Living la vida calor

Oh, I had almost forgotten how much I love California.... Ya know, it's kind of funny. When I was on my first date with Simon in Santa Barbara, I told him that I only ever wanted to live in this little swath of land between San Luis Obispo and Thousand Oaks along the beach. While that dream has really been chucked out the window, when I come back to this part of the world, I still think to myself that this is a wonderful place to live. I could come back here for sure. Even with the outrageous housing costs, it's still better than most places I've lived. And at this point in my life I think I've seen quite a few of them. Barcelona is the exception though, as I still have dreams of retiring there eventually! Living in warm Spain with all the pata negro, manchego and sangria I can consume is my sort of ultra dream paradise! But I digress... So Cal is so nice in the winter, especially on winter days when I can go barefoot outside and sweat in the sun! I'd be freezing back in Edinburgh and not wanting to go outside to go the grocery shopping. I think we may have to rethink our long term living plans, as I really do like to feel warm. The winters are fine, but it's the cold summers that have really gotten to me. It's only when I experience a nice California day in December here that rivals the best August day in Edinburgh, that I realize what I'm missing... :(
But, on the upside, there are no castles here, no public transportation, no old buildings, no tiny fuel efficient cars (just parking lot after parking lot of huge monster pick up trucks and SUVs driving around spotless and with owners going to white collar work or to the grocery store in them), no global news (although the UK isn't the best EU country when it comes to thinking about the rest of the world), no green grass that's not artificially watered, and no good tea or shortbread. I do miss the UK, or Scotland I should say. But I'm not sure I can make it my home for the long haul. But we'll see. I think that's just the Californian in California talking. I'm sure I'll perk back up once I get home and acclimate to the ice and rain.
Anyhow, on other fronts... Marius has chicken pox! The poor kiddo must have picked it up at nursery. There were a few cases in his room there, and the incubation period is about 10-21 days, so I'm sure he got it towards the end of November and it just manifested this week. The crappy thing is that I had already made an appointment with my mom's doctor to get Marius the chicken pox vaccine tomorrow! Oh well, that saves my $80 now! Marius doesn't seem to be really put out with the pox, even though he has one on his tongue, one on his lower eyelash, one on the roof of his mouth, one in his nostril, several on/in his ears and tons on his body. He's only gotten a few on his arms and legs so far, so hopefully they'll stop popping up now and just start going away at this point. He first got them on Sat night, so I think for the most part this is all he's going to get. They haven't yet started to crust up so we've been in quarantine this week. We were supposed to go to LA on Sun with a friend to see the children's science museum, but that got thrown out of the window when I suspected that his spots were chicken pox and not flea bites from my brother's dog! I had hoped to visit the Santa at the mall, complete with a woody and surfboards in fake snow - but that too is now chucked out the window. I will now have to wait for his 3rd Christmas to get a Santa photo....
Have a merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah next week! Sorry photos and videos will have to wait until I can use Simon's computer...

Builder nightmares!

Can I just say that I hate tradesmen???? I have had the WORST time trying to get this leak in the roof sorted. First of all, it's been like pulling teeth to even get roofers out here to look at it. Then the few who do come out don't even bother with mailing me a quote (people here only mail written quotes, they never tell you a price right there on the spot). I waited a month for one, and then after giving up and calling two more roofers I managed to get one more written quote, to have the magic three required so the rest of my building could decide. The unfortunate thing was that all three quotes were for wildly different things... So it's a bit hard to compare apples to oranges. Anyhow, long story short - there is no consensus in the building about what to do. So, I called the Council (that's just what we call city government here) to have them put a statutory notice on the building. That means they'll call in a city building specialist to look at the roof and determine what needs to be done. Then they'll hire a roofer and bill the other tenants separately. The extra cost of having the city manage the work is 15% and their contractors always seem to cost twice as much an anyone else, which is incentive for flat owners to work together and avoid this type of situation. But for me, I'm just tired of staying home on my days off to wait for roofers and trying to get a hold of my neighbors who are never home. It's been 6 months and we still have a stain on my bedroom ceiling! Hopefully the council can get this resolved soon, although I hear they have lots of work and may take a year.... Oh well, perhaps we'll just pay for a half-ass job to try for a quick fix instead of the full blown council work.
That's the roof story, then we also tried to get quotes for reopening up a skylight in our hallway. I called in a builder from what I thought was a reputable firm (http://www.brucecollie.co.uk/), only to have the dishonest idiot either drop something heavy or step on our plaster ceiling. I heard a big crack while he was up there and immediately got scared. But he took forever before coming down and then didn't say anything and I sort of forgot about it. Then after he left I noticed that there was a round caved in portion of our plaster ceiling next to the skylight opening(which is currently covered with plywood). Our ceiling is wall papered, so nothing actually fell down, which makes the repair all that much more expensive, as we'll now need to stripe wallpaper off of our entire 30 foot ceiling, patch the hole/crack and then repaper and paint the thing! I have no clue what the cost will be, but I image it'll be at least £1,000. I called the company and spoke to the secretary. She called the boss and the boss told her to call me back and tell me to talk directly to the kid that came out to do the work! Can you believe that? He didn't' even try to talk to me directly. Well, needless to say this kid said that he didn't step off of the loft joists and crack the plaster - DUH! If he didn't tell me right after he did it, do you think he'd fess up a day later? But he's coming out on Tuesday morning to have a second look at his damage after I told him to. Needless-to-say, I am not letting him up in our loft again. And will have to find out (or ask one of my many techno-genius friends!) how to google slam this builder's website with my poor reviews of his business if he doesn't at least pay my home insurance deductible. Hell hath no furry like a woman scorned!!! Oh, it's all just such a pain in the butt! I wish I had a list of great tradesmen without having to learn the hard way!
Well, enough about my flat bitching... Here's a great video of Marius having a blast with his friend Francis. And some photos of our wonderful day today at Campbell Castle.

A very beachy weekend

This weekend has been great!!! I'm not sure I have ever seen such a dry weekend in the year and some months I've lived here. So, we decided to go to the beach yesterday and today. Yesterday we went on a bit of a drive out to Gullane, where we enjoyed a beautiful sunset. Unfortunately it was at 3:30 in the afternoon.... But we get more than our fair share of sunshine in the summer, so it really does even out. Marius was a little scared of the ocean at first though, which made us feel bad for not going out there more often. He just started shaking and staring out at the water. I thought he was just cold, but after putting on his mittens, we realized it wasn't the cold wind, but the water that was scaring him. Perhaps watching a video of killer whales coming up to shore and eating baby seals the night before walking along the beach wasn't the best of ideas! But after a half hour or so, he got more excited about it and forgot his fear.
As we were walking along the beach I told him that we'd go to another beach in California, where Nana and Paka live next month. And, mom you will be VERY happy to know that for the first time he said "nana" and "paka." But I think my may think you are the ocean, because he kept saying it after I mentioned the word beach! Oh well, he'll get to spend about 3 weeks with you in December, so it'll sink in who you are then!
We went to another beach today too. But this one was much closer to the house and not quite as scenic. The tide was really far out, exposing lots of sand with little ripple ridges and pools of water. Marius really enjoys splashing in the puddles, so next time we'll have to make sure he's wearing his rain suit and has his wellington boots. That being said, he didn't seem to mind it being cold and his trousers (I have to remember to keep saying trousers as opposed to pants, because pants mean underwear here!) being wet.

Here are some pics from the weekend.

