Buggy Park

This is the buggy park at the children centre I go to. It's where you park your buggy if you walked there. Can you imagine this in South Africa? You could choose a different pram to go home with each time! 

Our pram is the one in the far back corner of the picture. I left her blankets and even my jacket out there with the pram while we were at our mums and babies group for about an hour and a half. And as you can see others leave their toys etc there too. I know things can and do get stolen here too, but I love how safe it is here and that people don't just take other people's stuff. 

Life in England

Sometimes it still feels unreal that we're living in England. Then I come home and this reminds me I'm not in South Africa anymore:

These parcels were left in front of our front door all day and still there at the end of the day when I get home.

Corfe Castle

Corfe Castle, in Dorset, is an 11th century castle. Well, what's left of it. We came upon it by accident when we were on our way home from Swanage a while back. We were wanting to avoid the ferry route and then found this!

We don't often pay to see stuff, but this one was definitely worth it.

A little bit of interesting information about the history of Corfe Castle. Excuse me this one time for just copying and pasting from this national trust website.

A King is murdered

In 978, before the present Castle was built, legend has it that King Edward the Martyr was murdered at Corfe by his stepmother who wanted to put her own son, Ethelred ‘the Unready’, on the throne. While stag hunting in the Purbeck forest, Edward paid a visit to Corfe, where Elfryda is said to have offered him a goblet of wine, then treacherously had him stabbed in the back while he drank it.

A castle is built
Corfe Castle was begun by William the Conqueror soon after his arrival in Britain in 1066. It was served by the surrounding community in return for the use of homes and land, as well as shelter in the Castle in times of trouble. Much of the Isle of Purbeck was a Royal Forest so the hunting of game without royal permission was punishable by death.

A state prison
Corfe was one of King John’s favourite castles. Between 1199 and 1216 he added a great many defences. During his troubled reign the castle was often used as a prison, where many prisoners met their deaths. He also used the Castle to imprison his niece, Princess Eleanor (the Fair Maid of Brittany). King John turned Corfe Castle into a comfortable royal residence. There would have been a garden and a kitchen to grow and prepare food for the king’s table.

A private home
From the 14^th to the 16^th centuries, Corfe Castle was less important as a royal stronghold and often fell into disrepair. In 1572 Queen Elizabeth I sold it to her friend and Chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton, thereby ending its 500 years as a royal home. He converted it into a prestigious home, complete with fine furniture, tapestries and silk cushions. In 1635 Corfe Castle was bought by Sir John Bankes.

The Castle is demolished
During the 17th century, the Castle was home to the Bankes family, who were staunch Royalists. Following the outbreak of the Civil War, the Castle was attacked by Parliamentarians. With Sir John away from the Castle, defending the home fell to Lady Bankes and her family, 80 defenders, a cannon and some loyal servants. They successfully held the Castle. Two years later however, during a second siege, Lady Bankes was betrayed by one of her garrison, Col. Pitman. Lady Bankes survived the siege and moved to her family home in Middlesex where she died in 1667.

The castle was deliberately demolished resulting in the dramatic ruin you see today. Much of the stone that was removed was used in building the houses of Corfe Castle Village.

Corfe Castle Village Church

A pub in Corfe Castle Village

All the best photos taken by André of course!

Summers day in England?

It has been pouring with rain for days now. Gray skies all day long. When the sun does decide to grace us with its presence for a few minutes we celebrate and sit outside to soak it up while we can. This is part of our life now and surprisingly it doesn't bother us one bit. The only difference is that we appreciate sunshine so much more now.

It is just a little bit irritating to hear about the good weather the Capetonians have been having for days now while it's supposed to be winter there. Guess we know who stole the sun then!

The garden is loving it though. We do have the occasional hot sunny day and that mixed in with buckets of rain means everything in the garden is growing at top speed. We've made a few salads with the lettuce from our garden. The courgettes and squash have started flowering too. I'll get a picture once it's drier outside again. They predict rain until Thursday so hopefully we'll have a sunny break over the weekend!

My birthday in London

I'm doing some catch up blogging today. I've been surprisingly busy these past few weeks editing videos, photos and websites and of course making time for facebook and watching some tv. I have also been busy baking some treats for my wonderful husband who works so hard. See:

Chelsea Buns! mmmmmm...

Anyway, I still wanted to show you the rest of the photos, well a few of them anyway, from when my sister came to visit us. So here's some of the day we spent in London which also happened to be my birthday.

We managed to march her past most of the tourist attractions. 

