Moving In

[lillibet]

As we don't have a phoneline, I'm getting my email via Jason downloading it
and bringing it home on his laptop. So there will probably be a day's delay
in any replies.

Since my last report we've moved over to the new flat, though we still have
some of our things at Barbara's. Our stuff from the States hasn't made it
through customs yet, so knocking around in our huge flat it feels pretty
cavernous. The new furniture came--the landlord did very well by us and we
have couches and beds and tables, even a funky bookshelf. He got us a
microwave and a kettle and yesterday I went to the grocery store and bought
a couple of pans, so we're able to cook. Actually, when I went to make
dinner last night, it turned out the hob (what we'd call the stove...it's
the part with burners) had gas, but the sparker wouldn't work. Matches got
us through the first meal in our new home and this morning when the builders
came I told them about it. They took out the oven and discovered the hob
hadn't been plugged in--didn't actually have a plug, as it turned out. But
they fixed that and put a new plug on the washer. Jason has noticed that
the English have a much more casual attitude about wiring plugs themselves
and many things that would come with a plug in the US don't here.

I've been enjoying the company of the builders. The chief is a guy named
Peter, the one who gave us a lecture on podging on our second visit to the
flat. He's a talkative, friendly chap. His helper, Derek, is very quiet,
but has a nice smile and is happy to hold up an end of conversation, if
someone else gets one going. So we've chatted some about the differences
between the States and the UK and the funny little differences in names for
things, like the hob and the cupboards/cabinets in the bedroom that we'd
call closets.

Pete actually gave me a start yesterday. He mentioned, quite casually, that
he'd "left my bloody toes on the other job." I stood there for a moment,
slackjawed, trying to figure out what metaphor he was making or if this was
one of those Cockney rhyming slang things, or if he could somehow be
serious. Finally it parsed and I realized he was saying "tools," not
"toes." What a relief!

They've just told me that the couple living in the main flat, downstairs,
have just had a baby boy. From what they said, he's Columbian and she's
Italian and the baby is named Luca. A guy from the basement flat also came
around to talk to Pete. His name is Pete, too, and is also English. He got
a call on his mobile and raced out of here, so we didn't get a chance to
talk, but I hope to get to know them more later.

I can't remember if I mentioned our fridge in my last report. It's
cute...about four feet high in total, but proportional to a standard US fridge,
with the freezer on top. It's not big enough to store weeks' worth of food,
and I can imagine it getting quite crowded with condiments and leftovers,
but I think it will work for us, especially with the market just down the
road (as the English say, instead of "up the street"). I had fun at the
grocery store, filling up a cart with stuff. Lots of unexciting stuff for
sandwiches and salads, but some fun freezer food: chicken korma and chicken
tikka, a chicken casserole and a Lancaster beef hot pot. It'll be
interesting to try them all. I amused everyone in the store by packing most
of this huge batch of groceries into my travel pack and trudging out with it.

Anne had visions of drafty (or should that be "draughty"?) English heating,
so I'm sorry to report that our new boiler seems to work just fine and is
able to keep the place extremely toasty. The night after they installed it,
the builders turned all the radiators on high, so when we came by on
Saturday it was sweltering. Good to know. It's pretty chilly in here
during the day, with the builders in and out and leaving the doors open, but
in the evenings we can get it warm pretty quickly. All the rooms have
separate radiators and will have doors (we ran the shop out of stock on pine
doors, so we're waiting on them for the kitchen and living room, but they
should be installed in the next couple of weeks), so it will be easy to keep
the rooms we're using warm without heating the whole place all the time.

I've been reading Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, which is very
good, but fairly heavy. In my current state, knocking around the empty flat
and wondering if we'll ever have our stuff, the book's been pretty
depressing. It's the story of a Baptist preacher, his wife and four
daughters, going to the Belgian Congo in 1959. It's told in the first
person by the five women. It reminds me a lot of my family, even though
very few of the particulars are the same--Ravena certainly wasn't the Congo!
And, thankfully, my father was never that kind of minister and his
relationship with God never led him to the extremes Rev. Price reaches. So
I don't think anyone else would see my family in this book, but for me we
are on every page. The language is very poetic and the characters really
stick with me--as I was cleaning the bathroom yesterday I found my thoughts
returning to them.

