D-10 Stocks

For months we've been trying to calculate how much we need to keep in the house, in terms of cleaning products, food, toilet paper etc.

With just 10 days to go, it's fair to say I won't be using the six or seven tubes of toothpaste I seem have stocked up, and our last bottle of washing-up liquid has been purchased. Soap, shampoo, shaving items, all have been counted and the excess packed and stored for shipping to the US. As there's a cost involved we've tried to minimise our stocks, and a lot has been thrown out.

I't's rather thrilling to know that this is the last pot of Marmite I'll be buying for the forseeable (I won't be eating Marmite in the US), and even the pound of butter in the fridge will probably see us through.

I've laid out the clothes I'll be wearing for the next 10 days, ready to wear, then wash and pack, in the knowledge that once it's in the suitcase it won't need to come out again. As we've been living out of our suitcases for months that's quite a relief.

Of course in another 12 days we'll be out at Winco or Costco or Target stocking up again, but the difference will be that we'll have a car to carry everything back from the store, and won't worry about having to be tidy at home.

It's all good.

Dublin

Just back from a wet and windy week in Dublin. My wife and I wanted to get away from the house for a while now it's almost stripped bare, and leave it free for viewings.

Dublin is very easy and cheap to fly to from London at the moment, and for accommodation we rented a one-bedroom apartment in Christchurch Halls. The apartment was very comfortable, but lacked the Wi-Fi access we had booked it for, so slightly disappointing but overall good value.

During our trip the West of Ireland and the North-West of England suffered massive rainfall and flooding, with many businesses and houses flooded to a depth of several feet. Heartbreaking and mostly unpredicatable and unavoidable, though building at least 20-30 feet higher than the nearest river would seem a good idea. Dublin got a share of the rain but really nothing in comparison, and probably no more than Eugene would get this time of year normally, the difference being that we had to walk everywhere in it.

The Euro is unfortunately strong at the moment, and prices are already high for eating out, so we alternated with sandwiches or eating in to reduce the food bill. With limited luggage space we bought only a few souvenirs, mostly books in Irish for my wife to read, which are hard to obtain even in Dublin.


We now have just two weeks before the big day. Our Estate agent managed to get in eight or so viewings while we were away, but no offers on the house yet.

With the house almost bare, and due to be even barer in a couple of days as the last few things we can't carry with us go into storage, we've a few outings and a party lined up to keep us amused, and packing and re-packing of suitcases. After the storage unit is emptied on Monday, the contents being collected for shipping, we'll be sitting on the futon or bed reading books, watching TV and playing Nintendo DS for amusement in the evenings.

Nets & Bulbs

Net curtains are a feature of most English suburban houses that appear to be missing from the American scene. Nets are thin white lacy curtains that you hang permanently inside a window, to prevent the neighbours from seeing your goings-on.

Their success in this regard is limited, they cut down vision but do not prevent it, especially at night if you forget to draw the real curtains. However their success in collecting dirt and dust is legendary, and I've recently washed all our net curtains, changing their colour from grey to off-white.

I shan't miss these ugly things in America, and am looking forward to blinds, which do the combined job of nets and regular curtains better than either, and are easier to clean and less bulky.


In this house we have six different types of light bulbs. In England the bayonet fitting used to be universal, but we now also use screw fittings, and thanks to the peculiarities of this house we have 100W big spotlights in the kitchen and bathroom, plus a small fluorescent tube over the hob, 60W smaller spotlights in the stairwell, a 60W screw-fitting regular bulb in a standard lamp, and 12W and 20W energy-saving bayonet-fitting light bulbs in ceiling lights in the bedrooms and through lounge respectively.

I don't know if US houses have to deal with this huge variety. We've actually cut down by getting rid of all our table lamps, which would add a couple more types, but I'm hoping we can reduce a little. Of course, we'll also have more space to store spare bulbs, which currently reside in the cupboard under the stairs.

D -28

Only 28 days till we fly out, pick up our hire car and drive down to Eugene to settle into our rented apartment.

My wife has stopped working so we have some time together to finish the last few bits of clearing and packing, and have a short break in Dublin to get away from things for a while.

