OK, so the title is a bit misleading. I saw a solicitor (a lawyer in American) this afternoon to talk about buying a flat. The UK doesn't have real estate agents or title companies. They have special property lawyers who handle the whole thing. Scotland in particular makes you use them to put in a bid on a house, so there's no "for sale by owner" here. Basically she told me pretty much what I had already read up on, but it was reassuring to have our thoughts confirmed by a pro. Basically, we want to buy in the city and in an old building, as the more modern buildings (which we just think are ugly for the most part) don't appreciate in prices over time.
As of today all of our US $ are being transferred over here and into UK £. So now I just need to talk to a bank and see about the loan portion. Loans are also totally different here. There are no "fixed rate" loans here. They all fluctuate with the Bank of England (similar to the Fed in the US) rates. There are also a lot of things we need to be wary of, like penalties for paying the loan off sooner than the time period. So, hopefully the whole process won't be too confusing. But we bought a book on the subject, called "Buying a home in Scotland," and we have grilled just about everyone we have ever met about the subject. So, I feel fairly comfortable with the process. It's not quite as stressful as our first home buying adventure in Tallahassee.... Oh, I still miss our old garden there! We sure as heck won't have anywhere the size that we had in that little house. We won't have a house for one thing.... Oh well, it's exciting European living! That's what I'm trying to tell myself!
Perhaps you're still wondering about the whole dark thing. Well today at 5:30 the power went off on our whole block, perhaps more, but I looked out the window and didn't see any lights anywhere on our block at least (although Simon had power at the university so it wasn't a huge outage or anything). Since it's already totally dark here by then, I had to make it to my bedroom where thankfully I had just placed a flash light this weekend. What luck! I would never have found the matches without it. The power was out for an hour, and Marius was starting to freak out a bit without the lights. He didn't even settle down much when I lit a bunch of candles. (Thanks for the X-mas present Paula! Thankfully I opened it early and could use it easily.) You know, perhaps it's because I now have a little one, or perhaps it's because I am still not 100% comfortable here yet, but I had a little nervousness during the whole outage that I never used to get when the power would go out in the states. My first reaction, was "Oh no, I have no clue what's going on, and no clue how to find out what's going on." I guess I could have walked downstairs and turned on our car radio if I had really thought about it, but that didn't occur to me and my nerves were calmed once I called Simon and heard that he was all light up and working at the university just fine. In the states I just figure that the power will be up and running soon enough and never worry. But things here never run as smoothly as I think they ought to, and I half expected to find out that if the power goes off after hours, then they don't fix it until the morning. I don't know, how am I supposed to know how things operate here? The light bulbs don't even freaking screw in, so you never know. Luckily that's not the case, which would have been terrible since we have an electric water heater and our radiators wouldn't have worked.
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Saturday, 10 November 2007
Like Mother Like Son... first word recognition!
Well, today I really noticed that Marius knows the meaning of at least one word. You might think it would be Marius, momma, daddy, or milk wouldn't you.... Yes, one would think that. But my son, doesn't truly seem to know the meaning of those words yet. However, today, when I put Marius in his highchair and asked him if we wanted a "biscuit" he started smiling and bouncing up and down in his seat. He had previously only done this after I asked him if he wanted a biscuit as I signed it and then pulled out the crinkly biscuit wrapper. But now it appears that now he knows the word before I sign it and before I even go to the cupboard to pull out the biscuits. Oh, and in case you're wondering why he would get excited about biscuits and gravy... in the UK biscuits are the same thing as cookies. And since we learned the sign and words for "biscuit" in our sing and sign class, I say that instead of cookie. But before you go and think that I give my son tons of junk food....just know that I call rice crackers biscuits, and he gets equally excited about them as he does the more sweet organic baby biscotti that I also call biscuits.
I bet biscuit will be his first proper word too. As long as he says momma before daddy, I'll be OK with that!
I bet biscuit will be his first proper word too. As long as he says momma before daddy, I'll be OK with that!
Friday, 9 November 2007
Walking Adventures
One of Simon's coworkers just gave us her children's old push cart with blocks yesterday. I am so excited because they are not cheap and I was really wanting one for Marius anyhow! It is taking Marius some getting used to though.... At first he didn't want to touch it because it kept moving and dragging him forward. Then after lots and lots of positive reinforcement from Mommy and Daddy, he warmed up to it.
