Behind the Wheel

Today is the first day I drove the car on a major road. I have been taking the bus to the base and driving the car around to get used to the feel of a right-hand drive car. It didn't take very long before I became accustomed to driving on the left, but then again the speed limit on base is a pretty tame 15 mph. One Sunday, I took the car out for a spin in our neighborhood. Traffic is really light on Sundays so I was able to encounter a few roundabouts with little traffic to distract me. Today I drove from the base to a nearby cattery. I wanted to inspect it to see if we might leave Ginger there for two nights this weekend while we head out for a short visit to Scotland. I only had to drive on a couple of small roads and for a brief period on the A59, the main road between Skipton and Harrogate. All went quite well. Woohoo! Next time around I suppose I'll drive the car from base to our house where I will have to drive through the busy city center and maneuver some of Harrogate's busiest roundabouts. That doesn't sound near as scary to me as some of these small country roads that are often so narrow it is difficult to imagine they can accommodate two-way traffic. Not to mention the hairpin curves and blind summits!

Oh, and as for the cattery.... well I'm still considering it. The cattery is in a stone building on a farm in Fewston. My first impression was not helped by the strong smell of manure as I stepped out of the car. I guess the farmer had just fertilized his fields. There are two cattery buildings, one of which allows cats to go through a flap to an outdoor room with a spectacular view of the countryside. Each cat enclosure has three levels, so the cats have plenty of room to move around. I'm still having pangs of guilt over this as we've not had Ginger home from the quarantine kennel for a month yet. And now we will be leaving him in another kennel. I'm sure he will be just fine, though...

Holiday Weekend

This Monday will be August Bank Holiday. In Harrogate, that means the Stray Fun Fair will be taking place. We live a leisurely five-minute stroll from the Fun Fair grounds, so last night Brad and I checked it out. We found a lively little carnival in the works, complete with many rides (mostly for children), games, cotton candy, gaudy lights and hokey music. On Wednesday there will be fireworks. The fun fair will wrap up on August 30. Fortunately, even though we live so close the the fair grounds, we cannot hear the music from our apartment.

This weekend the Leeds Music Festival will also take place, under much controversy, it seems. Last year violence broke out as hooligans sent fire to a public toilet. Organizers claim they have taken measures to assure no such problems will arise this year. Even so, traffic promises to be a nightmare this weekend, not only here in Yorkshire but all over Great Britain. It seems Network Rail have decided to take advantage of the long weekend to repair many of the rail lines throughout GB. Why on earth they would decide to shut down major rail lines during a holiday weekend is beyond me and perhaps indicative of the sorry state of the British public transportation system. (We were so spoiled in Tokyo!!!)

I guess Brad and I will stay close to home this weekend and try to avoid any of these traveler's nightmares in the works.

The Twig Lady Slept Here

I've signed up for an evening class on the History of Harrogate and Knaresborough at nearby Harrogate College. But yesterday, I found out a little bit about the history of the house we are living in right now. Yesterday Colin, a handyman, came to our apt. to check out a problem we had with some drapes. Turns out he's a Harrogate local and he had done some work for the lady who lived in our building before it was turned into flats. At the time he knew her she was a widow and lived in the house alone. She would collect twigs that had broken off of trees in the Stray. The twigs were purportedly for starting fires in the many fireplaces in the house. Colin says the odd thing is that she never lit a fire. She would save the twigs in baskets and buckets all throughout the house. On each stair of the staircase was a stack of newspapers about two feet tall. On the second floor was a bathtub -- full of twigs. Colin says she would ride her bicycle around the neighborhood, always with a couple of bags in tow to collect her beloved twigs.

Harrogate in Bloom

Every year gardeners in villages, towns, cities and resorts across Great Britain compete in the biggest horticultural campaign in Europe -- Britain in Bloom. The aim of the campaign is to inspire gardners to find innovative and environmentally-friendly ways of decorating their locale with trees, shrubs and flowers. This year Harrogate is a finalist in the Large Town category. Harrogate garnered the top Britain in Bloom award in 1992 and was a finalist in 1997. It comes, really, as no surprise that Harrogate is once again a finalist. The town is simply bursting with parks and flowering green spaces. Twice a year Harrogate plays host to widely attended flower shows. Brad and I are fortunate to live across the street from The Stray, over 200 acres of lawn that, we have heard, sprouts a delightful carpet of crocuses and daffodils in the springtime. We can't wait to experience our first spring in Harrogate.