I'm now thinking everytime I go shopping that it might be my box of teabags, jar of Marmite or packet of Digestive Biscuits that I buy in the UK. Of course I can get all those things in the US at a price, but it won't be quite the same. We're also organising a few things to ease our arrival, like a US laptop and cell phones, which we're ordering online and timing to hopefully be there when we arrive.

We're also anticipating a necessary but delightful shopping spree in the US, getting the necessaries for apartment comfort, and filling a proper freezer for the first time. We've never had the luxury of buying in bulk, so shops like Winco and Costco will be getting our business soon.

Our house in London is now officially taking viewings, and should appear on our estate Agent's website in the next day or two. There's so little left in it that all the rooms appear very spacious, and we're hoping for lots of interest in the next month.

D -38

Things have been moving quickly, and it's now 38 days until we fly to the US to being the new phase of our lives in Eugene.

The house is still in minor chaos, mainly because we now have the entire kitchen ripped out, and the new units (in pieces in boxes) and old appliances are standing in the back of the through lounge, waiting for the kitchen intallers to start work tomorrow.

The three bedrooms also have a lesser degree of junk piled up, as we sort through our remaining piles of possessions, making the familiar keep/sell/give/ throw decisions.

The next week will see the kitchen fill up with units and appliances, thus emptying the through lounge, which should then be the site for the few remaining boxes of items for shipping. If all goes well, in a week's time we will be ready for the house to officially go to market, and it will be as empty of traces of us as we can make it while still living in it.

Apartment

We've just had the excellent news that we're approved for an apartment in Eugene, starting mid-December.

The location is a recently built complex, and not owned by the evil Umbrella Corporation. OK, they're not really evil, but they are devilishly difficult to communicate with and get information out of unless you already live in Eugene.

The manageress has been wonderful at communication via email, and has recently dealt with another couple coming from England, so she understood the difficulties we had to overcome, and helped enormously. Needless to say this greatly helped her get our business.

Now we have a date we can start arranging flights, shipping for our possessions, car hire, cat transport etc. so lots of things that have been up in the air are now getting nailed down more securely.

Halloween

Not too long until Halloween, and although we'll be too late for this year, I'm looking forward to Halloween experiences in Eugene, and in years to come watching my nephew E in Friendswood TX doing the rounds.

In the UK there are attempts by some shops (Marks & Spencer and a few card shops mainly) to muscle in on Halloween and make a few extra sales, but generally Halloween is considered a US thing, and it's a bit of a damp squib. There may be occasional parties (we won't get invited), and we may get a few children calling at the door for candy, but frankly we're all a bit embarrassed, and glad when it's over.

In the last few years my wife and I carved and put out pumpkin lanterns to show our US credentials, and we usually get a few groups of kids but just a smattering, and we end up with bowls of uneaten candy that get thrown away six months later. We did get an egg thrown at our window once by a kid who came round about five days too early, with no costume, and that somewhat diminished our enthusiasm.

Carpets

Last Saturday we had three new bedroom carpets to be fitted.

We start the day by empting our master bedroom into the bathroom next door (not quite en-suite but nearly), everything except the bedframe, and then ripping up the old carpet. To my knowledge it's been down 16 years, but might not have been new when I moved in. With the aid of a Stanley knife we cut the old carpet into small sections and carry them out to the back yard, with bits of perished rubber backing dusting our footprints. Then we screw down a couple of creaky floorboards, and soon the fitters arrive.

They chug the new underlay and carpets upstairs (no mean task with our cramped Victorian staircase) and start with the hammering and cutting. All goes well for a while, then the lead fitter Sam calls us to say we have to remove the bedroom door as the new underlay won't fit underneath. No biggie, two minutes with a screwdriver and we add that door to the bathroom exiles, and also remove another door upstairs for the same purpose.

All goes well for a while, then we hear a cry from the back room "I can hear something under the floorboards". Wife and I glance at each other in consternation, then fight our way upstairs, wondering if it's a mouse, a cat, or worse.