Happy Halloween

Another year, another pumpkin outfit. Perhaps next year we'll spice it up a bit, but this day always seems to sneek up on my like an invisible ghost. Ghosts get my every time too...
We sadly had no trick or treaters this year. :( I heard lots in the houses behind us, but I think most people don't think of our building as residential, plus it's on a busy street. Oh well, more chocolate for me!!
Marius dressed up for nursery today. He was totally the cutest one there! They had party events all day so the kids had a particularly fun time.
This weekend is supposed to be fairly sunny. Cold, but sunny. I'm going to take Marius to meet some friends at the soft play by our old flat, then perhaps we'll try to get out of town for a little hike or something. Hopefully we'll have some good photos out and about.

Well, enjoy the pics!

Another cold, rainy and windy weekend

Oh boy I'm sick and tired of horrible weekends! I didn't want to leave the house yesterday because it was to rainy and windy all day. And today I can't leave the house because I'm prepping for my colonoscopy tomorrow. For anyone who has been through the process, you'll understand. For those unfamiliar with the process, trust me, you'd rather not know the details.
I wish the weather would perk up so we could spend more time outside. I think we're just going to have to get used to being wet outside. It's either that or we never go outside... Oh well, it's not all bad. I was going through my videos today and I did manage to get the family out in our garden for some yard work and playing. I planted tons of bulbs and some poppy seeds, so come springtime it should be pretty out there.



Keep your fingers crossed that tomorrow goes well for me. There are some ways that the medical system here is better than the states. But for major stuff, I think I'd still go back home... that is if I had insurance. (which I wouldn't unless I had a good job) I'm a bit scared about the whole process here and not getting enough drugs to knock me out. Ah well, I will survive.

I'm cold!

Yup, that's about all. I am really cold, but refuse to turn on the heater when it's right before bedtime... Perhaps I ought to just get in bed.

Who can blog when there's driving to be done?

Yes, that's right... I am now officially legal to drive forever in the UK!!!!! Well, I'm not sure about the forever part of it, but I did manage to pass my driving test the first time. Now, all of you Americans will think that's no major feat, but let me tell you the driving test here is rediculously stringent and the fail rate is like 60% in most places. Simon failed his first test, so I was nervous. But after hundreds of pounds worth of driving lessons, it paid off and I passes straight away. I totally could have been failed, but the guy was really nice and turned a blind eye to a few things and scored them as minor faults instad of major faults which mean you fail.
We haven't really been able to take full advantage of my new driving situation because I was sick two weeks ago and this past weekend we had a nursery fiasco.... The fiasco was that it was closed on Friday for staff training. Ordinarily this wouldn't have been a problem, but neither Simon nor I knew about it, so he went to drop Marius off - right before he was due at the train station to take a trian up to St. Andrews where his friend would pick him up and drive another hour and a half up into the woods to conduct a weekend field trip. Ugh, Simon called me and I had no clue why the nursery had its light off and doors locked. After many frantic calls to my nursery and their corporate office, I was finally informed of this training... I guess they had fliers up on the walls, but they also have about 10,000 other pieces of paper and crap all over the walls, so how was I supposed to know which ones I should read? Anyhow, they credited me with a day, so I saved about $100. But the end result was that I had to drive Simon up to this woodsy lodge after work on Friday. So we took a 2.5 hour drive in the dark and rain. If the motorways here were as well lit as in the US, it wouldn't have been any trouble, but it's really hard to see at night on the roads here so by the time we go up to the lodge, I didn't want to do any more driving. But, of course there were no extra rooms, so I shared a twin room with Simon, our friend Mike who works at St. Andrew's University, and Marius. It was a closet of a room, so needless to say it was quite cramped. Then I drove back home Sat and had the rest of the weekend to myself as Simon was still up in the woods. Oh well, perhaps this weekend we'll get out and take a hike somewhere. I'm dying to start roaming in the countryside again. Although the days are getting really short now and it's totally cold, but better that than staying inside for the rest of my life I suppose.
That's about all. There is no resolution on the roof... I think I will have to pay 50% of the cost with my downstairs neighbor, and he thinks the whole building will have to share the cost... How to resolve that, I'm not sure, but I've been ingnoring the issue. I need to invite him up here with his wife so we can site down with a glass of wine and look at the deeds to see what's what. But, the house is a mess so I've put it off. The house is always a mess though... so I should just go down and have a chat anyhow. Oh well, I'm tired of thinking about it. I just wish I could get it done myself and not organize some sort of communal payment. What a pain in the backside!

Busting out the jackets and blankets

It's official, the temperature has dropped into the single digits (Celsius) and there's no going back I'm afraid. The days are really short now and getting shorter with each passing of the sun. I've succumbed to turning the radiators on daily and have packed up my clothes drying rack as a result. My slippers have come out of the closet and the trees are turning yellow. I'm still half hoping for a Santa Ana to blow its way across the hemisphere so I can finally wear some sandals. But alas, this is Scotland. I just need to suck it up, buy a pair of fancy wellies (wellington boots - aka rubber boots) and lots of trendy tights to spice up my wardrobe. I think I'll get the boots here, but other than that, I'm waiting until we go home for Christmas to go on a minor shopping spree. I figure I've literally only bought two pairs of jeans since moving out here a year and a half ago, so I deserve the spree. Plus, I guess it's my American duty to throw my IRS check down the drain at the mall. Credit crunch be gone! I'll pump up the economy myself by buying lots of stuff!
But before we head over to Lala land, I've got lots of things to tidy up here. Like our roof and fireplace situation. I noticed a water damage spot growing on my bedroom ceiling in late August, so called several roofers to get a quote to fix the problem. But, I've gotten different responses from each roofer. Varying from the need to replace our entire roof (two of them actually said that!) to repointing (that's british for regrouting the stones/bricks) the chimney (all of them have said that) to just punching a hole in the fireplace myself to vent it. I am going to get one more roofer's opinion, and this one was a strong recommendation from an architect friend before making any decisions. But it's been over a month now, and I'd like to get some resolution, as I've already had chats with my neighbors in the building since they'd all pay a share of the cost... What a pain. But I hope it'll all be over soon. Then I can focus on getting a fireplace put into our front room, as I've given up the hope that I'd actually sledge out the bricks myself and install one. I really think this work can be done in the next 2 months so we can go away and not have to worry so much. Then when we come back it'll be time to focus on the bathroom remodel. I really want that done before my parents come out in May. I don't think my dad would be too happy with taking a bath! But I suppose he'd manage somehow!!!
Other than that, work is going really well. My contract was extended to the end of November, and I'm really starting to enjoy it and feel confident about my performance there. Hopefully something more permanent will pop up in the new year, but for now I'm just happy to have gotten back into a work routine and settled Marius into nursery. Simon's work is going really well too. He's working on a paper that will be submitted to Nature, and he's the third of about 5 or 6 authors! Keep your fingers crossed that it'll be accepted! The other authors are famous and have tons of Nature papers already, and the work is rather sexy, as science goes, so that will for sure help the chances.
Here's another gratuitous pic of the boys!

Where did my summer go?

