Becca Jane St Clair

Personal Blog

Archive for November, 2010

Still Infected

No signs of the problems with my website being fixed. Dreamhost sent me an email yesterday to tell me they had forwarded my issue to a “specialist” and the email said that because it was being sent to a specialist, they couldn’t guarantee their usual 24 hour turnaround, which is really usually about 5 hours or so. So….I wait. And meanwhile, worry about my site. I had a great end of NaBloPoMo post planned with links back to every entry for the month, but I don’t want anyone clicking on my website until things get fixed.

Even odder is I tried using the google webmaster tools to figure out what was wrong, and it tells me nothing, but still says my site is infected with malware, so I’m really confused. The pages it pointed to as being “infected” were my about this site page (which I’ve now deleted) and a page that displayed a photo from an entry back in August (which I’ve also deleted). Google claims that going to those pages doesn’t direct to those pages but goes to a malware website, but I’ve checked things out and there is nothing there at all. I’ve looked in all the source files, I’ve checked every file in my ftp directory, I’ve reviewed the htaccess file…and I can’t figure it out.

So I’m going to cross my fingers that Dreamhost can fix it soon for me and that it won’t be too hard to get google to stop listing my site as being infected. I don’t get a whole lot of google hits, but I still enjoy seeing the traffic.

Other steps I’ve taken:

-If you’ve commented on my blog in the past week and I did not know who you were, your comment was deleted. I do apologize, but since I couldn’t track the source of the problem anything unknown got canned. If you previously left me comments, I kept it. If you want to leave your comment again, feel free but also let me know who you are. I also deleted comments left by fake email addresses or listing fake URLs. I consider an email address to be fake if it’s just a string of random letters. Again, if I’ve deleted a legitimate comment, I apologize and ask that you re-post it.

-Blocked All IPs of potential spam comments. I have a really good spam filter, but some comments still get through. I blacklisted every IP address that was attached to recent spam comments. Spam comments are comments that don’t make any sense, aren’t relevant to my post, contain links to sites that are not personal webpages. If I have accidentally blacklisted your IP, you will not be able to leave comments. If you want to be taken off the blacklist, just send me an email and let me know your IP and who you are.

-All user accounts at the “subscriber” level have been deleted and the ability to create your own account has been removed.

And that’s about it. I HAVE managed to post every day for the month of November, I just can’t post links to all the entries yet. 🙁

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Warning

My webpage is popping up as being blocked by both firefox and AVG. I’m looking into it.

If anyone else is getting the same issues, please let me know.

(this will have to be my filler post for today. And I really hope I don’t miss tomorrow’s last post of NaBloPoMo!)

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Thanksgiving

Today is my family’s big Thanksgiving dinner, and only the second one I’ve ever missed. I sent my mom some photos to take along, and I’ve also written a letter to my family. Here is a copy of the letter, which is basically a run-down of 2010:


Dear Family,

I hope you all can forgive me for not being there for Thanksgiving, but with Mom’s visit to me in December, I felt it was silly to visit so close to her visit. I’m planning on visiting sometime in 2011 and if Tim can get time off from work, he’ll come with me.

I’m not sure where to start or what all to tell you but I will say that this past year has been amazing. I really love living in the UK and I have made some fantastic friends, as well as re-connected with a friend from high school who now lives here!

Before I arrived, Tim was talking with his Aunt Wendy about me wanting to get involved in the community. Wendy asked what my hobbies were, and Tim told her about singing. Wendy had a friend who was part of a chorus and I was invited to attend a rehearsal. I loved it, so I joined! The group is called Lincoln Sounds, and is a female barbershop chorus and part of Sweet Adeline’s International. This past May, we won the bronze medal at our regional convention!

I also found a volunteer opportunity one day while walking around in town. I now work once a week at the Cancer Research UK shop. It’s a short shift, but it gets me out of the house, meeting people, and more used to using British money. I tend to make people laugh when I use American words like “pants” or “suspenders” – in the UK, if you mention “pants”, you are referring to what in the US is called underwear. “Suspenders” in the UK are what in the US are called garters! Whoops! Fortunately, most people recognize my accent and laugh.