By one of those 1-in-1000 chances, an old flooring nail has gone through a central heating pipe, and we have a delightful new fountain gracing our back bedroom. In fact the quick thinking fitter has got the old board up and his thumb sealing the hole like the boy with the dyke. It's not the fitter's fault, it's a very old nail that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Curses.

I take over thumb duties to free up the fitter to continue work elsewhere, while wife runs to the DIY shop round the corner to get something to seal the hole. They send her back with two-part putty, but we didn't think we could get it to stick. By this time I'm shaking with the effort of sealing the hole (turning off the mains water didn't stop the fountain) so wife takes over hole-minding duties, while I run back and get some wet-seal tape and a jubilee clip.

Back with the tape, we do a proper cowboy job and wrap a yard or two of tape round the pinprick hole, but it still leaks. Then we discover the tape has a backing strip, so we rip that off and try again. Eventually we bandage the pipe enough that there's no dripping, and look at each other folornly. OK, no need now for an emergency plumber we think, we'll get it sorted on Monday.

The carpet fitters are done with two rooms, and offer to come back to finish this one when we've got the leak sorted. They head off to their van, then come back sheepishly and explain thay their battery is flat because they left the radio and the hazard lights on. Wife, self and #2 fitter give the van a push start, and happily the engine catches and they're away.

Back in the house, we congratulate ourselves on having two bedrooms with carpets, and we put the master bedroom back to rights and clear some of the downstairs area by moving things into the top front bedroom.

House more or less restored, we continue with our weekend chores, but alas an hour or two later, checking on the punctured pipe my wife discovers it's dripping again. Curses. Maybe I shouldn't have put on a load of clothes washing and turned the heating back on.

More tape, fresh towels, mugs and sponges to catch the drips, wife camps out happily to babysit the pipe while I surf the net for a 24 hour plumber. It's now about 6pm on a Saturday, prime costs time.

First plumber takes my details, then says they can't call until tomorrow. Not very helpful. Second plumber answers the phone in an indistinct way, sounds like he doesn't know a compression joint from a compression fracture, so I hang up. Third plumber, this is better, he sounds professional and gives me his prices (£150 an hour including taxes) but can't be here for a couple of hours. OK, that's as good as we can hope for. Back to wife to break the news, she's happy to babysit the pipe for two hours, and I bring her a book, cushions and some snacks.

I should mention at this point that I was suffering from a cold, and it was getting steadily worse as the day progressed. Wife had it the previous weekend, so now it was my turn. I'm exhausted, feverish and shaky, so I get to sit downstairs and watch TV while wife sits in a bare room watching a pipe under the floorboards. What a gem I married.

Around 8:00pm the plumbers call to say they're on their way, and at 8:20 they arrive. They quickly drain down the central heating system.

<<< Aside : In most UK homes a boiler heats water which then circulates through the house via a sealed loop of pipes and radiators. The water in the system requires occasional topping up, and the radiators need occasional bleeding to release trapped wind. The radiators aren't very efficient at warming the air passing near them as you can imagine, and as the hot air rises to the ceiling first, it can take a long time to get a room warm. I prefer the US system of heating the air directly and pumping that into the rooms via a floor level vent. >>>

With the system drained they quickly cut out the damaged pipe section and put in a new piece, refill the central heating system, and bleeed the radiators. By 9:30 everythign is done, we pay them, and they head off. Nice guys, we'd use them again, but hope we never have to.

Now we have a fixed pipe, but a manky old Victorian floorboard split lengthways to cover it up. We resolve to buy a new plank the next day, tidy up what we can, and I head to bed with a fever of 101.5 F.

The next day my fever has dropped to a mere 99.5 F, so we do our familial duties and have lunch with my parents, then pick up a new floorboard on the way home. The floorboard isn't quite the same width as the old one, but it doesn't matter too much, there are other gaps and once the underlay is down you can't tell.

Approved

On Thursday we had the long awaited and slightly dreaded visa interview at the US Embassy in London. As the title says, we were approved.

That's a big weight off our minds, because although I never really thought we could be rejected, until it's in the bag you never know. We can now file away all the myriad paperwork we had to collect.