That's the question everyone in Scotland is saying. Why you might ask? Well, let's just say it was above 75 degrees about three times the whole summer. And we never had a week go by without at least 3 days of rain thrown in the mix. This summer was the wettest on record. That's what everyone told me last summer, so I was half hoping that this one would be different. Oh well, that's climate change for you. All of the scientists said that Scotland, and indeed the UK as a will be getting more rain as a result, but it'll come in larger chunks, so we can expect more flooding with a drought or two during the non-rainy season. This country has never had a non-rainy season, so water conservation is absolutely unheard of here. They'll be in for a big surprise when pretty soon Earth's climate really starts taking a turn for the worse. But we don't need to worry about that, because the Republican party will just pray to God for a miracle right? And if the entire country of Bangladesh drowns and dies, then well, I suppose it'll be because they didn't convert to some crazy evangelical form of Christianity and we'll have another minor Noah's flood. I'm sure that'll be mentioned by some nimrod in the next 25 years....
Oh, I'm not even living in North America any more and already I'm livid about this election! I would probably be so angry I'd just spontaneously combust if I were still in Tennessee. It's far too cold and rainy here for that to happen though!
Anywho. Work has been going really well. I am enjoying it, and will be a bit bummed when my very short term contract is up. At the very least it's been good to meet people in the field and get back into the swing of things. Plus Marius is starting to really enjoy nursery, so that's good. Although we can't afford to keep him there if I'm not working... So after my long Californian Christmas, I might have to really kick my job hunting into full swing and actually blast my resume out there. We'll see though.
Marius is totally turning into a British kid! He says Nee-Nar for his emergency vehicle sirens! Here's a video of him saying it. It's too cute! What next I wonder? Hiya instead of Hello? Mum instead of Mom?

I can't resist this one...

OK, so I know this is really just supposed to be all about the family and whatnot. BUT.... This is really too good not to share. And hopefully all of you Bill O'Reilly loving people out there (uh hmm, Mom and Dad) will start to listen to him with just a wee bit more attention and hopefully some critisism. You should listen to all opinion shows with critisism anyhow... But that's another blog entry for another day.


And for some pure good kid fun. Here's a lovely video of Marius loving his cousins!

First day of nursery and work

Well, today Simon dropped Marius off at his nursery, and I went into work for the first time in 18 months! It was really nice to be back in an office again. I'm still just getting my head around my projects and trying to figure out what I need to start doing. But it is interesting work, and it's nothing too complicated, just a lot of keeping people on track. It'll be easier than getting Simon to do the laundry!!!!
Marius had a little cry when Simon dropped him off, and again when he had to go inside after lunch, and again when he was going down for a nap. But that's not too bad for the day. We get a little piece of paper with the list of things he did and ate, and it said he had a "fab" day playing with "goo." I'm not sure what that is, but when I took off his socks to put him in the bath, he had something yellow on his entire foot. I think he got a marker on his foot, but why the whole foot, I'm not sure?
The poor boy got what looked like an insect bite on his face on Friday. Then he had more later than night and again on Saturday and Sunday. Last night we figured they were hives, and today I got a call from the nursery saying that he had red bumps on his back. I will try to call the Dr tomorrow to see if he can be seen, but I'm sure it's not a bug, as they come and go pretty quickly for the most part, and we washed everything in his room, plus if it were a bug, I'd have gotten bit too. It's strange... we didn't change any soaps. I think it may have been due to lunch meat or Indian take out we had on Friday night, but then again, he had one of the bumps before the Indian food on Friday.... hmmmm mysterious, and a little frustrating, as I want to know what is triggering these mystery hives. It seems to be a little bit more common when he's upset, but he still has a few of them through out the day when he's totally fine too.
Oh, we had a blast with Paula and the family. I cried when they left.... Four days was WAY too short. Marius loved playing with his Uncle Ian and the kids. And I'm sure the feeling was mutual. It was really nice to see them all playing together. I can't wait for them to come back again next year. It should be fun!

Guess who FINALLY landed a job?

Yes, that's right. I will be working!!! It's only temporary from next week until the end of October. But if I like the job and want to work full time, I may apply for a permanent post in November. At any rate, this gets me back into the game and making a little pocket cash. Actually I'll be making about the same as Simon, just at a pro rated amount - three days a week. So, I may just get used to the pay check and go back full time... Well, first things first, I need to start right?
My first day is August 11th, and I'll be a research coordinator. Basically, the Scottish and Northern Irish governments need someone to put together white papers or research work on their environmental regulations, and my company manages the projects. So, we hire contractors to actually do the writing, and we hold meetings/steering groups to make sure that the contractors know the direction they should be going in, stakeholders are satisfied, and the client (government for the most part) is happy with the finished product. It's sort of like what I was doing at TDEC, but much more structured, better funded, and I don't have to do the research/writing myself. My job will be mostly project management, which for some crazy reason, I really enjoy! I hope it all works out.
I take Marius to his first day of day care on Monday. We're just popping in in the morning for an hour to get him used to it. The daughter of the couple downstairs works at this day care and will be there on Monday, so that makes me happy. I've never met her before, but her parents are super sweet, and her brother is really nice, so I'm glad to have someone there who may take an extra interest in him. Marius will probably love day care. Last time we were there touring, he started crying when we left. But that was before I took him there and left him... I hope he's OK with it.

The kilted bandit

Marius is the proud owner of a kilt! Sonali gifted Marius before she headed off to London this weekend, so we promptly put it on and toured the town a bit yesterday. The weather was GREAT! It was around 80 degrees yesterday, and I was absolutely shocked. It was the hottest I've been since moving to Edinburgh (with the small exception of our trip to Spain last summer). Of course the weather didn't last and the fog rolled in last night. I was wearing a jacket today while on my way to the drivers training theory test. I passed, so now all I need to do is buy a car, take a few lessons, and schedule the driving test. Then we'll be back on the roads!
Here is a video of our wee lad in his wee kilt!

Weekend outing

We took a small hike up to Corstorphine Hill this morning. The raspberry bushes along the trails are starting to put out fruit, so we can't wait to come back in 2 weeks time and have a proper meal along the way! Marius absolutely loves his backpack, and we've had to put it away in the closet when he's not looking, otherwise he gets really upset. And when we open the closet, he starts crying if he sees the backpack and we don't take it out.

Our friend from Nashville, Sonali, has been here the past two weekends, so we've had a nice time reminiscing about Tennessee. She's off to London tomorrow, and then Paula and the family come August 4th. I'm so excited about the Nettleships, I can't stand it! I just wish our bathroom could have been done. Oh well, it's good to have people see the before and after I suppose. I just hope our decrepit toilet hold up for another month!
We have been totally lazy about the house stiff lately. Other than getting a plumber to bypass our cold water supply so it doesn't come from the lead cistern in the loft/rafters and the subsequent call back due to a small leak (that stained our dining room ceiling! Urgh!) in said pipe, we've been pretty much just enjoying the fruits of our past month's labor. But I have been thinking a lot about how I'm going to put in the molding around the Edinburgh Press and then installing the floor skirting. I have backed away from buying a circular saw, and instead think I may just opt for a miter box so I can cut 45 degree angles for the molding corners, although a saw would be SO much faster. We need paint too, as all of our skirting boards are super banged up from the guys who sanded the floors. And the carpet in the kitchen (yes, the lady here put carpet in the kitchen and the newspaper underneath it is from 1996!) needs to go, but I first have to sand the floors a bit and the paint them... But I keep telling myself I'll do that eventually. I'm not sure what day of the year eventually is... but if you know, would you let me know so I can start planning that job? Thanks!

Legos!