We’re slowly working on getting the house redecorated and organized, but we can see the final vision in our heads, so hopefully in 2011 we will be able to do everything. We are planning on installing double glazing on our windows to help with keeping heat in in the winter, and looking into central heating. Our house is a farm house from the 1800s (the oldest house in the village), and the previous owner never had central heating installed and Tim didn’t have it done because he was hardly home. Now that I’m here all day and we’re thinking about starting a family, we need central heating! I also plan on learning how to cook on our Esse stove. We have a solid fuel stove that will require smokeless coal and I will have to keep it topped up daily. The fortunate thing is that the Esse (similar to an Aga Rayburn) will also help to heat the water in the house. We’ve got a long way to go before I can use it, and a few weeks back a bird flew down the chimney and was stuck in it! Fortunately, Tim rescued it.

Of course, you’ll know about Mom’s visit in April. She got stuck here due to the volcanic ash, but it wasn’t a bad thing! She came over so she could attend the wedding reception we held for Tim’s family. We had a great time, and I got to wear my dress again! 🙂

I’ve gone on a few trips this year – one with Tim, and 2 without. In August, I went with my friend Helen and her son, Mark, to Wales for a week. We stayed near the coast and spent the week going to railways (Helen and Mark have a garden railway like us) and castles. We had a lot of fun, but I missed Tim. In October, I went down to Southampton to visit a friend I knew in high school and college. She also married a Brit and lives down there, so it was nice to catch up with an old friend, and made me feel comfortable. I missed having friends around who I’ve known for years and who I could just talk to about anything. I’m planning on going back down to see her in January.

Our big trip this year was our Honeymoon Part 2. This was the original Honeymoon plan before Tim’s days off got restricted last November and we wound up going to Florida instead. Tim wanted to take me to Germany and Austria, so we headed off in September with the car loaded down with camping gear. Our first stop was Neuschwanstein Castle, which most of you know is one of my favourite castles. We then drove down into Austria and set up camp at two different sites and visited railways, castles, and historic towns. Since we were camping, we also got to experience life in Austria and buying groceries! My German came in handy, but if someone heard Tim and I talking to each other in English, they would switch into a combination of German and English that we could understand. We really enjoyed camping as well. We have a large tent that has 2 bedrooms and a large middle section as well as a camping stove and of course, lots of flashlights (called torches here!). Just about the only thing we didn’t like was that once it started to get dark, it was hard to read or do anything else other than go to bed. We also didn’t like the cold, but we were camping in the Alps, so what did we expect? We plan on going camping again this coming Summer – spending a week in Scotland with Tim’s brother, Ben, and then a week down in Wales with Helen & Mark. I do apologize for postcards not making it back to the US. I’m not sure what happened, but it appears as though every single postcard we sent to the US has been misplaced by either Austrian Post or the USPS. After asking 5 people if they got their cards, we’re writing them off. Maybe someday they will show up! I sent Mom some pictures though, so they should be somewhere with this letter.

We had two big garden projects this year. The first one was trying our hand at growing our own vegetables. We dug a small plot and planted some potatoes, carrots, and parsnips. The carrots and parsnips are just now finally getting large enough to use, and I harvested over 300 potatoes in August! We also tried growing cucumbers and tomatoes, but the weather here isn’t suited for them and we will need to build a greenhouse if we want to really grow them. Fruit-wise, we have our large apple tree, which I managed to get nearly 14KG (so that’s about 30lbs) of apples off of, not counting the apples friends would pick when they visited. We gave some away, I made some apple butter, and the rest are in the freezer for the Winter. We also have 2 wild blackberry bushes (called brambles) and I harvested about a gallon-sized ziplock bag from it. Those too, went into the freezer. Our raspberry canes did not do well at all. We might try again next year. We also planted three blueberry bushes. Two of the bushes died but came back to life after some serious pruning mid-summer, and the other bush just grew lots of leaves. I read that it can take 3 years for blueberry bushes to grow, so hopefully we will one day have blueberries! We also planted 3 strawberry plants and managed enough strawberries for snacking. I’ll probably plant more next year. My herb garden suddenly took off in September after hardly having anything. I have Mint talking over along with Parsley. Oregano, Marjoram, and Basil were harder to coax, but I wound up with enough to use. I also have a Thyme bush that doesn’t seem to quit! Unfortunately, I can’t move the plants inside for the winter, as my kitchen hardly gets any light, but I’ll plant herbs again in the Spring! (BTW, here they pronounce the h in herbs, Basil is pronounced “Baa-zil”, and Oregano is “Ore-gahn-no”.)