Oddly, given all the damp and rain, my hands have been extremely dry, almost
cracking. Funny how I never, ever had dry skin living in New York and
Boston, but the fogs of the Bay and Britain just seem to soak the moisture
out of my hide.

The builders are putting shelves in one of our cupboards today and a pole in
the other cabinet. The latter's doors won't close with clothes hung in it,
but since they won't actually close anyway (too many coats of paint over the
years, I'm afraid) it hardly matters and without a decently sized place to
hang my clothes, I'd never be able to unpack. There are two free-standing
wardrobes among our furniture, but after Jason fills one and our coats,
etc. fill the other, I think we'll just fit. There isn't a lot of storage
space, but we've tried not to bring things that will need to be stored and
our beds are high enough to provide extra nooks for boxes.

We talked the landlord into getting a queen-sized bed for us. Most
furnished beds seem to be doubles, or even singles. Queen size doesn't
actually exist--they're called king size here and, judging from the sheets on
offer, what we'd call a king, they call a super king and are pretty rare.
We're enjoying our new bed and think it will be pretty comfortable for us.

I think I neglected to mention in my last report that I spent Saturday
morning on a shopping adventure. I went down to John Lewis, which is like
Sears, on Oxford Street and bought bedding for our two beds. Jason has been
converted to down comforters while we've been staying with Barbara, so I got
one of those and some sheets (we didn't pack but one set, since we had no
idea what size our beds would be and besides, we don't have any of our stuff
yet--can you tell this is a recurring theme in our lives right now?) and some
lovely soft blankets: one in "paprika," one in "honey" and one lovely plaid of
mostly blues with a soft yellow stripe.

Last night we made an expedition to the Home Base, also just up the road.
It's kind of like Orchard Hardware or Somerville Lumber. We got bedside
lamps to go on the excellent bedside tables (with five drawers a piece) and
extension cords and a toaster and a phone and a couple of other necessary
bits of life-hardware (broom, bathmat, that kind of thing). They have only
display models of the appliances, so we waited for something approaching
half an hour, while the stockboy went back and forth telling us everything
was out of stock. I finally marched back to the stockroom and stood in the
doorway, while he interspersed warnings that I wasn't allowed back there
with pulling out different phones and toasters to appease me. We did get a
toaster, at last, and one of those clear phones (like steve & Tom have) with
brightly painted internals. Not that we have a phone line yet, but Jason
did find a jack (what they call a "phone point") and it seems like the
technology is there.

Speaking of which, does anyone have an idea why the US has failed to export
simple, effective toilets along with all the McDonalds and Coke products
littering the world? Every toilet I've used here has been crotchety about
actually flushing and Jason finally opened up our downstairs one and came
back to the living room with a look of horror on his face and tales of pipes
and valves and mechanisms beyond explanation. I amused him in return with
tales of "European Toilets I Have Known."

The doorbell (well, intercom actually, though the unlocking mechanism
doesn't work and we have to run down to the door in any case) just rang and
it was Mormons. One of them was black, which always surprises me.
Fortunately they weren't actually interested in converting me, they wanted
to know if we had any Albanians or Kosovars in this block. Strange.

Jason came home around seven, arriving fairly damp on his bike. It arrived
in Cambridge just fine and was reassembled by a bike shop up the road from
the office. He says that if he's going to bike through English weather,
he's going to need fenders to keep the wheels from kicking water up onto his
seat.

We took the tube over to Notting Hill this evening. Barbara had said she'd
be out, but was standing in the street by her car as we arrived. She'd had
plans to meet friends for drinks in another part of town, but was running
late and we had little trouble convincing her to join us for king prawn
fried noodles instead. We got take-away and ate at her flat and then packed
up the rest of our stuff and brought it back here in a taxi. They have
these wonderful old-fashioned cabs with tons of room and you can call and
give them your credit card number and they charge the ride to that and just
give you a receipt at the other end. Very civilized, indeed.