Yeah, enough said. Actually they're duplos but we call them all legos, and he can sort of say lego so we haven't changed. We just got this huge box of them from a colleague of Simon's and Marius is absolutely loving them. He's been going to sleep while holding them in his hand. Too cute!

more painting results

Here are some pics of the painting in the front room. We've finished with the ivory paint and after painting the feature wall, we've decided we don't like it! So, I need to go to Home Base today and buy some new paint. I tried a few test pots of paint yesterday and we've decided on a color called Cookie Dough. It's a browny tan and I think it will go nicely with the ivory and white already in the room. Then we can move furniture in here this weekend and finally be settled. Well, that is settled until we have our onslaught of house guests and then start to plan the new bathroom. Then it'll be Christmas before we know it! Amazing how time flies when you're busy isn't it?

DIY and driving updates...

We've put on the first coat of ivory paint for three of our lounge walls. Next we'll get the second coat up (totally needed) and then paint our "feature wall" a lovely shade of olive! So exciting!!!! This has been a long time coming, I can tell you that. Next I need to call in a joiner (that's British for a carpenter) to put in the skirting and molding around the Edinburgh press that Simon so wonderfully opened up the other day. The next round of video should be really nice.
Oh, and we're now officially not supposed to drive in the UK... Our foreign licences were only good for one year, and I arrived here on July 5th. Simon got his provisional licence already and will have to take a written and driving test before he's legal again. I'm still waiting for my provisional licence (and passport that they made me give them!) to get mailed to me. Then I'll have to take the tests too. But in the mean time, provisional licence holders can't drive on the motorway (British for freeway) ever, and we can't drive period without someone who has had their UK licence for at least 3 years! So, I've been studying up on UK driving regulations, and man this test is so much more comprehensive than the ones in the US. Plus there's all of this crazy stuff in there like knowing the difference between various types of cross walks (called Zebra, Puffin, Pelican, Toucan, and Pegasus crossings - no joke!) and how to use roundabouts.

Encounters with British electricity

As if the lead tainted plumbing still in existence over most of the country wasn't bad enough... You would not believe how crazy the electricity here is! I thought that I was pretty DIY savvy. I knew how to throw a switch back on if one was thrown off, and even though I have never seen a old school fuse box, I'm sure I could easily pull out a fuse and replace it with a new one if I had to or even use a penny to temporarily fix it, as I've replaced fuses in cars before (thanks to Phil's Nissan truck).
So, I took this bravado with me as I decided to change a light fitting in the new flat. I switched off the main power point with the fuses in it and then unscrewed the light fitting to take out the old wires and put in the new ones for the new light. But the old wires didn't really jive with my new light, so I'll need to get a DIY book from the library to figure that out, but I'm thinking it won't be so hard. In the mean time, I decided to try and isolate all of the fuses in my fuse box and label them with little stickers so I would know which were which in case anything ever blew. That's when I gave our fuse box a good hard look and realized it didn't look anything like I had ever seen or heard about before. So, I did what any good internet surfer would do, I googled "how to change a fuse" with Google UK. And this is what I saw...
Amazing video showing how the UK is still in the dark ages when it comes to electricity!
Can you believe I have to make my own freaking fuse? It's not just some pull out thingy that you buy at Home Base. I mean, I'm a fairly competent DIYer and I'd have to say an all around bright person, so I'm sure I can do this. But I HAVE to, as that's how things are done here! You'd think with all of the lead pipes in this country, the general population wouldn't be smart enough to figure this thing out without blowing themselves up. But, for some reason I don't hear about people getting killed while changing fuses, so apparently either they just don't blow that often, or people grow up knowing how to wire their own fuses. And it's so normal here to unscrew your plug and change it if you need to. But I've NEVER heard of anyone in the states doing that sort of thing. They just throw away an appliance if something goes wrong with it. So, I guess in some sort of health and safety sort of way it's a bad thing, but in an environmental or sustainable way it's a good thing. It was just a shock to my system when I saw this video and realized that I needed to go and buy fuse wires in case of a blow out.

Taa Daaa!!!!!

OK, so I know this has been a long time coming. We've been busy busy busy with the new flat, but it's FINALLY ready for viewing. Here are some videos of our finished work and an in between showing of our final room to redecorate. In the past few weeks, I've had our kitchen tap water analyzed for lead because we have a lead lined cold water tank in the loft/rafters that feeds the flat with water. The water is pretty contaminated! So, that means we need to completely gut the plumbing in the flat to rectify the problem. Normally this would just be expensive, but since we share the building with three other flats and one business, this makes it extra expensive and complicated... Needless to say I've have just about every plumber in the city over to look at our place and they all tell me a different story. Some want to replace the tank with a plastic one, some want to take us off of the tank and install a pressurized cylinder, and some want to bypass the tank and hook up off of the mains water pipe for our cold water but keep the tank and contamination for the hot water. I haven't a clue what the best option is, but we have another plumber coming today and another one again tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. I'm not sure how the UK managed to be considered a first world country with the horrible plumbing system that they have. The pressure is really bad, and they still have tons of lead all over the country! It's a wonder anyone in this country grows up to be smart, as lead contributes to lower IQ in developing babies.

Time is flying by

I can't believe it's already June. I've almost been here an entire year!! We're still pretty busy with the flat. We've torn most of the wallpaper off of one of the front rooms, and now we just need to get off the old glue and tiny traces of paper before we can prime it for painting. We were supposed to spend the day there to knock out a lot of that, but Marius came down with a slight fever last night, so I'm staying home with him and Simon's unpacking stuff. I hope the boy's fever is just a 24 hour thing and doesn't turn into anything worse. He seems absolutely fine, he's just a bit hot. We had the most beautiful day yesterday. It was sunny and warm -- Absolutely amazing! Now it's a bit overcast and in the low 60's but that is still shorts and t-shirt weather here! I hope this nice weather gets more frequent now that it's summer, so our visitors don't think we live in the arctic trundra!

A work in progress

The floors are sanded and look really nice. Now, we just need to thoroughly wipe down every square inch of wall, floor, ceiling, radiator, molding etc... as there is a super fine layer of dust over everything in the place now. Also the ugly fake brick thing in the last video series is now removed and in the back bedroom in pieces. What we discovered behind it is quite interesting. We found a bricked up old fireplace and an Edinburgh press and lots of holes in the plastering. So we have lots to do in this room still! Yikes. But the good news is that the wall paper is coming off fairly easily. So lets hope that it stays that way. Anyhow, here's a peak at the new floors and our mess of a wall. Also there's a clip of our garden. I just ordered my compost bin and it should arrive in the next few weeks! I can't wait to take out the row of plants between our plot and our neighbors (don't worry we'll salvage the azalea and other nice plants) and put a row of super fertile compost in there to grow some veggies. I'm already envisioning a lovely wall of peas and squash on a trellis. But that will be next spring.

Flat update

Well, I have seen the sanded floors and they look really nice. The only problem is when the removed the ugly faux brick thingy, it revealed a old fireplace which was bricked up. So, now we have some exposed wall timbers and bricks.... But, it also revealed a hidden Edinburgh press. That's a built in shelf that most older flats in Edinburgh have. It's really nice, but it was plastered over, so now it's exposed from waist level down. We'll have to brake through or cut out the top portion of the wall there to make use of it. But that will mean totally redoing the plastering or drywall on that whole wall to make it even.... urg! I'm sure that will be a good £1k or so! We didn't anticipate that, but in the end it will be a lot nicer. I'll call some people on Monday and have another week of quotes and workmen over at the flat. Urg! Oh well, the upside is that I didn't get the job I interviewed for, so there's no worry about finding a day care or juggling my time.

