« September 2004 | Main | November 2004 »
Scene at Dawlish, just down the road from here, last Wednesday. The weather has been pretty wild. Apparently people were stranded on the train in the dark for several hours. One passenger said, with typical British understatement, "One doesn't expect this sort of thing when travelling by train."
More news (not necessarily weather-related) soon.
It rained heavily yesterday and the day before - the first serious rain we have seen since we came. The River Exe is swollen and muddy. England is prone to flooding at this time of year, which is the opposite of Canada, where floods tend to occur in the spring.
Ian's sister and her family came for a brief visit this weekend. They didn't stay with us (not enough room) but at a delightful bed and breakfast just outside the city that Ian and I had stayed in during our trip down in September. It's a converted 16th century farmhouse and one of the owners has lived there since he was a boy. It's one of those building beloved by children - full of twisty, turny hallways, bulging walls and sudden small flights of stairs.
Last night we all went out for an early dinner at a pub near the bed and breakfast called The Twisted Oak. (I had a look, but couldn't see any oak trees nearby.) The pub was once in the same village as the B&B, but is now cut off from it by a motorway. It proved the ideal setting, as there was a nice large area for Amelia to run around in, and the food was very good. One of the challenges in taking Amelia out to eat is that she will not sit in a chair for more than a few minutes. Luckily, many of the restaurants (and stores) here have baskets of toys for young visitors - an idea I had not come across before, but I think it's a good one.
It was lovely to see Ian's sister and family, and also just to spend time with other adults with whom we have a close relationship. We are missing our friends in Canada. I would say we miss my family, but as they live (mostly) in New Brunswick, we only saw them a couple of times a year anyway. But the lack of friends is leaving a gap. Sometimes I look back with amazement at the manner in which Ian and I blithely skipped off to Canada in 1992, leaving behind both his family and our friends here. I did the same when I went to England after I graduated from McGill. I can think of a couple of reasons why it's different this time - we were younger then, and we stayed longer in the Toronto area than anywhere before, so we had the time to build strong friendships.
Is it true that the things worth doing in life are not the easy things?
As I write this, it is 11 pm and the wind is howling through the line of poplar trees that run along the little paved area at the end of our driveway and down the street that runs parallel to our house. (You can see from the photo in the previous post below that the house is in the middle of a group of three. As you're standing looking at the house, there are six or seven garages to your left that belong to our neighbours and other houses on the estate. To the right is a small brick wall with an opening to drive through, leading to the road with the poplars on one side and a longer row of terraced houses on the other. Apparently the whole area use to be a playing field.) The wind often roars through those trees, and in the morning we find the front of the house littered with quite large bits of sticks and branches and many, many leaves.
We took Amelia to the doctor today because we thought she had an ear infection, though it turned out she didn't. Then she fell over and hit her head on the pavement. She can run quite fast now, but is still not that surefooted when the ground is uneven, as it often is here. In two weeks the health visitor from the doctor's surgery at which we are registered is coming to see us. I like the concept of health visitors - when a new child moves into the area, they come to your house and explain all the services available and discuss any concerns you might have.
Amelia will soon start going to the University of Exeter Family Care Centre two days a week. It's basically a day care centre - I took Amelia up on Tuesday to have a look around. They have quite strict government inspections and regulations for childcare in the UK, and the whole routine they have established at this centre and the learning opportunities arising from it seem very good. And the staff were lovely. Amelia seemed to like it - I had changed her diaper and was busy packing up, and when I looked around she had sat herself down at the little table with the other children who were getting ready to have their snacks.
Still not sure what to do about Halloween. There was an article in the local paper tonight about a new "no go" area being put in place within the city, just in time for Halloween and Bonfire Night, to combat potential vandalism and thuggery. This will be an area in which the police will have the authority to move along any "group of two or more people" who look like they might be getting ready to cause trouble. Apparently the police give them maps marked with the area to which they are not allowed to return. I don't know whether to laugh or cry! The most, er, interesting part is that the area shown in the paper is just across the main road from here - I hope the groups of two or more people don't decide to come over here instead. (This is all related to the ASBO thing I mentioned in an earlier post.)
Greetings to all.
If anyone (that I don't already know about) is on MSN Messenger, please let me know so I can add you to my "friends" list.
Today we drove down to Totnes, about 25 miles from here. It's not on the coast, but has a very quaint town centre. We stopped for coffee and a scone as it had suddenly started to rain, as it is apt to do here. (I've never seen so many rainbows.)
Then we scooted down to the coast, to Torquay, which bills itself as the main centre of "The English Riveria." Well, there are palm trees and spectacular cliffs, and many of the hotels and other buildings are painted white or pastel colours, but it's not quite Nice or Cannes. Still, it had something of a genteel feel about it in the off-season. It must be heaving with people in the summer. Another sudden downpour, and Amelia was asleep in the car, so Ian made a foray for fish and chips - very fresh. Yum! We decided to limit ourselves to one meal of fish and chips a month, and one Cornish pasty a week. The pasties are so good, we'd be eating them all the time otherwise.