We now have three more weeks to get our house ready to put on the market, and then we shall see what we shall see.

Magnolia

We're freshening up the walls in our house prior to putting it on the market, and after worrying ourselves for weeks about what paint colours to pick, the estate agent recommended Magnolia.

My wife and I are not big on noticing wall colours anyway, so this suits us. I can get put off by a bad shade, but the walls of our master bedroom have been greeny-grey for 15 years, and it mever bothered me enough to repaint them. I did so this weekend, and it has transformed the room, sort of.

It's odd the paint manufacturers have developed thousands of different shades, but the standard is still the same... Magnolia.

I guess that's why it's the only colour other than white that comes in ten litre tubs.

Morris

Yesterday was my last day as a Morris Man, a full day tour arranged by the Yateley Morris Men, with eight different men's sides in attendance.

If you have no idea what a Morris Man is, I can recommend this short article by one of our novices, Simon: http://uk.geocities.com/springgrovemorris/JoiningASide.html

or for a slightly more tongue-in-cheek view, try to see "Morris: A Life With Bells On".
http://www.morrismovie.com/

For four years I've been a member of Spring Grove and Off-Spring Morris, based in the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames. I joined in the Autumn of 2005 because I was looking for a musical outlet where I could play my recently acquired Melodeon. I had until then been spending Monday nights at an English Folk Music evening class in Chiswick, but the Chiswick Council decided to double their fees overnight. About the same time, I spotted an advert for musicians to play for Morris Dancing, so I made my way along and joined the Spring Grove team.

That first Autumn I was one of three musicians playing for the side, and as I wasn't very adept on the melodeon I also took my fiddle along. Big mistake as far as learning the melodeon went, because now I was the side's only fiddler, and a fiddle plus a melodeon sounds better than two melodeons. I also was encouraged to dance, so I ended up with three different roles, fiddler, melodeonist and dancer. Overall the three complimented each other and kept me busy, but required three times the work.

However by the the 2007-2008 Season I was finding the travel increasingly difficult and tiring, as I am actually quite a way from Kingston and I was getting home very late on a Monday night, so I restricted myself to turning out with the side when I could, but not attending practise as I had for the previous 3 years.

In place of Morris practise on Monday evenings, I rejoined my English folk music group, who had by now relocated, ironically to a pub back room five minutes walk from my house. Most of my old friends were still playing there, and I was soon up to speed on the favourite tunes. We play occasionally for Country Dances, so I get my musical fix locally, and the fun of playing for dancing.

So it's farewell to Morris, at least for now. There is a Morris side in Portland, but that's too far for regular attendance, and I don't really want to hang onto my old hobbies when I'm in the USA, I want to develop new interests and make new friends.

Conkers

As this is (hopefully) my last Autumn in England, at least for some time to come, I am taking more notice of the changes of season than usual. Certainly it hasn't escaped my notice, especially on my cycle rides, that it's conker season again.

Conkers are the seeds of the Horse Chestnut tree, of which we have a large number in Ealing. They grow on the tree in a spiky yellow ball, and around this time of year they drop down like shrapnel. The seed plus spiky ball weighs several ounces, so it's wise to wear a hat while out and about. The seed itself is chestnut-coloured (suprise) with a white patch on one side, and used to be much prized by schoolboys for conker fights. These are probably now banned for health and safety reasons.

Once when I was about 11 I went round with a friend collecting conkers, with a vague idea of having a massive conker battle later. We packed the biggest, shiniest conkers into my bicycle saddlebag, and off home we went. The conkers then laid forgotten in the dark until I next had need of the bag, when I discovered a grey mould had enveloped them, rendering both the conkers and the saddlebag no longer fit for their intended purposes.

I'm sure there's some lesson to be learnt there, if only by squirrels.

Medical

OK, I had my medical yesterday, so here's the story.

We got our Visa Application Approval Confirmation letter on 20th Aug, but until Tuesday had heard nothing further, so I rang the extortion line to ask if they had sent anything yet. Yes, they sent it on Fri 4th Sept, so it should arrive soon (it hasn't shown yet).