OUR NEW FLAT!!!!!

We got the keys to our new flat on Friday! Yippie!!! Here are tons of videos showing you around it. The carpet is pretty god awful, so we're having it taken out and sanding the pine floors underneath. It'll be rustic by American standards, but that's just the way most flat here look - gaps between the floorboards. Anyhow, I'll post an after video when it's done.
This week has been a little stressful. Simon flew out to New Orleans for a week long conference (yeah, I know, it's a hard hard life!) on Monday. I had three contractors come over on Monday to give me quotes on the sanding, then I ran over to a job interview which I subsequently bombed... I was way too nervous and I've gotten so used to being around kids I had forgotten all of my three syllable plus words! I think I sounded like a moron, so I think Marius will likely be enjoying more mommy time in the immediate future. But I digress... Today I ripped up the ugly red flowered hallway carpet, had two plumbers come and give me estimates on replacing a lead lined cold water cistern, and dropped off our 30 days notice on our rented flat. Tomorrow I need to go let the sanders into the flat and jet over to New Town to drop off some more paperwork for the rented apartment and some paperwork for our home insurance.
The upside to all of this running around and driving back and forth across town is that I am now not nearly so afraid of driving through the heart of the city like I used to be. I finally feel like I know my way around a bit. I still get a little worried if there's no car in front of me to follow when I get to a 5 or 6 way intersection. But I'm a lot more confident in the car now!
Enjoy our flat! PS, all the plant stuff and furniture in the stairwell were left my the little old lady who we bought the flat from! Wasn't that nice of her?

Wonderfully Warm Weather

Oh my God!!!! It has been so nice this week. For the first time since I moved here in July, I experienced what it feels like to be warm! We've had spectacular weather and it should hold up until the weekend. It was 70 degrees yesterday, and today is around 65. I've been walking around in sandals and a skirt today and loving it. When Marius wakes up, we'll take a walk over to the playground so he can enjoy the warmth a bit outside. We went to the beach on Monday (a bank holiday here, meaning it's just a random holiday with no name or meaning) and Marius loved it. Here are some pictures of our afternoon there. It was still a bit cold though when the wind came up, but nice enough to dip your toes in the water at least. Marius ate a few handfuls of sand though! Gross! But it really didn't seem to bother him at all. It seemed to pass through his digestive tract just fine though, so perhaps he is needing some minerals like quartz and mica to keep him strong and healthy.

Garden of Cosmic Speculation

Yesterday we went to an AMAZING garden. It's name is the Garden of Cosmic Speculation, and that is so appropriate. Apparently it isn't open to the public at all, but they decided to have a one day open viewing. It was so cool. Simon fell in love with it, so we may have to move to the country one day and recreate some of what we saw... The shapes and forms used in this garden are so simple yet elegant and unique. It's just like nothing we have ever seen and on such a grand scale it just blows you away. So, here are some of the very cool things we say yesterday.
Oh, and Spring has finally arrived here in Scotland!!!! It's 63 degrees this morning, so we're going to go to the beach and put Marius's feet into the water! It's a bank holiday today, although we're not sure why... So Simon doesn't feel too bad about taking a half day to head coastward with us. It should be fun.
Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Chicken Pox Quarentine

We're in quarantine at the moment. Marius and I went over to a friend's house on Friday to see if we could get Marius to catch her daughter's chicken pox. My thinking was this... His reaction to the virus will only get worse with time, and his ability to scratch will only get better with time. Day care makes you take 10 days off before a poxed kid can come back, so better have it over with now, than when Simon's on a field trip to Spain (which we was just doing last week... the lucky dog!) and I have some big deadline at work. That is if I EVER manage to find a job. But that's another story. But back to the quarantine. Apparently it takes anywhere from 10 to 24 days to incubate before you see the symptoms. So, we need to wait 3 weeks to even see if he'll get chicken pox or not! I didn't really think through that part so much.... So now we can't go to any of our play groups, and I'm a bit nervous about taking him into stores or anything, as you never know who shouldn't be exposed to the virus. Needless to say, I'm going to be a little bummed if I wait 3 weeks and he doesn't catch it! Oh well.
So, I promised my mom I'd post a video of Marius walking, and I have been terrible about doing it. Here it finally is. Marius's left foot seems to be pointing out when we walks, but it is getting a little better. I think I might take him to the Dr. if it doesn't go away, but now that we're in quarantine... It'll have to wait, as they get really mad if you take a chicken poxed kid into a waiting room with a bunch of sick people!

No time no time

I know, I have not updated this thing in ages! I've been a little busy with Simon's mom in town. But right now Marius is taking a nap and everyone is out of the flat. It's actually really nice to have some alone time. I think our flat is a bit to small to have house guests, even family over here for weeks at a time. But anyhow...
here are some nice pictures of some of our adventures. We went to an aquarium the first weekend Monika was in town, then we went to St. Andrews this past weekend. I have no clue what we'll be up to this weekend. But in the middle there's lots of toddler groups (playgroups for you Americans) that we go to and coffee shops we pop into for lunch.
More later...

Running and the runs

We walked to Holyrood Park today to watch the World Cross Country Championships. I really didn't have high expectations, as my last cross country meet was back in high school and I was running it. I absolutely hated running, and one season of x-country in high school was enough to make me loathe the sport for years. But, I wanted to get out and about and this WAS the championship, so the best runners in the world were there. Not that I keep up with this sort of thing, but one of the favorites was this guy from Ethiopia named Kenenisa Bekele.
Anyhow, we found a reasonably good place to watch the race from up on the hill. Just seeing all of the people around made me sort of excited. It was so official and everyone had their country's flags and colors. It almost made me want to have an American flag and cheer on our guys. But I settled for sitting in the grass and eating some cookies while watching near anorexic men run at lightning fast speeds for 12 kilometers (7.5 miles). But I digress.... I was all excited when the gun went off and the men started running. They had this ATV going alongside the front runners to get them on camera. There was this huge screen down below so we could sort of make out the runners.
Then about 5 minutes into the race, the commentator got all excited and started shouting "Oh no! Bekele's shoe has just fallen off!" Apparently another runner had clipped his foot and his shoe came ripping half off. So this guy had to completely take it off and then put it back on his foot after a few footsteps in the muddy (it was raining all morning) grass and then take off again. I can't believe how quickly he got it back on, because he wasn't even the last guy when he got up and started running again. I figured he'd be a goner at that point, no matter how good he was. Given how he had to run extra hard to catch up to the front of the pack again and one of his feet was muddy and wet inside his shoe, he would have had good reason to trail off a bit. But he kept going strong and eventually won the race! Can you believe that?Needless to say it was an exciting race. I'm eating my words a bit to have to say that.
Simon was running around and taking photos of the guys as they ran by down below where Marius and I were watching from. Here are some of his photos.

Oh, and speaking of running... Marius still has the runs, so I'll call the Dr tomorrow to see what they say. I'll also call our landlord because there's water dripping down from our bathroom ceiling! This is the second time it's happened....
Here's a little video of the race. Note the piper on the rocks.... No event in Scotland would be complete without a bag piper in the background or foreground.

Update...

Yup, just got chewed out!