Amelia is going through a stage of interrupted sleep patterns - perhaps triggered by all the changes lately, or by Ian's increased absence. This is making us tired, especially poor Ian who has a lot of reading to do. Otherwise Amelia is doing very well. Today she said "picture" and what sounded like "boat."
Not much else to report. I've started taking a night class in Mandarin Chinese at the university. Halloween is coming up, and I'm not sure what to do about it. When we lived here before, it didn't exist - there was only Bonfire Night in November, which is entirely different. Now they seem to have both, but Halloween seems to be mainly for parties, rather than going door to door.
One thing the shopkeepers don't seem to understand is that you don't get the Christmas things out until after the Halloween stuff is put away - Christmas decorations started appearing in the shops in September!
More soon...
Things I like about England:
The Climate. It's warm enough here in the south to grow palm trees. And you rarely have to shovel snow.
The History. The bus I take into town passes by a section of the old city walls, complete with crumbling tower. Many buildings have plaques that say something like, "On this site in 1390..." The other day I was walking back from town with Amelia in the stroller and I passed by a narrow flight of old stone steps I'd never noticed before. I love stuff like that.
The Mail. Because the postal system is so efficient, you can order almost anything by post - cut flowers, food, plants. Ian and I have signed up for a club that delivers gourmet chocolates in the mail. And you can buy clothes from a range of catalogues without having to worry about US duty and customs. There used to be two mail deliveries a day, but sadly there is now only one. But there is still a delivery on Saturday.
The Landscape. The coastal scenery is spectacular, and even from within the city of Exeter you are often treated to glimpses of the rolling hills beyond.
The Public Transport. Probably not so good in rural areas, but from here I can walk five minutes to get a bus that takes me into town in seven minutes. And the buses come every seven or eight minutes. This is a good thing, as driving can be frustrating (see below).
Things I don't like about England:
The Climate. It does tend to rain a bit here, though I have to say that the last month has been mostly sunny. The weather is very unpredictable - just because it's sunny when you leave the house in the morning doesn't mean it's going to stay that way for more than 15 minutes.
The History. Sometimes being an old country holds you back. Things tend to be done in a particular way because they have always been done that way. Why insist on continuing to drive manual cars, for example? (Yes, I know there is supposedly a performance advantage, but really!) It feels to me that old countries lack a certain sense of opportunity - a sense that anything is possible - that you find in new countries.
The People. There are too many of them, and not enough space to go around. This results in the shops already being overrun at 10 am on a Saturday, and forces you to plan every trip around possible traffic hold-ups and rush hours, even in small towns.
The Driving. It's horrible. I don't know why anyone does it. The roads are narrow and people park on both sides. If you miss your turning you can't just merrily drive to the next side street and turn around. I tried this on the weekend, only to find the side street congested with parked cards, and most driveways roped or chained off. I ended up executing what felt like a million-point turn.
The Recycling. There isn't as much of it, though there is more than when we were here three years ago. But they don't collect yet from where we live, so we have to drive to the recycling centre, which partially defeats the point. And they don't recycle a lot of plastic, though the supermarkets certainly like to encase their vegetables in it.
Today we took an impromptu trip to the seaside. We had gone to the city centre in the morning (I had to stop myself from writing "downtown" just then, as they don't say that here) to buy a canvas and wood wardrobe thing to store some of our extraneous stuff in. It was supposed to be a quick trip, but Amelia (who, as you know, has not been napping well) fell asleep in the car on the way back. We decided we should let her sleep a bit, so we followed the roads down to Budleigh Salterton on the coast - about a 20-minute drive. It was a gorgeous day - sunny, but with those big fluffy clouds blowing over very quickly, the way they do here.
Amelia was still asleep when we parked by the seafront - luckily we had brought sustenance in the form of Cornish pasties. When Amelia finally woke up, we strolled through the small town and then walked up the path that ran along the steep hill up the cliff. The view was spectacular - long sweep of pebble beach, backed by amazing red cliffs. There were even some beach huts lined up along the shore, but (note to Jackie and Dave) no windbreaks. Probably too late in the season - the wind would have destroyed them anyway. We did see a couple of crazy people running into the surf!
I did not have my camera with me, but I have included a photo I found on a web site as a separate entry.
Ian by now has met the other people on this course - I think there are 13 in all, from Greece, China, Japan, France, Thailand and England. He seems to be quite energized by the challenge of it - of course the hasn't had to do any work yet.
The other day I was listening to BBC Radio 4 and they were discussing something called an ASBO - Anti-Social Behaviour Order or something like that. It seems intended to be used against drug dealers and the like, but the thing that shocked me was that apparently ASBOs can be served on people without the burden of proof required by the courts, and even based on hearsay evidence. They can be used to force people to keep out of certain areas. I didn't take in all the details, but this coupled with the presence of CCTV cameras in virtually every town centre does make me wonder what this country is coming to.
More soon...