I also asked for my case number and was given it, so that allowed us to put in the next set of paperwork today (B. has had it ready for weeks) and book the medical without waiting for their next letter.

So I immediately rang the medical office for an appointment and was told to name a date, so I said today (well, yesterday I said tomorrow, but you get my drift), and was offered 8:55am. Living in London that suited me. Early start = less chance of a long wait.

So bright and early I turned up at 4 Bentick Mansions near Bond Street tube station, after walking right past it a couple of times, because I was desperate for the loo and none of the local shops or cafes have one.

At reception I handed over my passport (which I got back after they photocopied it), my immunisation records, a completed questionnaire (do you use hard drugs, that sort of thing), and a British-size passport photo. They will accept either Brit or American size, so I chose Brit as I had more of them spare (I was carrying a couple of each to be safe). My immunisation record comprised the results of a blood test I'd had done by my GP in mid-July, and the jabs I'd had done to cover things I thought I needed but probably didn't (and at a cost).

Waited maybe ten minutes, one other guy was there before me, and while I waited I was asked to complete another questionnaire and sign a form agreeing to a blood test. I also had time to peruse the celebrity-chasing magazines. Who on earth reads these things?

Then I was called by the nurse, and she said my GP's blood test sheet didn't show anything about Measles and Mumps, though I had immunity to Rubella (Chicken Pox) so didn't need that. Thanks GP surgery for not reading my letter explaining what I needed to show I had - I'm pretty sure I've had both those diseases already, and could have had the jab cheaper from the GP if required.

However they would do a MMR jab for £35, so I had that done immediately. I could have gone back to my GP, but we want to get all our ducks in a row so it wasn't worth fussing over the difference. Barely felt the needle, but I'm warned I may feel a little feverish in 5 days. The nurse was chatty and pleasant, asking about where I was moving to and saying she always meets people off to lovely places (i.e. anywhere that isn't the UK) while she has to stay in London.

Back to the waiting room for another five or so minutes, and there's a lot more people there now. I discover there's a beachwear edition of the celebrity mag, but I'm called very quickly for the X-ray.

X-ray man also very nice and chatty. He weighs me but with shoes and clothes on so they're not massively concerned - I'm about 10 pounds overweight by my GP's assessment. I strip off my T-shirt and make like a chicken in front of the X-ray plate, shoulders up and forward to spread the shoulder blades (the X-Ray man tells me how), and holding an x-ray proof sheet over my backside rather awkwardly. Bingo that's done and back to the waiting room, remembering to put on my T-shirt.

Barely time to pick up the beachwear issue again before I'm called again, this time by the doctor.
The doctor is a lovely American woman, mid-twenties to thirties, asks me all the questions I've already answered on the questionnaire, twice, but in a bit more detail, and a couple of new ones (Have I ever been arrested? How does that affect my medical condition?). I do a quick sight test wearing my glasses, 2nd from bottom line one way with right eye and backwards with the left, no problems.

Now it's time for the genital examination...

I wasn't quite sure what to expect but the Doctor asked me to step behind a curtain, drop my trousers and boxers, and put my hands on my hips. Deep Breath, stand proud, I tell myself, everyone has to do this so let's get it over with. With a dramatic swish she pulls back the curtain and asks me to cough. I do, and she pulls the curtain across again and tells me to get dressed. That's it? A cursory glance at the family jewels as they jiggle? Apparently so.

She asks me to lie down on the paper-covered gurney and listens to my lungs and other internals, from various angles, and now it's blood test time. I'm used to needles from doing blood donations for over 25 years so it was really no bother, I barely felt it. She explains that she uses a size 18 needle (I don't think these match knitting needle sizes) because it damages the red blood cells less, and gets a better result.

She puts a plaster and a cotton ball on the dribbling bloody hole and asks me to hold my arm up for 5 minutes and apply pressure with my other thumb (or was it a finger, I forget) while she checks the blood there and then. Mine's red and drippy.