Sicky poo baby

(Warning! Non-parents may be grossed out by the following blog!)
So, I was out to coffee with some other mummies and babies on Tuesday - my standard Tuesday lunch date. And all of a sudden I smelt something funny coming from Marius's direction. So, I gathered my nappy bag and the kid and went into the bathroom for what I thought would be a routine changing. But to my surprise the poop had shot out the backside of the nappy and all over his back and shirt! I haven't seen a blow-out like this since he was 6 months old! I hadn't even packed any extra clothes for the boy in my bag, since it's been ages since we've had to change clothes due to a nappy! Luckily I managed to salvage his outfit with only taking of his shirt and leaving the sweatshirt. Anyhow, that was the beginning.... All week we've had explosions and the poor boy has had one really bad nappy rash.
It didn't seem worth calling the Dr. though, and since we only have GP's here and no pediatricians, I didn't want to deal with some regular Dr. But today it's gotten a bit worse. I think it probably has something to do with Simon taking care of Marius all morning while I was volunteering at a nearly new sale for a charity I help out with. While, I may get chewed out for writing this... I think he let the boy fall asleep for an hour with a dirty nappy... Hence the super red butt I am now dealing with. Then he gave Marius left over mashed potatoes for lunch! The potatoes were a bit overly milky anyhow, and the boy is allergic to cow's milk. What in the world he was thinking I'll never know... But the poor boy's stomach has been purging itself from the bottom all day. Oh, I could just ring that daddy's neck sometimes!!!!
Well, to make matters worse, pedialyte does not exist in this country. So I tried making my own homemade sugar/salt concoction. I even blended a banana in it. But the boy refused to drink it. Thankfully Simon's mom is flying over on Monday, so I asked her to pick us up some pedialyte. Marius doesn't seem dehydrated or really bad, but it can't hurt.
So, any advise out there mommies on what to feed a 14 month old with diarrhea? I don't want to starve the poor kid, but I don't want to irritate his intestines any more. I gave him chicken/veggie soup for dinner with plain old white bread (I'd never buy white bread otherwise, but I didn't want to give him much fibre). I think I'll just give him bananas for breakfast and then try with the soup again for lunch and dinner. Part of me is wondering if he's allergic to soy milk, and it's just taken a month or two to manifest in his poops.... As we've switched to soy milk for him when he turned one. I think I'll buy rice milk and make the switch to see if that clears things up. Oh gosh, I hope he gets better soon. One or two days is fine, but 5 days is really starting to push it. I know I'd be calling the Dr. if it were me.
I can't remember who told me that when I had a kid, poop would be a routine topic of conversation for me and that I'd eventually go so far as to put a poopy diaper in my purse one day to show a Dr! I thought they were crazy! Yeah, well, I've been there and done that! And I'm still talking about poop all the time.

So here's some fun videos of the boy. You can see a little bit of his walking skills in the first one, but mostly it's just him making a mess.

Here's another one of the boy. He loves pulling all of the shampoo bottles into the tub and then he throws them out of the tub. We have started to end "bath time" when we throws the soaking wet washcloth out of the tub though. Because that just leads to a very wet bathroom mat and floor.

I'm in self pity mode today

I know, I know, it's been forever since I've blogged. I was hoping I would have some exciting news about the interview. But, since I today received the standard "although you have excellent experience, we have decided to hire someone else, blah, blah, blah..." email today. So, I guess now I don't have to scramble to find some day care for the boy. That is a good thing I guess, as the one I went to last week really didn't sit well with me. Basically there's only one or two that I have seen that I like, but neither have space right now. Which reminds me, I should at least put in my application for the waiting list for the day care I like near the new flat.
So, there really isn't any new news here. It's cold, but it's been cold since I got here in July, so that really isn't too surprising. It was snowing today as I walked to the library to return some overdue books. And I walked all that way just to find out that the library was closed. Apparently it's Easter Monday! Who knew the day after Easter was a holiday? We didn't do anything special for Easter this year. Marius is still too young to understand or to eat sweets. So he didn't have any of the good stuff. Plus it was too cold for an Easter egg hunt. We did go for a nice long drive though, and we'll go back for a picnic when it warms up a bit - meaning in August!

Jobs and day care

I shouldn't jinx myself.... but I will. I had a job interview this week. It went pretty well I think. It was for a part time (17.5 hours per week) research job at the University of Edinburgh working on a ground source heat pump project in the political science department. It would be a non sciency type job, which actually suits me just fine. But, I'm not getting my hopes up, as they had a few jobs advertised, and they told me they had several people applying to several of the jobs - meaning they might hire one person to work on two part time jobs. So, apparently I'll hear something after Easter. I also have some other interesting part time job leads, so I'm quite content to just wait things out and see what else pops up.
The most nerve racking thing about going back to work, or thinking about going back to work, has been figuring out Marius's day care situation. So, we're moving from the south side of town to the north side of town in May/June but if I start working sooner than that, then I'll need to do a lot of commuting before we move as I want a day care near the new flat. That's a pain, but it's just logistical and I can deal with that. The hard part is that the day cares that I like, are full or at least partially full at the moment.... Meaning I either need to hold off on looking for a job, or I have to put Marius somewhere less than ideal (not an option!) until August when spaces will open up, or Simon will need to take some serious time off during the week days to help out and then work more on the weekends. I think the later will be what we'll do and hopefully squeeze one day a week of day care at the place we like (but that's all the time they have until August) that's across town from us at the moment. Then, after we move, we'll be much closer to the day care and then by August we can have Marius there 2 full days a week and Simon will just take one half day a week to look after the boy. I am super happy about that, as it actually means Marius gets more "daddy time" than he is getting now. But, I need to get a job first don't I? There are lots of unknowns and what ifs at the moment!

We had a lovely weekend. Yesterday we went up to County Fife just north of Edinburgh and across the Firth of Forth. It was a nice sunny, albeit cold, day. We made the most of it by going to a nice park/garden in Dunfermline. We've been there before and knew they had a green house, so regardless of the weather we'd be OK. Marius got to stretch his legs a bit in the greenhouse and was loving touching all of the plants. I think we could have a budding botanist on our hands. His grandfather would be so proud, as Simon's dad was a botanist/biochemist. After the gardens we decided to go to Aberdour Castle. It was really beautiful there, and the views of Edinburgh were amazing! You could totally make out the castle and Arthur's Seat on the skyline.

walking walking walking

So, I have a video of the little tyke walking around, but You Tube is down at the moment, so I'll have to try to upload a video later. While you wait, here are some cute shots of the boy and some scenic shots of St. Andrews. We had a bit of a boiler problem last week.... had it fixed, had it broken, then had it fixed again, only to have it break down again a day and a half later. What a pain, but it seems to be mostly fixed at the moment. Anyhow, Friday night it was on the fritz, so we went to St. Andrews to stay with a friend over the weekend as we would have frozen in our apartment. We had a really nice time there. The village is so quaint and charming. Simon and Singer (that's our friend) were working on geology stuff in the morning while Marius and I took a stroll through the castle and nearby cathedral and cemetery. All are in ruins now, but still very cool to look at.

Our flat paperwork seems mostly done for the moment. I think our loan stuff is mostly taken care of too, although we haven't yet signed anything.... I'll have to call our solicitor and mortgage broker to double check though. We'll move in May 16th! Yeah!!!! First thing we're going to do it peek under the carpets to see if there are floorboards underneath worth sanding. Then we'll rent a sander and go to town before we move the boy in. It'll be a lot of hard work, but hopefully worth it in the end.