Our second project was Tim’s railway. He had wanted to build the upper circuit by his 40th birthday, which was in August, so he had a lot of work to do! Tim, his brother Ben, Ben’s friend, and Mark (Helen’s son) spent many days outside digging, laying bricks, and concreting. But we did it! Tim pinned in the last bit of track about 45 minutes before people arrived, though we had had the full circuit complete for several weeks before then. Tim even built two “level crossings” across our front walkway where the railway crosses it. We had steam-ups once a month over the Spring and Summer where friends would bring their trains over to have a go, and it was fun seeing their reaction to the progress. Tim even managed to build a snowplow in January, and so we’re hoping for enough snow to get it out this year!

Tim’s cat, Prudence, is starting to finally get used to me. I miss Will, though. Plans are to move him over eventually, but who knew it was so expensive to move a pet overseas? In the meantime, he keeps Mom company. Prudence recently stopped liking us, though. I noticed she was acting funny and we took her to the vet. Not once, not twice, but three times. Poor thing had to have 4 teeth removed and then we had to feed her antibiotics for a week. I am not very popular right now, but she is starting to go to Tim again.

I am settling into life as a British-American housewife. Learning how to cook with Metric has been interesting, and there was one mishap at the beginning where I shrank our clothing by forgetting the temperature gauge on the washer was in Celsius! I think since January, I’ve only made a few mistakes and we only had to go for takeaway (carry-out) a handful of times because dinner wasn’t edible. Ask Mom to tell you about my red velvet cake that turned black (it wasn’t burned!). If you have internet access and read my blog, I occasionally post recipes. I’m learning how to make a lot of traditional British dishes alongside my American cooking, so we have a nice mixture of meals. Betty Crocker is still my go-to book for recipes, but I also really like Jamie Oliver’s books.

I haven’ t sorted out driving here, yet. Mostly because of the expense of it and because I have no experience driving a manual car. Tim’s car is manual, and that seems to be the trend here. I also have to send off my passport to get my permit (called a provisional license here), and I haven’t been willing to part with it yet! I’ve been relying on public transportation to get me into town. While Lincoln isn’t a big city like London, it’s a decent size and we have 3 busses an hour that run from our village into town.

My health needs are taken care of by the NHS. It’s really nice to just call and have an appointment and not have to worry about paying for it. All prescriptions are £7.20, regardless of what you need, but if you have a chronic condition, you can receive prescriptions for free. My infected armpit issue has FINALLY cleared up! It had been bothering me for nearly a year, but it’s finally been cleared up and I am infection free. I’ve been to an after hours doctor twice for it, and even saw a dermatologist, all without any additional fees. I am definitely in favour of Universal Healthcare!

In December 2011, we will have to apply for my permanent residency. It’s going to be expensive (about £1000!), but it’s the next step we have to take. I have to pass a “Life in the UK” test before I can get my residency, so I’ll be studying for that in January! There also is an English requirement, but since the US speaks English, that test is waived.

I think that’s about it! I sent Mom some photos to share, and she has printed out a few of my blog entries for anyone who wants to read them. If you have internet access, you can read my blog at http://blog.beccajanestclair.com. I try to update it as much as possible. I’m also on facebook – http://ww.facebook.com/beccajanestclair for those of you who don’t have me added. You also can email me – [removed for privacy]. You can IM, video call, or call me on Skype. My account there can be found under [removed for privacy]. For those of you who don’t have internet access, our address is:

[removed for privacy]

I still have my US-based phone number, too. If you want to call me, you can call [removed for privacy]. The number is based in Michigan, so all you pay is long distance to Michigan, instead of the UK. Alternately, you can call my google voice number to leave me a message at [removed for privacy]. This is a Lancaster number, but it only goes to a voicemail account and I would have to call you back (which I can do through Skype for free). My UK number is [removed for privacy]. You would drop off the initial 0 when dialling from the US.

I look forward to hearing from you! Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year

With Love,

Rebecca & Tim

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Save your Feet!

I bought a new pair of HIGH heeled boots a few months back…and when I say high, I mean high.

See?

(pardon the pasty legs, the flash went off and I was wearing nude tights!)