This year, Harrogate's gardeners have had their patience tested to the limit: Monday morning, residents awoke to find that vandals had decimated a centerpiece flower display on one of the city's roundabouts. Every single flower had been beheaded and strewn on the street. This, just four days before the Britain in Bloom judges were due to descend upon the town. Yesterday was the day the judges were to have arrived and given their inspection and you couldn't have ordered up nicer weather. It's been sunny, warm and pleasant. I haven't yet heard the results of the campaign, but I'll keep my eyes peeled.

More About The Weather and Boot Sales

Yesterday, England broke an all-time record when a temp of 100 degrees F was recorded at London's Heathrow airport. Here in Yorkshire, however, things have cooled down a bit. Yesterday, Brad and I headed out, expecting to be sweltering in the sun. Instead, we were greeted with dull gray cloud cover and a surprise shower in the middle of the day. The sun came out briefly in the afternoon but today, right now, we are experiencing a torrential downpour accompanied by thunder and lightning.

Yesterday, we decided to go to another car boot sale (flea market). This time I had a goal. I've decided to look for toast racks (used by some restaurants and B&B's here for serving toast). Some of the toast racks are quite decorative, but I figured I could make practical use of one as a letter and/or bill holder. I did find a few toast racks at the sale, but to my surprise they were rather pricey! I saw a couple of ceramic racks priced at £18 and £55. That's about $28 and $88 respectively. Even if I dickered with the seller, that's way more than I planned to spend. Of course these racks were from the 1920s, or so the seller says. Guess I'll continue to scour the boot sales as well as charity shops for some more affordable items. And I'll continue to hone my boot sale technique by watching Boot Sale Challenge.

Talk About The Weather

England has been gripped by a heat wave of late with near record setting temperatures reaching into the 90s!! I must admit I certainly didn't think we'd be dealing with weather like this in northern England. During the summer in Tokyo we were guaranteed to endure at least three months of steam bath-like conditions. And Baltimore summers are characterized by muggy sweltering days. This is unusual weather for the British isles, where houses generally do not come equipped with air conditioning at all. There have been warnings of possible wild fires on the North York Moors, which have not received rain in some time now. The heat has cause havoc also to air and rail services. We've heard about the devasting fires in France and the torpid weather that the continent has been experiencing. We are certainly are getting a taste of that here in North Yorkshire.

Family Reunion

Today we brought Ginger home! It is so wonderful to have our cuddly kitty at home with us again. He appears to be in excellent condition. We asked the kennel to give him a bath yesterday and now he is so soft and sweet smelling. He was quite calm in the car as we drove home. Always a good traveler, we hardly heard a peep out of Ginger during our one hour drive home. When we arrived at our apartment, he, of course, had to inspect every room, peering into all the nooks and crannies of this strange new place that will be his home for the next three years.

Of course it would be so much nicer if we had our own stuff in our apartment. Not only do we want and need our stuff, we had hoped to avoid having Ginger experience the commotion of the movers. We have heard that the two shipments we sent from Tokyo (one small shipment of essential household goods) by air and one large shipment (the bulk of our belongings) have been turned around in Virginia. This means the shipments are on their way to, or have already arrived in, the UK. How long it will take them to be delivered to our doorstep is a question, to our extreme and utter frustration, no one seems to be able to answer.

In the meantime, we've gone ahead and bought some items that we just couldn't wait for any longer. Like a couple of decent pillows!! The ones the U.S. govt. provided us are the most flimsy pathetic excuses for pillows one could possibly imagine. We found a couple of really nice pillows on sale. These pillows have lavendar, a supposed sleep aid, included in the filling. We also purchased a new litter pan and some water and food bowls for Ginger. And we picked up a toy for our Ginger boy. He will probably ignore it, like he usually ignores all store bought toys, but I really wanted to have something cute and special for his homecoming.