She does a blood pressure test (I think I was 120/85, anyway it was healthy enough), but apparently there's a bit more blood leak than she expected from my needle hole, so she puts a fresh plaster on, lump of cotton wool, and straps it round with medical tape, telling me to keep pressure on and my arm straight for 10 minutes, and to go back to the waiting room. She also says that the tests are fine, she has my mobile number if she needs to call me but 99% chance she won't, and the results will be with the US Embassy around Tuesday next week.

So back to the waiting room and that magazine (I'm really worried about Victoria Beckham's weight loss, and need to re-check Kelly Brook's beach photos) but almost immediately I'm called to pay the bill (now I'll never know if Jordan gets that 4th boob-job).

I leave the building lighter in wallet, but also in spirit.

Visa Stage 2

Nearly three weeks after the first letter confirming we're still waiting for the next packet of information to arrive. Last week we noticed that on the letter (but not on the envelope) they had B's address wrong...

So we emailed the Embassy, and should get a response in the next couple of days - if we don't we'll have to ring them on their very expensive phone line.

There have been postal strikes in various areas of the country for weeks, but these shouldn't hold something up for three weeks, and my wife's address and my address, though actually the same, might not be the same on the US Embassy computers, so one being wrong does not necessarily mean they're both wrong. It's an annoyance we didn't need, and no doubt stems from someone carelessly entering information from the wrong part of the original form.

Grrr.

Update: So worried were we that I rang the US Embassy to check progress. The form we are waiting for was only sent last Friday, 2 weeks after the previous letter was received, so it's not lost in the post and should arrive any day now. The address on their computer system is correct, and the lady at the Embassy had no idea where the wrong address on the letter came from. I also confirmed our case number, so we don't even have to wait for this letter to arrive, we can complete the two DS-23o forms and send them in immediately.

Phew.

Update 2: Having got our case number over the phone, I am now able to book my medical, so never being one to wait for the iron to cool, I rang the medical people (with a little nudging and a lot of helpful lookups from B.) and now have my medical scheduled for 8:55am tomorrow! As we planned ahead and I got all my shots done July this should be a breeze, though one never knows. After that it's just the interview itself we have to wait for.

Many people have the medical and final interview on the same day, but they are travelling from further afield - I've only got to travel about ten stops on the tube.

Builders

A breed I am destined to become very familiar with over the coming months.

Today our house renovation started, with one older Polish guy supervising, and two younger guys doing the sweaty stuff. I'm at home supervising, ready to make decisions on things as they occur, and helping with the sweaty stuff occasionally. It was about 27 C today, so it has been warm for London in late August.

Our house is very old, positively antediluvian by US standards. While stripping off the 4th layer of wallpaper in one bedroom the builders discovered a date of 1878 penned on the wall by a Victorian paper hanger. Of course the house may be older, but can't be any younger. Unfortunately that wall is probably going to have to be stripped down as it's lath and plaster, and over the 138 years since it was last plastered the plaster had lifted from the lath in places. Shoddy Victorian workmanship, and we though they built things to last. The lath and plaster causes a lot of dust, and also the walls are not as straight and even as plasterboard would be.

We now have two completely empty bedrooms at the top of the house, leaving our remaining stuff crammed into one bedroom and the main living room. My PC is offline for a few days because the broadband cable connection comes into one of the empty bedrooms, so I'm typing this on my wife's laptop which is wireless. The room emptying helps highlight what we're still keeping, and what we're still trying to get rid of for cash. If we just binned the cash crop we'd have quite a bit more space, but as we're here for a few more months at least, we're prepared to live like pigs if it nets a few extra bucks.

When we get to the US, we will hopefully refresh our acquaintance with builders, during the process of building our new home, assuming everything pans out as per plan A. I'm looking forward to it, as I suspect things are done rather differently.

Visa Stage 1

Yesterday we received confirmation of the approval of my wife's Sponsorship Application for me, so we're now waiting for the next packet of information from the US Embassy.

We've already completed the next form, so when this arrives we should be able to send it back in about 48 hours.

Keep/Sell/Give/Throw

We're now well on our way through the packing and clearing stages. The house isn't empty by any means, but it's a lot emptier than it was, and there's room move about and see things, stack things, sort things, and make the K/S/G/T decisions.