The heel on those is about 3 inches. And these are for a person who never wears heels. I mean, I do on occasion, but my usual heels are only about an inch or so. But I loved these boots!

I wore them a lot to try to break them in, and I moved the insoles out of a different pair of heels to try to make them more comfortable. Tim bought me these thick heel wedges at Pound Stretcher to try to help…but always, after an hour or so, the balls of my feet would be in terrible pain from all the strain/pressure.

It really upset me, because these were NOT cheap boots (though I did score them on a sale!). I figured I would just have to suffer through it until my feet got used to the height of the heel, but then I was in Boots a few days ago and I found these. Ball of Foot cushions. They don’t go in your shoe, it has a loop for your second toe and then you position it under your tights/sock/whatever. And my feet felt so good! The only weird thing is getting used to the toe loop, but honestly, after about 10 minutes I forgot it was there. The pads are washable, too, so if they start to get funky you can just wash them in the sink. I’m so happy. Now I can wear my fantastic boots all day, everyday.

I also like that since it doesn’t stick to a shoe, I can use them in other pairs of shoes. Maybe my chorus shoes won’t be so painful any more!

[Please note: I am not being compensated by Evans, Scholl, or Boots to advertise their products. It’s just a product that works for me!]

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Recipe: Potato Scramble

This is an adaptation of a crock pot breakfast recipe my mom and I always make for Christmas morning, only made in a frying pan in about 20 minutes.

Potato Scramble

This recipe can easily be scaled up or down, depending on how many people you are serving

You will need:

3 slices of bacon per person, diced
1 potato per person, diced
1 small tomato per person, diced
25g frozen peas per person (optional, I really only added it for colour!)
handful of shredded cheese per person
2 eggs per person
splash of milk
oil

I used my wok because it was the largest frying pan I had.

heat oil in a large frying pan. When oil is hot, add potatoes and fry for about 5 minutes.
add diced bacon, fry for an additional 5 minutes, longer if you want crispy bacon (or do in reverse order)
add peas, fry for 5 minutes
add tomato
whisk eggs and milk, add to fry pan and continually stir to scramble egg, about 5 minutes
top with cheese, cook until cheese melts.

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Abbey in the Backyard, Part 2

In March 2010, I blogged about Barlings Abbey, an abbey ruin located not far from Tim’s grandad’s house. In April 2010, we were to find another random abbey ruin while driving with my mom.

We had discovered the remains of Tupholme Abbey.

Tupholme Abbey was founded between 1155 and 1165. The area was picked primarily for it’s location to the River Witham, and was expected to do well. However, this was not to be the case at all. While it was operational, the abbey suffered many debts. In 1347, an abbot was accused of “forgery and counterfeiting of the coin of the realm”. In 1482, the canons were forbidden to leave the abbey due to unruly behavior, and in 1497, an abbot was banished to Leicester for having a child with a local woman.

Tupholme Abbey was dissolved in 1536 under King Henry VIII.

The land and abbey changed hands many times, becoming part of a mansion and later a manor house. In the 1970s, the site was even used for a music festival. Finally, in 1988, the National Trust took over the property.

You can visit the ruins for free – but you might want to make sure you have your Wellies when you go! We had to walk through sheep grazing to get to the ruins. The pasture was rather squishy with what I hoped was mud, but I fear wasn’t!

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Tattershall Castle

With my mom’s December visit less than a month away, I thought it was time to finally blog about a place we took her while she had her “extended” visit (thanks to volcanic ash) in April. My friend Lynne had invited us over to her house, and so we decided to go to Tattershall Castle in the morning.

Tattershall Castle has six floors to explore, and you can go out on the roof to look at the spectacular views of the area. Tattershall Castle was built between 1430 and 1450, and despite there being plenty of stone available, the owner decided he wanted to build his castle out of brick, making it look more modern than being built in the 15th century!

We enjoyed a walk around the grounds, and then explored the lower levels. Tattershall Castle has 150 steps up to the battlements, so Mom decided to sit on a bench and enjoy the sunshine while I bravely accompanied Tim up the steps….and then he bravely went out on to the roof with me!

The walls and stairwells of Tattershall Castle are littered with etchings of people’s names and dates – going back as far as the 1800s!

Tattershall Castle is open from 15 March to 31 October Saturday – Wednesday, and on Saturday and Sunday only the rest of the year. Admission is £5.30 for adults, and members of the National Trust get in for free with their membership card.