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
St. Andrews
Yesterday we went to St. Andrews, which is about 1.5 hours north of Edinburgh. The drive up was gorgeous, and Marius slept the whole way which was an added bonus! The town is pretty small, about 18,000 people and half of them are students at the University. As you drive up to the town, you first drive by the famous golf courses located right on the coast. The town itself is adjacent to the course and lays slightly higher up on a coastal bluff giving it great views out to sea. The university is one of the oldest in the UK (third to be exact) so it has a prime old town location in the heart of the town and along the bluff. In typical UK university style, the buildings are mostly stone with slate roofs and many of them are super old. Gorgeous! Our friend is lucky enough to be renting a HUGE flat that is literally across the street from the university. The place is 3 stories and has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms!! And he lives by himself, can you believe that? So, needless to say, I think we'll end up visiting him often! If only Simon liked and played golf, he'd be all set, right?
Oh, and the street that our friend lives on is called Butts Wynd! Too funny huh? I'm sure they pronounce it "wind" is in to wind up a toy and not "wind" as in to fart. But I took a photo anyhow!!! I love how the old street "sign" or rather stone block is still visible next to the modern one. I hope that detail comes through in the photo.
So, anyhow, we spent the day just walking around the golf course and town. It was a lot more cold than I had expected, and I didn't have Marius's blanket in the car... So I had to do some quick shopping to get him some warm coverings. The little kids shop I popped into was on the shi-shi-foo-foo side (like most of the shops in St. Andrews as it's sort of like a Santa Barbara in that there is a lot of money floating around the place), but luckily they were having a sale on snow suits!!! So, I got Marius the ridiculous orange outfit you see in the photos! Simon loved the thing and insists that I come visit him at work with Marius in it. He looks like a giant carrot in it!
Oh, and the street that our friend lives on is called Butts Wynd! Too funny huh? I'm sure they pronounce it "wind" is in to wind up a toy and not "wind" as in to fart. But I took a photo anyhow!!! I love how the old street "sign" or rather stone block is still visible next to the modern one. I hope that detail comes through in the photo.
So, anyhow, we spent the day just walking around the golf course and town. It was a lot more cold than I had expected, and I didn't have Marius's blanket in the car... So I had to do some quick shopping to get him some warm coverings. The little kids shop I popped into was on the shi-shi-foo-foo side (like most of the shops in St. Andrews as it's sort of like a Santa Barbara in that there is a lot of money floating around the place), but luckily they were having a sale on snow suits!!! So, I got Marius the ridiculous orange outfit you see in the photos! Simon loved the thing and insists that I come visit him at work with Marius in it. He looks like a giant carrot in it!
Monday, 5 November 2007
Happy Guy Fawkes Night!
It's the 5th of November everyone! Tonight the fireworks are going off all over town, in such a display. It's way more than any 4th of July celebration I've ever seen. The Scots certainly know how to light things on fire and shoot off fireworks.
The 5th of November is called Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night. It commemorates the failed attempt, (or attempt for us northern rebel-type Catholics!!!) to blow up the English Parliament 400 years ago. Fireworks have been going off all week, but it's been non-stop tonight for the past 3 hours or so. Crazy! And I'm not talking about the little Piccolo Pete's, these are the full blown sky exploding cannons that just random people are lighting all around the city! I can see fireworks in the sky as I type in fact.
Tomorrow we're all driving up to St. Andrews to check out the town and pick up our friend who just got a job there at the University. For your info... St. Andrews University is where William, Prince of Wales, graduated. Interestingly, the department our friend will work in is the same one (Geography) that the Prince majored in. Apparently he received no favoritism, and in fact they had all of his classes graded blindly so that no one would ever suggest he was given preferential grades.
But the city itself is supposed to be quite pretty and comparable to an Aspen, CO, in that it's a vacation town for the super wealthy. All of you avid golfers out there will be jealous, as St. Andrews is the home to "The Old Course," which is the most famous course in the world. Not that I'd know, but that's what I hear. I don't think we'll be going to visit the course, but I may pick up a postcard for Mr. McMorrow!
The 5th of November is called Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night. It commemorates the failed attempt, (or attempt for us northern rebel-type Catholics!!!) to blow up the English Parliament 400 years ago. Fireworks have been going off all week, but it's been non-stop tonight for the past 3 hours or so. Crazy! And I'm not talking about the little Piccolo Pete's, these are the full blown sky exploding cannons that just random people are lighting all around the city! I can see fireworks in the sky as I type in fact.
Tomorrow we're all driving up to St. Andrews to check out the town and pick up our friend who just got a job there at the University. For your info... St. Andrews University is where William, Prince of Wales, graduated. Interestingly, the department our friend will work in is the same one (Geography) that the Prince majored in. Apparently he received no favoritism, and in fact they had all of his classes graded blindly so that no one would ever suggest he was given preferential grades.
But the city itself is supposed to be quite pretty and comparable to an Aspen, CO, in that it's a vacation town for the super wealthy. All of you avid golfers out there will be jealous, as St. Andrews is the home to "The Old Course," which is the most famous course in the world. Not that I'd know, but that's what I hear. I don't think we'll be going to visit the course, but I may pick up a postcard for Mr. McMorrow!
