Domestic Life

I’m afraid that there’s nothing terribly exciting to report since my last post. I’m trying to settle into the routine of things – and I’m getting there, but slowly. On Wednesday of last week, I met my next door neighbors, Peter and Debbie, who are really, unbelievably, nice. They showed me how to operate all the stuff in the house, so that I could take hot showers, and use the central heating system. That was definitely a plus.

So Thursday and Friday were relatively mundane – get up, go to work, come home in the evening. I’ve been mainly preoccupied with getting all the utilities and whatnot set up for the house, and am still having arguments with the phone company about whether or not I can get them to give me a line. I did forget my railpass on Friday, which resulted in me walking back down to the house and then back to the station, and, of course, missing the train. According to Mapquest, that’s a trek of .86 miles one way, so I figure I got my exercise that day.

The rain finally arrived this weekend. I went into “downtown” Redhill on Saturday with Peter and Debbie on Saturday morning to do my shopping, and got pillows for the bed (yeah!), but no bed sheets, as I realised (please note proper British use of the ‘s’ in realised) that I don’t know what size bed I’m sleeping on. So, I do have a pillow now, but am still sleeping under a throw from downstairs. I also brought an umbrella. According to Debbie, the goal is to buy the cheapest one you can find, because they all fall apart in the wind, so you’ll have to buy a new one shortly anyway. At any rate, the shopping trip was very informative. Peter has offered to take me out for a pint sometime this upcoming week, so I’m looking forward to that.

Sunday was pretty quiet. It rained most of the day, and so I sat around the house, more or less. With no phone, no television, and no internet, there wasn’t a whole lot to do. I did talk with the family through Skype, which was interesting. I’ll be interested to see if the sound improves after I get the internet set up at the house, as it was rather muffled, although that may have been due to the large number of people hanging around the computer down there in Alabama. I did my laundry on Sunday, which was also interesting. For a country that operates on 220V, the appliances act rather sluggish. Since there is no clothes dryer, I ended up drying my clothes on the radiators. Ah, the British lifestyle.