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I am an Immigrant

Apparently, there is going to be a speech made today (or maybe it has been made already) about more changes to the UK immigration system. My reliable source told me not to worry, and it looks like by “cutting family visas”, they mean more restrictions on people who come over as dependants of people here on work visas. Not family visas where you’ve moved to the UK to live with your family. Whew. My friend also pointed out to me that they already did put restrictions on the family based visa, based on the new English test, which isn’t aimed at people from English speaking countries anyway. The government scrapped the “Earned Citizenship” route as well, which affects my permanent residency, because it now looks like I am back to applying for Indefinite Leave to Remain in December 2011 instead of the new Probationary Citizenship that was to go into effect in July 2011.

But all the talk lately about immigration rules changing, caps being made, and fees raising reminded me of a conversation I had with my friend Erin a few weeks back. It was right around US election day and I mentioned to her that I hadn’t registered for an absentee ballot. My reasoning behind this was that I felt since I no longer lived in Lancaster/Pennsylvania/the United States, I really shouldn’t be making decisions on how things are run. I’m not there every day to experience life under [insert name of politician], and being in the UK means I only get exposed to print media, which as we all know, can be biased. I don’t think not voting made me a “bad American”, either.

I can’t vote in the UK, either. I am an immigrant, and even with permanent residency, I still can’t vote. In order to vote in the UK, you need to have citizenship. I have every intention on gaining UK citizenship when I am eligible (should be January 2013, if my calculations are right) because I feel that since I plan on spending the rest of my life here, I should be able to state my views on the government and be able to vote. It killed me not being able to vote in the May election.

I was discussing things over with Erin, and I proposed to her my idea — You should be able to vote where you live, regardless of immigration status. Obviously, some rules would need to be made to keep people from moving just for an election, but why shouldn’t you be able to vote where you live and vote for the candidates that you support?

I’m also in favour of “world citizenship” and having it not matter where you wish to live. Ever notice on a sci-fi show how they almost always refer to the government as “earth” or “world”? Why can’t we have that now*? Yes, I know. Overpopulation. If we had world citizenship, then everyone might move towards the “desirable” places to live, and places that were “undesirable”, like deserts where you can’t grow anything, would soon become abandoned. But it’s a nice thought, isn’t it?

I never thought I would become an immigrant. Immigrants were my dad’s parents, and my mom’s great-great-grandparents. Not me. But, here we are. I am an immigrant. And I’m happy.

*Okay, so it’s been pointed out that a government controlling the world isn’t such a hot idea…but that’s not really what I meant. I’m more for the “world citizenship”, not world government!

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Filler Post

I don’t want to shirk on my NaBloPoMo commitment, but today I’m not feeling very well. So, this will have to do for a post. If I’m feeling better later, I will post a regular entry. But right now? I just want to curl up on the sofa with my snuggie and a book.

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Wii Socialization

It’s funny how social you become when you have a Wii. Last night, we hosted our second Wii Party. I love it. Tim and I scored a great deal on the Wii. For those of you who didn’t see me gush about it on facebook or LJ, we paid one of his co-workers £165 for a Wii, 2 motion plus controllers w/nunchucks, Wii Fit Plus, the balance board, an old school controller, Mario Kart (with wheel), Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Ledgend of Zelda, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and one other game we haven’t looked at yet. Amazon prices say we should have paid nearly £400 for everything, and a trip to a local gaming store gave us a price of over £500. Wooo.

Tim and I wanted a Wii for Christmas last year, but we just couldn’t swing it financially, so when his co-worker was talking about getting rid of his, Tim jumped on it. We both want to use the Wii Fit. We set it up and played for about 20 minutes each on Tuesday, but then we haven’t had time to get on it at all since then. We also love the bowling, swordfighting, and frisbee. Tim’s rather attached to Mario Kart, but I discovered watching it gives me motion sickness!

I don’t want to give out our Wii number publicly, but if you’d like to be Wii friends, let me know and I’ll give you the number. We still don’t really know how it works, other than how to send messages to other people, but we’re learning!

I love how the Wii has made video gaming a social thing. And an active thing. No more couch potatoes!