Saturday, 3 November 2007
Nearly New Madness
I had heard lots of mothers talk about these "nearly new" sales that the Nation Childbirth Trust (a nonprofit mother and babies group) puts on. All the talk was that one should get there early and that people literally ran to get to the items they wanted. I imagined the old Mervyn's commercial where the woman was tapping on the doors, saying "open, open, open." So, today there was one for the NCT group in East Lothian (the county just east to Midlotion, where Edinbourgh is) and I decided that we should check it out. The sale started at 2:00 pm, which meant that we needed to leave the house at 1:30 if we wanted to get there at opening.
We ended up getting there at 2:05 or so, and there was a HUGE line (or as we say here a queue) of people around the block, literally waiting to get into this auditorium type place. I decided to hop out of the car, while Simon found parking and brought the boy in. It was such a zoo in there! Women running around with huge bags, shoving items in them and running on to the next. Mothers and fathers rummaging through tables of clothing and toys and grabbing anything and everything. The feeling in there was so frantic, I had totally forgotten what I was thinking about getting. I felt the urge to grab up tons of stuff and punch people out of my way! It's amazing how the power of mass hysteria works! And that's not too far from how this place was!!!
I had originally gone there to look for this sleeping bag type thing that people put on the strollers to keep babies warm while pushing them around. Well, if there were any of these footmuffs as they call them, I would never have known. I walked over to the stroller section, but there were only a few actual strollers and some mothers frantically looking them over to see if they wanted them. I couldn't have exactly gone over and looked at the item in another mom's hands, and I didn't see any muffs just laying around. So, I though to myself.... Well, Marius does need some more long sleeve clothing and perhaps a jacket. He's got plenty of clothing right now, thanks to lots of friends and family who have given him stuff. But, his current jacket may not fit in another month, so I thought I'd better just look to see. Since clothes is so expensive here, I was shocked at how cheap everything was. I ended up getting a thick warm jacket, 4 sweaters, and a long sleeve flannel shirt. I'm kicking myself for not getting any pants, but it was just so loud and crazy, I couldn't hear myself think in there.
On a whim I picked up a toy with lights and buttons for Marius too. In the end I only spent £9.50 (about $20) for the lot of things. Amazing! I'm never going to buy Marius anything brand new again! Except for the odd diaper (Oh, did I mention that I've made the switch to cloth diapers??? I'll save that story for another blog) and wooden (not "made in China" with toxic lead paint) toy.
Once all three of us got out of that place, Simon made us all sit down to gather our whits about ourselves! He was way more stressed out than I was, and he just walked in late, found me, and told me to get out of there. I was the one doing the looking and trying to think of what me may need in the next few months, while trying to look out for "the good stuff." Well, luckily there's another sale in Edinburgh next month. I'll totally be prepared then! Plus, my local NCT chapter is looking for a volunteer to organize their nearly new sale in April. One of the perks is that you get the pick of the lot before the mad rush.... That's incentive alone to put in the hours of work needed. I'm going to email the chapter president and volunteer my services!
Once we caught our breaths, we decided to head over to Tantallon Castle, which we have been intending to see for months. The place was spectacular! I swear, there are castles every 5 miles or so in Scotland, and they are all SO cool! This one has perhaps the best setting though. It's right on the coastline on a bluff. The views of the Forth were spectacular! And the castle itself was super cool! This one was complete with a moat (although not filled), pit prison, and spiral staircases. The stairs always freak me out a bit, since they're SO narrow and in the shape of wedges, so the step goes down to nothing in the inside of the spiral, if that makes any sense...
Well, even though I will still need to use blankets with the stroller to keep Marius warm for now, it was quite a nice day. Tomorrow we'll probably try to check out some more flats/houses for sale. Thursdays and Sundays are the open house days to do this. Who knows where we'll look tomorrow. We're still waiting for the freaking dollar to go up before we transfer our down payment dollars into pounds, but since the Federal Reserve just lowered interest rates again in the US.... The dollar has plummeted in value much more sharply than it had been going before. So, we're hoping that things will bounce back up a bit in the next week. NOT BLOODY LIKELY if you ask me.... Thank you George W. Bush, for putting the US into a huge debt of a black hole and making the US dollar worth slightly more than toilet paper!!!!!! But really, I'm not upset about my life savings disappearing before my very eyes..... I'm just waiting for the US to issue new dollars like Mexico had to do with the peso once it got to be too worthless.... OK the US dollar won't get THAT bad, but it is super crappy at the moment.
OH... P.S. Happy Birthday Paula!!!!! Today my lovely sister has a grand total of 40 years under her belt! Let's just say that she's less than ecstatic about the monument.