And march we did to make it in time to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace.

We stopped for lunch at Harrods where we also met up with a good friend of Simone from school.

A walk through Hyde Park. We couldn't only show her the shops! 

It was actually quite a mild day as you can see here where Simone even took her jacket off.

A very busy Oxford Street.

We made sure we got all the London tourist photos taken.

Regent street, on our way to Piccadilly Circus.

Another stop, this time for drinks at Gordon's Wine Bar.

And then on to dinner: pizza at The Dicken's Inn.

The last stop after dinner before heading home: London Bridge.

Let it snow!

Snow started falling in our garden during the night of 29 November. Not even December yet and it was snowing in a country where it isn't normal to have so much snow! It melted away a little yesterday but then we got a lot more overnight. Andre was ready to leave for work this morning and I got up to make his sandwich for lunch. I looked out the window and called him to go check the road to first see if he will be able to leave before I make his lunch. It was totally covered in snow! Everything looks really beautiful, but the little road we live in does not get cleared or gritted. It's quite strange for us coming from Switzerland how people here get to stay at home when it's snowing. Not complaining! It's nice to have Andre at home! But it is dangerous driving on these roads which aren't cleared and without winter tires too.

Here are a few pictures of the snow.

Yesterday on our way back from Southampton, going to visit friends. Yesterday they had a lot more snow here than we had about 20 minutes away. Now we have about the same amount!

This morning in our garden.

Pure white!

We're here to stay!

Last night we were very very excited to receive Andre's 5 year residence card in the mail! We weren't expecting it for another month or two so it was a really good surprise. And such a relief! He is now legal and can stay for another 5 years after which we will figure out what he needs to apply for next. I think he will then apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain.

Now we can travel again. As soon as I get my German passport sorted out. I need to do a name declaration next week to be able to have my German passport in my married name. Then apply for the new German one. I have already applied for my SA passport in my married name and it would make things so much simpler to have everything in one name.

Yay! We'll be celebrating this weekend! If we don't get snowed in :-)

A&E

This weekend I had my first hospital experience here in the UK. Nothing serious. Just thought our SA family might find it interesting.

Andre's been having some stomach pains on and off for a very long time now. So far no doctors could really tell him what exactly it is. He was on a course of tablets for a month which relieved the pain a little. Now that's finished and the pain was really bad on Saturday.

So after we did everything we needed to do on Saturday we got home and said, "Let's go to the hospital! We haven't been there yet!" Just kidding. He really didn't feel too good and we need to get this sorted out.

Off we went to the nearest hospital A&E. That's accident & emergency. Neither really applied to us but if you need to see a doctor on the weekend that's where you go. You state your name and pains at the reception desk and then take a seat. It could take hours depending on how many people are waiting. You don't make an appointment. After about 30 minutes we got to see the nurse first who checked Andre out to see what he needs. She offered pain pills which he declined and said he needs to see a doctor and the wait will be about an hour.

We were lucky that after only 15 minutes a doctor came and called us.

Now when you go to see your GP here you get a 10 minute appointment. On Saturday the doctor spent over an hour with Andre. He took multiple vials of blood which they tested right away while we waited. He suspects Andre has some stomach ulcers, but also checked for everything else. We were very impressed. Even more so when we walked out without having to pay anything!

I know how much health insurance (medical aid) can cost in South Africa and often it won't cover everything. And how much a doctors visit can cost. All those tests and an hours time of a doctor on a Saturday afternoon would have cost us a small fortune back in SA. We are fortunate to get it all for free here. It still feels strange to us walking out without paying! But we're not complaining at all!


*Oh, if you're wondering what's happening to Andre and his stomach now: the blood tests came out fine so nothing more serious than possibly ulcers. He's seeing the GP today. (For the maximum 10 minutes appointment!) Who will then probably make another appointment where they will do more tests. If it is ulcers he will get antibiotics which will clear it up. But no more hot curries for Andre!!

An attempt at shopping at Lidl, UK

Let me start by introducing Lidl and Aldi to those who might not know it. I know we don't have them in SA.

They are grocery stores which are supposedly cheaper than the other grocery stores like Tesco, Saisnbury's, etc that we have here in the UK.

They both have yellow-blue-red/orange logos and I have always wondered if they are actually owned by the same company. Well, if you were wondering the same thing, they're not. I just went and read a bit about Aldi and Lidl on wikipedia and they are actually each others biggest competition, owned by different people.