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Harry Potter and the Chorus Concert

Yesterday, I met up with two of my friends and we went and saw the new Harry Potter film. Loved it! I won’t spoil it for anyone, but despite it being a dark film, I found myself laughing a lot. What I didn’t like was the film was set to start at 1, but at 1 they started the commercials and previews and the actual film didn’t start until 1:30. But, I found the Odeon staff very friendly, and they even offered to put my big bag behind the box office so I didn’t have to find a place to put it in the theatre.

After the film, I met some of my friends from chorus for Tea and we headed over to the Drill Hall for our concert last night. Our concert was a 70s and 80s theme, so it was lots of fun dressing up. We had several people dressed up like Olivia Newton-John from her Physical video, punk rockers, hippie chicks, and several ladies wore their own clothing they still had hanging in their wardrobes! We had loads of wigs, too. I didn’t wear a wig. After wearing my hair piece for the first half (a ponytail on a clip), I put my hair into two pigtails for the second half, since that’s how I wore my hair in the 80s! I didn’t wear clothing I still owned. I probably DO still have some of the clothing I wore in the 80s at my mom’s house, but it would all be too small as I was a child in the 80s.

Our show was a great success. We shared the stage with the Foss Dyke Band, and at the end had a sing-a-long. The band director picked war-time songs, so we sang “White Cliffs of Dover”, “We’ll Meet Again”, and “The Army and the Navy and the Air Force”…..songs I had never heard before, but many of the chorus members and audience members recognized them. I think it would have been like ending a concert in the US with “Grand old Flag” or “Yankee Doodle”.

And I’m off again today! Seeing Harry Potter for the second time, this time with my husband, brother-in-law, and BIL’s girlfriend.

Pictures and hopefully video to follow!

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Bonfire Night!

Bonfire Night was a few weeks back, and it also happens to be our wedding anniversary. We decided that every year we are able to (it’s always subject to Tim’s work schedule), we will attend a local bonfire to celebrate. We had several options – some were on Bonfire Night (the 5th), others on Saturday or Sunday. We picked the Lincolnshire Show Grounds because it was only about 3 miles down the road from where we live.

We had a great time. It was cold if you weren’t near the bonfire though, and we had to queue for food for about a half hour! The food stands were the same ones at the Sausage Festival the week before, including the Hog Roast stand, so Tim got to have Hog Roast again. We didn’t get anything to drink and once we had our food, made our way towards the bonfire. The fireworks were pretty, and lasted around 25 minutes. Most of the crowd started to leave once the fireworks were done, so we were able to get closer to the fence around the bonfire. We were nice and toasty warm, but thirsty, so we wandered off in search of some Hot Chocolate. After trying two stands that were out, we found one that still had some hot chocolate and I decided that next year, I’m bringing along a flask of it! £3 for two small styrofoam cups of instant hot chocolate is a rip off!

Since the parking lot had started to empty, we decided to head back to the car…which we couldn’t find. After about 15 minutes, we finally found it surrounded by cars trying to leave – everyone had decided to make their own lane.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I9rRAQqp84

Can’t wait til next year!

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Lincolnshire Sausage Festival

A few weeks back, Tim and I attended the Lincolnshire Sausage Festival, held on the castle grounds, sponsored by Tastes of Lincolnshire. I get a lot of comments from my friends living in other parts of the UK about how jealous they are that we have all these food festivals and they don’t, but well….that’s what Lincolnshire exports! We’ve got loads of farmland and lots of farm animals, so having lots of festivals makes sense.

Anyway. We didn’t really know what to expect at the Sausage Festival, other than some sausages, and we were really surprised at the number of stands, including our friends at Lymn Bank Farm and many of the other stalls I usually see on market day. In addition, there were many food stalls selling all sorts of local fare – sausage (naturally), Lincolnshire beef burgers, Lincolnshire lamb burgers, locally made candy and beverages…if it got made in Lincolnshire, I’m sure there was a stand for it!

We had a great time. There also was a cooking demonstration set up, where I met a fellow American volunteering. She has been in Lincoln for 5 years and tells me there are more of us around. And even funnier? This month’s Good Taste features Whoopie Pies, a PA Dutch treat! How ironic!

We tried several sausages and Tim wanted to try the Hog Roast – they had an entire pig on a spit. Tim said it was good, but I think he liked the Guinness sausage more.

I’m hoping we can make it to the Christmas Food and Drink Show at the end of the month.

