Food!

I've been thinking about this topic for a while, as it is kind of important to existence.  And it is enjoyable.

I expected there to be differences, of course, but in retrospect I expected more name changes and extra items more than not being able to find things I'm used to having.  For example, zucchini is called corgettes and I had stretchy bacon for breakfast this morning, but I can't find any chili.  Or Mexican restaurants.  What's that about?!  Doesn't everyone eat Mexican food?   There are plenty of flan, paan, scotch pancakes and croissants, but no tortillas, cream of mushroom soup, cinnamon rolls or link sausages.  There is Krispy Kreme, though.  Go figure.

I also have a problem with their baking isles.  Chocolate chips come in what looks like 3/4 ounce bags, flour comes in 1 kilo (2.2 lbs) bags.  That's not enough to make my bread recipe, maybe a batch or two of cookies...

Adverts around here seem to assume that cooking at home is not an everyday occurrence.  There is one that says running to the store, going home, cooking it up and eating it will only take 90 minutes.  If the stuff is already in your house it takes less time, people!  Weird.

On the flip side, I can get duck, duck grease, haggis, and all kinds of Indian food at the store, along with other items I have yet had the guts to try.  I've had duck, actually.  It was very dry, reminding me of the chicken squares that come in the Lipton dry soups before you add water.  (I was a strange child...don't ask.)

Hopefully, I can start posting some of my many pictures soon.  The posts should be more interesting then, as I take pictures of things just so I can remember to tell people what I'm thinking, noticing, and finding interesting, like the tiles on the Oxford Road train bridge that look like characters from the old Space Invaders Game, the cinema inside an old warehouse, or the single brown pigeon in the flock next to my house.

Addendum:  No Chocolate/Peanut butter combinations  here either.  No Reeces, no chocolate covered peanuts...that's just wrong!

the wheels on the bus go round and round

Today, while riding the bus, I saw an ambulance helping a girl with no shoes or coat on the sidewalk.  She looked like she had come out of a building, and would be ok, they were just being careful.  The really interesting thing was the ambulance itself.  It was, I kid you not, a bicycle with large dayglow yellow packs saying ambulance on them.  And I thought the ambulance that was a two door hatch back was small…

Speaking of busses, I saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban last night while doing cross stitch.  The scene with the Knight Bus, where the bus stops and starts on a dime, waits for an old lady to cross the street, and squeezes between other busses was hilarious when I first saw it.  Now I realize they are just showing a slight exaggeration of the British bus system.  The drivers stop and start like they only have two speeds (sounds like my husband’s grandfather – a wildcatter for the oil fields in his day.  Ask Chet about him.), all the way on the brake or all the way on the gas.  They drive these huge double decker busses like they are the size of a motorcycle, squeezing in spaces they shouldn’t be able to go, zipping and weaving around in traffic like it was no big deal.  Kinda scary, if you stop and think about it, which is not really advisable.  But hey, at least my sense of balance is improving.

still waiting

Still no internet.  Still no bank account, and still having problems registering.  And to fix the problem with registration, I need to be able to get online.  Sigh…

It’s snowing today, but not sticking to the sidewalks.  Brollies are everywhere.  I suppose I ought to get myself one, but a hat seems easier. 

I sat next to a guy on the bus who either had his mp3 player turned up really loud, had bad earbuds with a lot of noise bleed, or he didn’t have any brains to soften the sound so his empty skull was acting like an amplifier as the music bounced around.  As it always seems that the people with this problem are never listening to classical or jazz or new age or something like that – the music was very heavy on drum beat – I’d go with option three.  Not that I have any problem with rock.  I listen to a lot of it myself.  I just think it doesn’t need to be so loud.  Maybe I’m just getting old.

People driving on the wrong side of the road is something that surprised me a bit.  Not that they do it, but just how little I seem to notice.  Only every once in a while, like when I saw a six year old girl in the “driver’s” side seat, or when someone is turning across traffic but is in the wrong side of the car from my experience, does it cross my mind.  If anybody watched closely they could tell I wasn’t local because I still look right-left-right instead of left-right-left when crossing the street, as you should here.  Decades of checking oncoming traffic that would hit you first from the right hand side is difficult to overcome.