, because the wife is American who can't tell if a neighborhood is ghetto or not because all the houses are either hundreds of years old or look like the box a refrigerator came in covered in rocks, they can pay the £300 to have it removed, even though we installed it for free! Hey Hey! Lets do it with electricity too!  We are gonna be RICH!"

Prepaid electric meter

prepaid gas meter

TV License

So a few months ago Paul and I were cuddling in front of the TV when a commercial came on. It looked a little bit like a commercial for a dating website when at the end it said "You don't have to do everything all at once. Pay your TV License online one month at a time." I thought it was a joke and started laughing. Paul said "Why is that funny?" and I said, "That TV tax thing". He still looked at me quizzically, and I  said "Oh my word, TV License is real??" He got out a notebook that had his TV License in it. He pays £144 a year for it. That's like $180... to own a TV... so you buy your TV at an exorbitant price at the store and then continue paying on it for the rest of your TV's life. Apparently it is so the BBC doesn't have to have commercials, but I find that it's awfully annoying to not have any. It means that there are no bathroom breaks, no chatting breaks, and you never know what is available in  your city or town restaurant wise or sale wise because there are no commercials for it. This is definitely a negative for the UK. Thankfully though, we only have to pay 1 fee for the household. The rest of Europe must pay PER TV. YIKES!!! I have also heard that Most of Europe has a radio license tax as well. Good news to people with black and white TV's though, you only have to pay £89 a year for your TV license! Although that sounds a little racist to me.

TV license from 2006...looks like the fees have gone up since then!

Duvet Vs. Comforter

So Duvet covers are probaby becoming more and more popular in America, but for the most part people there have big soft comforters. In the UK, you see a comforter occasionally, but for the most part people have a big soft duvet, which is like a blank white comfortor, and a Duvet cover, which is a colorful cover that goes over the Duvet like a pillow case. It's nice for washing, you just take the cover off and wash it like you would your bed sheets and then put it back on your Duvet.
Well Paul and I have a comfortor on our bed and the other day he was helping me change the sheets and he kept turning the comforter and finally through it down exhasperated and said "I can't find the buttons on this Duvet!" I laughed and said "It's a comforter Paul, there are no buttons."
Hehe... He's just adorable!

Culture Shock While Grocery Shopping

So, it took make about three days to write all about my Scottish wedding and post it, but when I finally did, it didn't post the last half which made me really mad so I havent bothered to post anything since then, but I'm over it (sort of) now and ready to start bloggin again.
So... Here we go, since the wedding, I have had a baby,

Moved from one house to another, and discovered a whole host of things about living in Scotland!

For starters, life here is so much harder then I ever thought it would be, and I get frustrated with myself for having such a hard time adjusting. 

Here is the thing... When you move from one developed English speaking country to another developed English speaking country... you don't think it's going to be that much different, but then BAM, all the differences from the major to the miniscule hit you in the face.... and bruise you.

Like when you're grocery shopping with two babies, and they're both screaming, and you're trying to balance a grocery basket on top of a double stroller while getting groceries for a family of 5 for the week.

It takes a lot longer because they call "tomato sauce" "passata" here... because Ketchup is called "tomato sauce". No big deal... unless you spend an hour at the grocery store trying desperately to find tomato sauce, and end up in tears because your recipe calls for two 16 oz cans of tomato sauce and not only can you not find it but everything is done in grams and your phone has died because you forgot to turn on the outlet last night so your phone didnt charge and you cant look up on google how many grams 16 oz is.

Sometimes being a parent can make you look ridiculous! My double buggy doesn't fit through grocery isle...and this is my SMALL double buggy

Pickles are called gherkins here. If you get pickle, it's a jar of a sort of  chutney made with onions and carrot and  who knows what else... it's delicious with cheese and crackers, but if you're expecting a dill pickle, you will be in for a surprise!

Need a ham for Easter? It's called gammon here. 

I will address Grocery carts in my next post, but here, they are called "trollies"

It's kind of like a mean grocery game, but if you're in the right mood... it can be fun...but not when you're with screaming babies... I believe there was one instance when the checkout guy said "You look frazzled" and I screamed "DON'T HAVE SEX EVER!" at him.