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When Filters are Bad…

I had to share this.

I set up some heavy filters for commenting on my blog because I had a rash of spam comments last year and I spent 5 hours deleting something insane like 1000 spam comments. most were for porn websites, so I added to the black list most of the ruder words for parts of the human body.

Yesterday, my friend M, tried to leave me a comment on my blog post. In her post, she used the word “glass”.

Can you guess why she couldn’t post her comment?

Yep. “Glass” contains “ass” and it got picked up by the bad word filter!!

So be careful what you block. I remember my friend’s maiden name used to give her grief because it had the word “cock” in it and some websites wouldn’t let her use it, and Tim was telling me about the town of Scunthorpe that sometimes gets picked up by filters (I won’t tell you why. Look at the word and figure it out!)

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Wildlife in Our House

I seem to have a knack for attracting wildlife into our house.

Remember the frog in the house when I was a visitor? Back in August, we had another frog in the entry way. That one I accidentally shut the front door on! But don’t worry, he was okay. I just opened the door, and he hopped away.

Then, there are the slugs. I think we’ve had 3 or 4 slugs wander in through the crack under the front door this Autumn. Again, no harm done. Just scoop them up into a bin and toss them back outside.

But recently, I had two different wildlife visitors….

It was towards the end of September, and we started closing some of the windows. I was headed up the stairs with a load full of clean clothing when I saw something red flapping in the guest room. Our guest room is right at the top of the steps, and you can see out of the guest room window as you get closer to the top, so I just thought I saw a bird fly too close to the window. I put the laundry in our bedroom and went to go back downstairs, when I saw the flap again. On further inspection, it turned out to be a butterfly!


Getting the butterfly out was pretty easy, I just reached around it and opened the window and watched it fly away.

Our most recent visitor….well, it took a little bit of effort.

A few days ago I heard flapping coming from inside the wall. I told Tim, and he said that sometimes a bird will put it’s nest in the chimney or fly down and not to worry about it, because it would get itself out eventually.

We have an Esse stove (currently not in use). It’s a solid-fuel stove from the 1950s and I know I’ll have more to say about it after I start using it, but it has it’s own chimney and a little flue box on the top of the stove. Yesterday, I swore I saw a wing in there, but when Tim looked, he didn’t see anything.

This morning, the flapping became worse and I heard a metallic sound. I’m not sure how to describe it, only that I thought the neighbour was out cleaning his gutters because it sort of sounded like a ladder. Again, we ignored it….until I walked into the kitchen to make Lunch.

What did I see?

Yes, that’s a bird, and he’s inside my stove. My stove looks a little like this:
*
only it’s not blue and has the boxy thing all the way over on the right. Inside that boxy thing? Was where the bird was!

Fortunately, Tim was able to open it up and catch the bird to release it outside, and we watched it fly up to the top of our apple tree.

[*Stove photo from Kernow Coal Fires]

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Halfway!

We’re halfway through the month for NaBloPoMo, and so far I’m actually reaching my goal of one post/day, and I still have plenty to blog about!

After the month is up, I will probably scale back my posting, but in the new year, I’m hoping for a few goals regarding my blog:

1. Blogging at least three times/week. It could mean M-W-F, it could mean F-Sa-Su, but I want to blog at least three times each week. Four, five, six, or seven times will be a bonus! I’ll also try not to post twice in one day like I sometimes have to spread out the posts. I can’t always guarantee brilliant posts, but I will try!

2. More vlogs, even if it’s of mundane things. You guys seem to really like the vlogs (especially if Tim talks!), so I want to give you what you want! I still don’t feel comfortable in front of the camera, so I’ll still be talking from behind the scenes most likely. Also, a house tour at some point in 2011.

3. Regular recipe posts. I want to try to post recipes once every fortnight (that’s 14 days/two weeks). I’d go for more often, but I don’t want my blog to turn into a recipe blog….even if my friend Lynne thinks I should write a cookbook. (I wouldn’t know where to start)

4. On time posts! No more “I was here back in March”. I am going to try to get blog posts up the same month the event happens. Preferably within a week of it happening, but I will give myself a goal of within the month. Maybe a better goal is “within four weeks”, so if I do something on the 29th of the month I’m not left scrambling to get an entry up before the end of the month!