We ended up getting there at 2:05 or so, and there was a HUGE line (or as we say here a queue) of people around the block, literally waiting to get into this auditorium type place. I decided to hop out of the car, while Simon found parking and brought the boy in. It was such a zoo in there! Women running around with huge bags, shoving items in them and running on to the next. Mothers and fathers rummaging through tables of clothing and toys and grabbing anything and everything. The feeling in there was so frantic, I had totally forgotten what I was thinking about getting. I felt the urge to grab up tons of stuff and punch people out of my way! It's amazing how the power of mass hysteria works! And that's not too far from how this place was!!!
I had originally gone there to look for this sleeping bag type thing that people put on the strollers to keep babies warm while pushing them around. Well, if there were any of these footmuffs as they call them, I would never have known. I walked over to the stroller section, but there were only a few actual strollers and some mothers frantically looking them over to see if they wanted them. I couldn't have exactly gone over and looked at the item in another mom's hands, and I didn't see any muffs just laying around. So, I though to myself.... Well, Marius does need some more long sleeve clothing and perhaps a jacket. He's got plenty of clothing right now, thanks to lots of friends and family who have given him stuff. But, his current jacket may not fit in another month, so I thought I'd better just look to see. Since clothes is so expensive here, I was shocked at how cheap everything was. I ended up getting a thick warm jacket, 4 sweaters, and a long sleeve flannel shirt. I'm kicking myself for not getting any pants, but it was just so loud and crazy, I couldn't hear myself think in there.
On a whim I picked up a toy with lights and buttons for Marius too. In the end I only spent £9.50 (about $20) for the lot of things. Amazing! I'm never going to buy Marius anything brand new again! Except for the odd diaper (Oh, did I mention that I've made the switch to cloth diapers??? I'll save that story for another blog) and wooden (not "made in China" with toxic lead paint) toy.
Once all three of us got out of that place, Simon made us all sit down to gather our whits about ourselves! He was way more stressed out than I was, and he just walked in late, found me, and told me to get out of there. I was the one doing the looking and trying to think of what me may need in the next few months, while trying to look out for "the good stuff." Well, luckily there's another sale in Edinburgh next month. I'll totally be prepared then! Plus, my local NCT chapter is looking for a volunteer to organize their nearly new sale in April. One of the perks is that you get the pick of the lot before the mad rush.... That's incentive alone to put in the hours of work needed. I'm going to email the chapter president and volunteer my services!
Once we caught our breaths, we decided to head over to Tantallon Castle, which we have been intending to see for months. The place was spectacular! I swear, there are castles every 5 miles or so in Scotland, and they are all SO cool! This one has perhaps the best setting though. It's right on the coastline on a bluff. The views of the Forth were spectacular! And the castle itself was super cool! This one was complete with a moat (although not filled), pit prison, and spiral staircases. The stairs always freak me out a bit, since they're SO narrow and in the shape of wedges, so the step goes down to nothing in the inside of the spiral, if that makes any sense...
Well, even though I will still need to use blankets with the stroller to keep Marius warm for now, it was quite a nice day. Tomorrow we'll probably try to check out some more flats/houses for sale. Thursdays and Sundays are the open house days to do this. Who knows where we'll look tomorrow. We're still waiting for the freaking dollar to go up before we transfer our down payment dollars into pounds, but since the Federal Reserve just lowered interest rates again in the US.... The dollar has plummeted in value much more sharply than it had been going before. So, we're hoping that things will bounce back up a bit in the next week. NOT BLOODY LIKELY if you ask me.... Thank you George W. Bush, for putting the US into a huge debt of a black hole and making the US dollar worth slightly more than toilet paper!!!!!! But really, I'm not upset about my life savings disappearing before my very eyes..... I'm just waiting for the US to issue new dollars like Mexico had to do with the peso once it got to be too worthless.... OK the US dollar won't get THAT bad, but it is super crappy at the moment.
OH... P.S. Happy Birthday Paula!!!!! Today my lovely sister has a grand total of 40 years under her belt! Let's just say that she's less than ecstatic about the monument.
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
Happy Halloween!!
Well, it's not nearly as big of a holiday over here as it is in the US. But I did manage to find a little pumpkin hat and mittens for Marius to wear today. We had our regular swimming class and then we went to our breastfeeding support group for the costume competition. Marius was way too underdressed to be a serious contender for the grand prize. That went to the spider outfit that was hand died, hand stitched with a web and extra stuffed black socks for legs! Too cute. I can't believe the mother had the time to make it. But, here are some pics of my boy. He had a little "my first halloween" onsie on earlier, but being a baby... he peed on it before I could get a photo of him in it. Ah well, next year I'll do better.
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