Sick Again

It never seems to end with us... Two weeks ago is was a stomach bug, and now it's a cold. Poor Marius seems to have gotten it the worst and was up all night coughing the past few days. Thankfully his appetite hasn't decreased, so he's eating all of his food and then some. I'm over my cold, and Simon is half way through his... I hope we are all back up to 100% by this weekend, as we're supposed to go to a nature/farm park with some of Simon's colleagues. We were at the zoo last weekend and Marius was loving all of the animals, so I can't wait for this weekend. I think he'll really get a kick out of petting some goats and sheep.
Speaking of sick, our boiler was sick this week too. A boiler is a water heater. Except they are way different from the US water heaters. The ones here are direct heating, so there's no water tank. It's fine as long as you don't take a 30 minute shower, like I was fond of doing back home... They also don't let you use hot water out of more than one tap in the house, as that's too much water to warm at once. There are other types of boilers here, but that's the most common one. It's totally efficient though, and I got used to the change pretty easily. But anyhow, so ours was making this huge banging sound when we turned off the hot water. A plumber was send out and came back 3 times of the past 3 weeks trying to "fit" it. Yesterday he broke the thing completely and told me that he'd have to order a part for it and we'd have no hot water or heating (because we have radiators heated by the boiler) overnight. Needless to say I told him that with a sick baby and near freezing overnight temperatures, this was unacceptable and that I was livid. He just said, that's what happened and it couldn't be fixed and he'd call my property management company. Thankfully they send out someone who only works on boilers, and they were able to come out that afternoon and fix it. I was so happy I got their work info and will call them to service our boiler in our new flat as soon as we move in.

Big big news

Marius took his first steps today! In the past week or so he's been finding himself standing without anything to hold on to and has been quite stable. But he'd always gently lower himself on to the ground and crawl away in the direction of his choice. So today it wasn't a huge shocker when we had him standing up in the middle of the living room and stepped back a few steps only to watch him follow after us on two feet. But it was totally exciting non-the-less, and especially because he looked so good at it. I'm sure I'll be kicking myself about it in a week when he's getting into more precarious situations much more quickly than before. We'll try to get a video of this mind-blowing feat shortly.
On another front... We're buying a flat and it's pretty much a done deal. We'll move in on May 16th, so we still have plenty of time to pack and get ready for the move. The good news is that it's a HUGE place, at least by UK standards. Meaning it's just over 1200 square feet. So that means that we'll have plenty of space for visitors, as it's a 3 bedroom flat. The bad news is that we're wiping our bank accounts clean with the purchase, so we won't be making any exciting trips to Spain like we had hoped this summer, and we will likely be carless too. We'll have to make due with the lovely avocado green bathroom until we can afford to totally gut it and start anew. The flat is on the second floor, meaning the third floor to all of you Americans (oh, and elevators are almost non existent in this country). But compared to most of the spiral staircases here that are accidents/deaths waiting to happen, ours is very gentle and has platform turns instead of winding turns, if that makes any sense. So, mom and dad, your knees should be able to handle the walk up and down with no problem! We also have a patch of private garden out back, which we're totally excited about. Simon is already planning the border plantings. We want to make it a little secret garden of sorts and put in a hedge or something to section it off from our neighbours’ uncared for portions. But we'll see. A new flat and a toddler running around will make us very busy, so gardening may not be our first priority like it was in Tallahassee. Anyhow we'll post photos of our new digs once we move in and get settled. Oh, I can't wait!

Sick family

This has not been the best weekend.... I felt horrible all day and Marius obviously did too as he refused to eat anything but a few cheerios. Then Simon was up all night and was sick to his stomach, and then some! I didn't get any sleep, mostly because of Simon's commotion in the bathroom, and then I worried that Marius would get sick in his bed too, so I ended up sleeping on the floor in his room so that I could attend to him if he threw up in his sleep. Insane paranoid mother.... yes I know! Marius was fine, but I'm a bit sore and tired today. I'm feeling better, and thankfully Marius ate a decent breakfast. Simon on the other hand is not feeling so hot. He tends to be a bit of a baby anyway when he's sick, but given his state last night he does deserve to wallow a bit today. The poor guy. I hope we're all back to normal by Tuesday, as Simon and I have a dinner reservation at a super nice restaurant in town. It's my belated birthday present. I pitched a fit when I found out that the reservations weren't made for my actual birthday last week, but eventually I calmed down and agreed to go this week instead.

1st Haircut

BEFORE

Well, after more than a year.... we figured it was time for a little trim trim. We had no clue what we were doing, but in the end I think it turned out OK. I made sure to save all of his locks. Oh, I can imagine giving them to his wife one day thirty years from now! Here's a before and after shot so you can see just how much we took off.

AFTER

We have a 1 year-old in the house!

Marius had a pretty good birthday. He was showered by presents over the weekend, and then had a little party at the house last night complete with cake. We had one of Simon's colleagues and his girlfriend come over for pizza and cake. The guy is French and just came back from a trip back home with a car full of wine!!!! Lucky for us he brought a wonderful bottle of bordeaux which we had with our homemade pizza then we celebrated afterwards with sugar free carrot cake and a bottle of clairette de die. Oh man, I'm now totally ruined for champagne..... Clairette de die is so sweetly fab!
Anyhow, we adults had a good time and so did Marius. He would laugh right along with us when someone told a funny story! He's such a little social butterfly! He certainly didn't get that from his mother.

Role reversal

Due to two more teeth coming in on the bottom, Marius has decided it's much more fun to feed mommy and daddy than let them feed him. You know, just when you think that you know what to expect from your kid, they change. Then you have to figure everything out all over again. Marius didn't make the slightest fuss when his first four teeth came in. Then his 5th and 6th ones brought on some fussiness and total refusal to eat veggies. And now his 7th and 8th ones are taking their sweet time to cut through, making for one fussy baby come eating time. He just didn't want to eat anything but cherios this weekend, but we managed to get some pancakes and pinapple in too. Today he's feeling a lot better and he ate some carrots, which he stiffly refused two days ago. I hope the next few teeth aren't as bothersome for him, but I'm sure they will be. At any rate, Marius did enjoy feeding us his cherios, but only after he licked them to make sure they were good enough for mommy and daddy!


Tomorrow we have carrot cake!!!!!

Checking out real estate

Our entire month and more has pretty much revolved around us looking at lots and lots of places to potentially live. We really liked this place below, but felt the roof needed some work, and the heating bills might be a bit high in the winter.... So, I think we'll look for something slightly smaller and more modern.

Can you believe Mars will be 1 in a few days?????? Oh my goodness.... Where did the time go?