I’m really enjoying writing daily, and even though some of the things I’m blogging about are past events, I’m still having a great time doing it. If I don’t get all caught up on previous events, I will get them all finished by the end of 2010. Save for anything I do while my mom is visiting, because I probably will want to spend time with her and not blog!

At the end of NabloPoMo, I will revisit my list of things I wanted to blog about, and I will make another list and make sure I get them all done.

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Why Are You Here?

Michelle from A Mid-Atlantic English (as well as The American Resident) asks, “Why are you here?” and asks her readers to post their stories on their blogs.

“Why are you here?” is a question I get asked countless times…at least once/week when I’m at my volunteer job, sometimes in the shops as well, but since I tend to frequent the same shops, people are getting used to me.

I suppose my story goes something like this….

-Visits the UK as part of a whirlwind European tour senior year of HS (1997)
-Decides then and there that she wants to live in the UK someday
-Goes to Penn State, puts dream aside for a few years while she dates and studies
-Breaks up with boyfriend, considers International Business
-Gives up on International Business
-Starts working in a day care, UK dream having been given up
-Gets laid off, gets job at bank. Starts thinking about the UK again and sets a 10-year move to UK goal
-Dates some more
-Goes to Seattle for a convention of webcomic fans. Meets English bloke.
-They hit it off well and stay in touch via email and IMs. They exchange Christmas presents, etc.
-English bloke upgrades his internet to broadband, starts talking on Skype.
-Tells English bloke about dream of living in UK, English bloke suggests an extended visit to see if the UK is really what she wants
-Agrees, and schedules visit for October 2008.
-Decides she likes English bloke as more than a friend, and surprisingly, he likes her too.
-Start dating English bloke
-visit English bloke. Decided after 2 months that they don’t want to be apart, so visit gets extended to full 6 months
-Goes back to US, 4 months later, English bloke comes to visit.
-5 weeks later, takes mom to the UK to sightsee and meet English bloke’s parents
-English bloke has an epiphany while riding Welsh Highland Railway and proposes
-Returns to the US, plans wedding in 5 weeks
-Are wed on 5 November 2009
-Apply for passport in new name, apply for spousal visa, pack up all belongings
-Moved to the UK 21 January 2010 (interestingly, about 2 years before my “goal” year)

So there you have it. And we’ve just celebrated our one year anniversary and soon it will be my one year anniversary of living in the UK.

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Swagbucks Update

Back in August, I complained about Swagbucks Amazon UK vouchers being twice as much as US vouchers. I had decided that I would collect US vouchers with my points since the points would go farther. Well, I discovered that since my Swagbucks account is a UK account, I can’t get the US vouchers. Poo. So, I kept collecting my points, and a few weeks ago, I was able to swap in 849 points for £5 at Amazon.

And I’m already back up to over 200 Swagbucks, well on my way to earning another £5. It might not seem like much, but it’s better than nothing, eh? And it was free to sign up for and free to use, so why not?

So if you haven’t yet, join up! Swagbucks uses Google for it’s search results, so it’s no different than using Google, you just can win points. The points are given out randomly. Sometimes you score with 15 or more points, sometimes you get 5, other times none. But it’s still great fun. Swagbucks also offers swagcodes on their facebook page, and you can even earn points for using their firefox toolbar.

Search & Win

Or click here: http://swagbucks.com/refer/BeccaJaneStClair

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Building a Railway

We have a garden railway. Or, I should say, my husband has a garden railway. For many years he had a short lower circuit that went around the perimeter of the garden below the driveway, but he had always wanted to expand, and he set a goal of getting it done by his 40th…and he did! He, along with Ben (his brother), Mark, and a few other people managed to build the upper circuit in what boils down to about 7 days – just all spread out over the course of several months. I helped too, though my main “job” was supplying cups of tea and making lunch. Still, it helped!

We celebrated Tim’s 40th and my 31st by having a party on the 29th of August, and we also used this date as the official opening date of our completed railway, though we still have a few platforms to put in this coming Summer.

I don’t have much else to say about it, so I’ll just post a whole slew of photos:

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Safety First!

When Tim and I were travelling by rail a few months back, our train was delayed. When we got to the station, we saw that another train had been delayed by quite a bit more than ours had, and when we saw the train, Tim knew the reason.

The electricity had gone out on part of the train, so they were using a signaller’s lantern as a train headlight.

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