After 16 years in this house, and five for my wife, we've accumulated a lot of...things. I'm not entirely sure where they all came from to be honest, or why I thought we needed eight Pyrex mixing bowls, five metal Thermos flasks (assorted sizes), six sets of Chinese Baoding Balls, four guitars, three mandolins, an uncounted number of tin whistles (not all made of tin), shelves of books I will never read again, more shelves of computer games I will never play again, clothes I will never wear again, or all the other accumulated brick-a-brack that collected in the dust-bunny infested corners and drawers.

The good news is that some of this stuff is actually worth money, and through the careful application of eBay and Gumtree we have managed to salvage several hundred pounds for otherwise unused and useless possessions.

The stuff we can't sell we try to give away, the smaller items to the local charity shops, larger or more awkward items via Freecycle to anyone who will come to the house and collect. The beneficiaries may be secretly running their own garage sale, but we're happy to just have space where once we had stuff. Excess books are too heavy and nearly worthless to post, so the local Oxfam Bookshop is receiving a few dozens of volumes.

The last option is to throw stuff away. We have a good local Council recycling service, so anything glass, metal, plastic, cardboard or paper gets collected every Tuesday, and we have filled sack after black plastic sack with the things we couldn't recycle, silently praying that the dustmen will collect all the bags regardless of how many we put out.

The keep option has probably been exercised a bit too often, but we have our limits. My wife told me yesterday of the daughter of a colleague who has just moved house and had a number of boxes marked "loft". They came out of the loft of her old house and went straight into the loft of the new house, unopened.

This life laundry has hopefully taught me to be a more selective shopper in future, and if I seem miserly with my money, it's more that I'm miserly with my space and want to enjoy the newfound acres that beckon.

Automatic

I've recently spent two days driving around in a Ford Transit van, putting boxes and bags into storage, and delivering some furniture to my godmother's house. The van was a stick shift, i.e. manual transmission, and my left arm feels like I've been stirring paint for hours.

The biggest problem with driving in London is the traffic, and the biggest problem with the traffic is having to creep forward two feet at a time, every time you're in a gridlock. Coming back from Walthamstow, about an hour's drive from my house, I hit the jam above on the M4 motorway, and was stuck in it for the next 30 minutes. Shift into 1st, creep forward two feet, back into neutral, repeat.

Every car I've every driven in the US was automatic, though I know manual does exist, because sneaky car manufacturers often quote their starting model prices with Manual, with automatic being an upgrade costing $1000-1500.

Needless to say our US cars will be automatic transmission.

Weather

We love discussing the weather in England, or maybe we are just a bit obsessed by the dullness of it. I know my wife gets tired of hearing her co-workers complain about the heat/cold, rain or lack of it, every morning.

Almost every day in London all year round can be summed up as "dry with scattered showers". Even in the middle of Summer, there hasn't been a dry 24-hour period since we returned from Eugene on 6th July.

It'd be nice to know in the morning whether or nor one needed an umbrella or sunglasses and factor 40, but frankly we have it easy. At least the weather in London is unlikely to kill you, and there are lots of buildings to shelter in.

The US is plagued by hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones, monsoon-like cloudburts, droughts, threat of Tsunamis (we saw many warning signs on the Pacific coast), earthquakes, volcanoes, massive snowfalls in northern states, wildfires caused by lightning strikes, or the steamy heat and humidity in some of the southern states.

My in-laws in the Houston area have had to flee or shelter from hurricanes three times in the five years since I've know them, and my own post-wedding plans in Florida were affected by Hurricane Wilma. We saw much damage in Miami still waiting to be repaired several months after the storm, and a hotel we had planned to stay at in the Everglades cancelled our reservation because it was reduced to kindling.

Last year a Houston hotel reservation was cancelled, and only my brother-in-law's thinking to check ensured we had a room to stay in over Christmas. I moan about the rain here, but I've never had a UK Hotel cancel my booking because of the weather, and not even bother to inform me.

We also avoid the Hurricane corridor that stretches across from Texas to Florida, and the cyclones that can build up in the fields of the mid-west.