Nothing in this city surprises me anymore

I was walking to the grocery store this evening to pick up some chocolate biscuits (a.k.a. cookies in the US) and other daily sundries. I was just entering the store when I walked past a young woman walking the opposite direction down the pavement. She had a hooded jacket on because it's cold, and she also had two little noses poking out around the area where her ear should have. Yes, the woman had two rats hanging out inside of her jacket, sitting on her shoulder and I assume keeping her neck and ears warm. Perhaps it's a new trend, these self warming scarfs? I'm not sure what she does when they inevitably poop on her shoulder, but I guess she just gets a kick out of the shock value. Anyhow, it was pretty random. But the normal clothes that normal people wear are all wacky looking to a gap girl like me. I guess I'm too used to everyone wearing jeans, khakis, T-shirts and tennis shoes in the states. But these days I rarely bat an eyelash when I see a woman walking down the street in hot pink and black striped tights, ankle boots, and daisy dukes. I think to myself, "she must be cold", but the style combination doesn't phase me anymore. Just more wacky Euro trendy stuff.
No new news on our flat search-we're still searching. The second place we looked at and liked had some issues with the home inspection. In a nutshell, our inspector said the roof was in need of total repair as there were buckets collecting rain in the eves, and the cost estimate would be £50,000. The seller's hired roofer said it was temporary storm leakage and the roof only needed £200 worth or repairs. Granted any repair would be split 8 ways with the other tenants in the building..... But the sellers wouldn't take any money off of our agreed upon price, so we walked. There are other flats that seem like just as good if not better options for us. Now, I just hope the next one we go for won't set us back another £400 for the survey only to have us back out and start anew.... Hmmmmmm...... Oh well, I'm sure we'll find a place to live one of these days! Feel free to house hunt for us on the Edinburgh property website and let us know your favorites. Just keep in mind that £1=$2 (although have you seen the dollar tank today???? Yikes, I'm glad we divested from the US), so we won't be moving into any million pound homes until I win the lotto.

Happy Birthday Nana!

Marius is getting so much more fun to play with these days. In the past few weeks, his ability to recognize what we're saying and his playing skills have really taken off. So, Marius has several of these That's not my ..... books with puppies, dinosaurs, or bears. In all of these books, there's a little white mouse on each page, and in addition to reading him the book and letting him feel the fuzzy/scratch/shiney part of the book, I always say "where's the mouse?" and then point to it. Well, now about 20% of the time when I say "where's the mouse?" Marius will point to the mouse! It was absolutely amazing the first time he did it, and at first I thought it was just dumb luck. But after several repeat performances I realized he knew what I was saying, or at least he knew what he should do after I said those familiar sounding words.

He's also started to play with toys. For months when he crawled up to a toy, he would invariably look at it, grab it, put it in his mouth, and then toss it aside and move on to the next item that caught his eye. But now, he can crawl up to his little wooden car, grab it, and move it around on the floor or table. He also likes to take his wooden blocks and bang them together. Sure it's rudamentary playing, but you've got to start somewhere right? It's just so satisfying to get on the floor with him and play with him now. He's finally getting that his toys are not just for putting in his mouth and chewing. In addition to a new car seat, Simon and I are super excited to get Marius some new birthday big boy toys like ones where he has to put different shapes into a container and building blocks. We won't go crazy like some parents, but he should have some things that challenge him a bit more. It's so amazingly rewarding to see his development.

So, it's my mom's birthday today! Happy Birthday Mom. Here's a little song for you!

Back to the routine and getting lost

Well, now that the holidays are over things are getting back to normal around here. Marius and I started up our sing and sign classes and our swimming classes this week. Although we woke up late today and missed our swimming.... Oh well. We had a play date on Monday so we drove out (in the snow!) to go to a kiddie play centre, where Marius and two other babies got to crawl around to their hearts' content while us mummies chatted about summer vacations, mothers and mothers-in-law, and car seats over a lovely cup of tea.
The car ride out to this play centre went very smoothly, but by the time I drove home, it was getting dark (it gets dark here at 3:30) and evening traffic was already starting to pick up. I took one wrong turn, and then managed to get myself completely lost. It's very odd how people here manage directions. In the US we are very much a street sign and block counting country. I guess that's because all of our streets were built after the invention of the car, so they're for the most part very straight and have perfect 90 degree intersections. The US also has street signs with the street name very prominently lit up in the middle of intersections (at least for the major streets). And the name of the street is what one keeps in mind when driving about.
But here, the street name isn't that important. This is because they change every 3 blocks, and you can drive into a neighbourhood that has all the same name street. For example, I got lost in the Stenhouse area, so I turned on Stenhouse Street, Stenhouse Drive, Stenhouse Lane, Stenhouse Garden Street, Stenhouse Terrace, Stenhouse Garden Terrace, Stenhouse Loan, Stenhouse Park, etc.... So, I kept thinking to myself.... "I thought I just was on Stenhouse! Why am I still on it after turning?" That's because ALL of the streets are named Stenhouse. Confusing huh? But the most particularly confusing thing about this area, was when I got to a round-a-bout with 4 streets. This is totally normal, but the thing that threw me off was that all four streets were named "Stenhouse Drive!" So, I kept on trying to turn around, only to find that I was always on Stenhouse Drive. I pulled a Chevy Chase and finally drove all the way around this thing trying to find a different named street to get my bearings. But I was totally shocked to find that they were all the same name and the same street/drive/place label!!! Nuts! I had to just take one of the streets, drive for a long time and then turn and stop to look at a map to figure out which direction I was driving. Eventually we got back home, but what should have been a 30 minute drive turned into an hour long drive.
Another driving difference here is that major intersections are not known as say "the intersection of Morningside Road and Lothian Road." Instead it'll have a junction name that's totally unrelated to either street name. So, you can be driving and wonder if that's Morningside Road up ahead, but there'll be a sign saying "St. John's Junction" instead! That's how they label the freeway (they're called motorways here) exits too. When I went to pick Faith and Ian up from the Airport last month, I knew the street that I needed to take to get on the motorway, and got on it just fine. Then we needed to come back home, and I couldn't figure out where I was because all of the exits had junction names. Who would have thought? Plus, it's not like the maps have these junction names on them, so maps are totally useless in that case. You basically have to get lucky, or overshoot your exit and turn around once you realize that you've gone too far, or get off early and have to navigate your way through lots of confusing surface streets. We ended up doing the later in this case, so they got to see some bits of Edinburgh that they otherwise would not have! Not that the bits we saw were at all interesting.
Oh well, I'm sure Brits complain about Americans with our super long streets. I guess being told that a place is at 1268 Main Street doesn't really help you if you're new to an area and looking at a map, as that could be anywhere along a 2 mile stretch of road in most cities. Whereas if the names changes 5 times, you have a pretty good idea of what stretch of road you need to head towards, assuming you've memorized all of the various names or are looking at a detailed map... But I'm starting to memorize a few of the more prominent streets here, so things are getting easier.

Hogmanay Days 2 and 3

Hogmanay is coming to a close. It was a nice couple of days for us. We started out with a bang, literally. We were roused from bed by the sounds of fireworks going off on all of the seven hills of Edinburgh. Luckily for us, one of the seven hills, Arthur's Seat, is viewable from our living room. So, we just sat there and enjoyed the light show from the comfort and warmth of our own place. Thank goodness the boy didn't wake up, so we could just relax and take it all in.



Yesterday it was pretty much raining all day, but we ventured out to see Dogmanay. This is where a bunch of Alaskan Malamutes and Siberian Huskies pull sleds on the grass. We were expecting a bit more competitive of a race, like the Iditarod. But then again, it is just a dog race in Scotland.... I guess one has to have competitions like this before making the leap to the major leagues. Anyhow, it was fun to watch for a while.



Today we drove out to Stirling Castle for a fun filled historic day. They had lots of people dressed up and reinacting things at the castle. We heard all about tapasteries from the tapestry dude for the king. Aparantly there was a lot of work involved what with transporting, hanging, cleaning, and repairing these things that often traveled around the island with the king. We saw some court jesters on stilts making fools of themselves for the king. Then we saw the king and queen being presented with lots of sweets and seranated by a lovely trio of musicians.



It certainly has been a lovely Hogmanay for us. I hope you enjoy seeing a bit of our holiday.