In Switzerland we had an Aldi in Dietikon where we lived and there I did find buying some groceries from them made quite a difference on what we spent on groceries by the end of the month. I bought tinned food, some meat, pizza dough, we liked their yoghurt, and some other things there. Then I would drive to the Coop afterwards to get the rest of the groceries, especially fruit and veg.

So yesterday I decided since I now have a car I should go try out either Lidl or Aldi here in the next town. They were right opposite each other. I mean right right opposite the road from each other. I chose to go to Lidl since I know Aldi from Switzerland. (We had Lidl in CH too, but not in our town.)

Well first of all as I was used to doing in Switzerland, you have to insert a coin in order to get a trolley. (See the picture above.) If you do not have the correct coin to release a trolley you will be carrying your groceries in your arms since they don't have baskets. Their thing is that when you get to check out you will put your groceries directly into your trolley and then after paying you can go pack your things in bags out of the way of the other customers. I found this out after trying to pack my groceries into my bags as it was being scanned and was told in German to just put it in the trolley as I'm too slow at packing bags.

Now I got this plastic token from my mom which you can insert into the trolley instead of a coin. Do you know how many times in CH I did not have the correct coin because I just tried to use up all my change? So the plastic token works great. You cannot use it to pay for something else so it always stays in your wallet!

So I insert my token, get a trolley and off I go. I am only a few feet down the first aisle when I start thinking, "Where's my laptop, I want to do this online!"

There were people behind me trying to get past and I need to take my time to choose and compare you know.

I had brought with a previous online grocery shop receipt to compare prices. I was surprised to notice that many products were actually a little more expensive or priced the same.

So I started unloading my trolley, but then noticed there's no getting out of this store without going past the till. And I don't want to abandon my trolley. I want to get my token back. So I decide to just buy what's already in my trolley and go finish the rest of the month's shopping at home on my laptop.

Outside I push my trolley back into the queue of trolleys to get my token out. But it's stuck. There is already a lady struggling to get her coin out too, which she manages to do eventually and then try to help me. Another guy comes along and has the same trouble. His wife eventually tells him to just leave the trolley there with their token in it. I didn't want to give up. My mom gave me this token. And even though I don't need to use it much here in the UK, once in a while we come across this kind of system and then I'm always happy to be able to take out my token.

Wel, sadly in the end I also had to just let go of my token. I drove home with my one bag of groceries. Cereal and a chocolate as this is what was in the first aisle at Lidl. And ordered the rest online.

It will be delivered within the next hour. A friendly man will ring my doorbell and carry all my groceries for the month into my kitchen. I will sign for it and unpack and not waste any plastic carrier bags. Then I will go back to the couch to finish watching some recordings on tv while eating my jelly beans that are on their way here now.

The jelly beans!

Want to have a look inside my shopping trolley? No token required for this one!

Mrs Balls Chutney! I bought three bottles just in case it's sold out next time!

Update: Here is a picture of what online grocery shopping looks like when it arrives in your kitchen. No trolleys, no heavy bags, no kids crying for candy.

Castle Combe- "The prettiest village in England"

So says this website and it's definitely the prettiest I've seen so far. I'm sure there are many other pretty villages but I haven't really seen that many...

This little village in the south of the Cotswolds has also been used in some films and it looks like something out of a fairy tale.

Luckily our friends knew about the Manor House Hotel, otherwise we would have driven right past this beautiful place. It was built in the 14th century and has 48 rooms.

We went there for lunch,

then walked around their gardens which are so pretty we had our own little photo shoot there!! Imagine having a wedding here.... Andre said no, we're not getting married again..

They said we could leave our car in their parking lot while we walked around the village. The village is very small, really just one street. It has a population of about 350.

We saw many people walking up the hill as we first drove into the village on our way to the Manor House Hotel. So after lunch we wanted to go see where they were going. We walked and walked but saw no signs along the road giving clues to what might be the attraction that everyone was going to see. Eventually Sonya asked someone passing by where everyone is going to up the hill. He said they are going to the parking lot!!

So we walked back down. At least we got to walk off the lunch we had and were then able to go back to the hotel for cream tea. That means tea and scones here in England. The most delicious scones I have ever ever tasted.

Before the afternoon tea the guys also managed to find another geocache on the way. It had a travel bug in which we took out to go put in another cache somewhere else.

I'm busy uploading these pictures of our day at Castle Combe to facebook now, and I can't believe how many pictures we took of such a small village! I won't be able to put half of it on my blog so you'll have to go see on facebook if you want to see the rest. :-)