Part of the answer to the "Why Eugene" question is that the weather there is unlikely to try to kill you, or destroy your house and property. Far enough east of the West Coast not to be affected by Tsumanis, too far north to be affected by Californian earthquakes, far enough south to avoid heavy snow falls in Winter, and far enough west to be out of the "killing zone" if Old Faithful in Yellowstone Park ever decides to turn into a fully fledged volcanic eruption, as Discovery Channel drama-documentaries are keen to remind us is long overdue. If that one goes off, by the way, the ash fallout is likely to land as far away as Washington and Philadelphia if the prevailing Westerly winds are blowing at the time.

In fact we chose Eugene partly because the weather ir pretty much like London's, wtih much the same annual rainfall, except it rains more when it rains, and suns more when it suns.

Sports

As I write, the English nation are basking in a Test Cricket victory over Australia at Lords Cricket Ground, the first time they've achieved this in 75 years.

Bask....

Cricket, Rugby and Football are the three main team sports in England, and I had my fill of all three before the age of 13 through School Games. Very basic (or no) changing rooms, no showers so I went home sweaty or caked in mud, or both, and no explanation of the rules or skills, was not likely to make me a lifetime player of team sports.

Between the ages of 13 and 16 I did the minimum of sport, and no team sport. I swam, and played squash.

At University I discovered a new team sport to watch, American Football. A friend of mine was a fan of the Washington Redskins, so I took up the team they were playing against that first time, the Philadelphia Eagles. My interest developed, along with a large number of other people's across the UK at the time, because American Football was being show on national TV.

So for several years I was able to follow the sport, and even played a little touch football with friends. Alas I was a little too early, a couple of years after I left University it was being more widely played with full equipment, but at least I could follow the NFL on TV.

Unfortunately the powers that be decided that Nicky Horne was too knowledgeable a presenter for the British fans, and substituted a pair of morons who knew less about the game than I did. They soon bit the dust (I was not alone in my relief), and Mick Luckhurst was chosen to present the show for the next few years. He was a semi-Brit who'd actually played, if you can call a Kicker a player.

Then the all-powerful NFL bosses sold the TV rights to SKY, a cable and satellite channel, which meant that a penniless student and generally tight-fisted individual like me couldn't watch the games without stumping up a whopping £30 (about $45) a month. That was that, I couldn't afford it, so I lost track of the NFL around 1996, after being a dedicated fan for 9 years.

Happily I had an alternative sport to follow. During the Summer of 1989 I was on industrial placement year away from University, driving up and down the country for long hours, and I discovered Test Match Special on the radio. This is the BBC Cricket coverage, and that summer Australia were in England playing for the Ashes. This was my first real exposure to Test Cricket, and it was made more enjoyable by the wonderful commentary where sometimes Cricket seemed to be the distraction rather than the focus. If you're on a long car journey and are fed up with hearing the same eight songs played every hour throughout the day, Test Match Special is truly diverting.

Test Cricket is a funny thing. A game is scheduled to last 5 days, with six hours play each day, and breaks for lunch and tea. Also breaks for rain, streakers, finding the lost ball that Steve Waugh smashed over the pavilion, and anything else you can think of. At the end of 5 days the result can still be a draw.

This may go against the American "Winning's the Thing" attitude, but it rather suits the English, since generally our country loses at most sports, especially ones we invented. If we win, then it's because something went wrong for the other team, or the judge/referee/umpire made a bad decision/was blind/was deaf etc.

So a win in Cricket after 75 years has left the nation happy, but also slightly worried and bemused. Can we go on and win the series? What if the Umpires get new spectacles and hearing aids? How can we support the underdog when the underdog is Australian?

When I am living in America I expect to be able to continue to follow both Cricket and American Football, since cricket is played round the world (well, the Commonwealth anyway) and round the year (handy having Summer in Oz and Kiwiland when it's Winter in the UK), and the US coverage of American Football is somewhat better than the UK coverage. We currently get one game a week for the first half of the season, two for the second half, and none of the post-season until the Superbowl (except for SKY viewers).