UK Winter Wonderland

Hi Family and Friends!

I must apologize to the 4 or 5 people that actually read this for the tardiness of the update - all of my online time was totally consumed by locating a certain toy for a certain boy. Thank goodness Toys R Us restocked this toy or we would have had a very disappointed 3yr old on Christmas morning.

Well it was pretty surprising to get snow here in England in the last week! We were excited to be in our 'element'. The first day we really only got a dusting, but the day after we got a full-on 6" or so. Liam and Mummy made a little snowman the first day and a big 'snowball' the second. Then he and Daddy made a train - it was 'Percy'. Gemma looks so funny in Liam's old snow suit. It's so big on her and, like all little ones in snow suits, she can't move at all once in, and ends up just rolling around on the ground. Poor thing:)

It was hilarious - and sometimes a bit scary - to watch the British get around in the snow - especially getting up the hill that 'T' intersects our street at our house. A few times I thought our stone fence was going to get knocked over. One man got a garden shovel out from his car boot (trunk) to create two tracks in the snow on the road all the way up the hill for him to drive through. It's not just that the cars and tires aren't made for this - it's the drivers too - they just aren't used to this. Mark saw a Subaru have trouble getting up a driveway on a hill and they are, as we know because we have one, all-wheel drive. 
Most people don't have proper snow/ice/frost brushes here and everyone seems to have their own way to clear their car. I've seen the following:
1. Spray the frost with water
2. Pour water on the frost
3. Clear snow with dust pan brushes (kept in the car)
4. Cover the entire car or just the wind screen (wind shield) with proper cover, blanket, bed sheet or tarp.
5. Scrape the frost off with an Ontario Health Card - this was Mark :) Don't worry - the health card is useless here anyway and is our 'away from Ontario for more than 7 months' card which expires shortly after we return in 2011.
Avis car hire (rental) now provides a card like scraper that is about twice the size of a health card so we use that now. And while I'm on rentals - my new favourite car to rent in the Peugeot 207 - cheapest class to rent, it has isobars for our child car seats and it fits our pram (stroller) comfortably in the back.

Lots of businesses and services were cancelled even for us and our area didn't get the big storm (like northern England and Scotland). We didn't even get the post one day! Mark usually gets to work in Manchester on the train and hasn't had any trouble due to the snow/ice and the only trouble I've had are people not shovelling or salting the pavement (sidewalk) so I end up walking the pram on the road.

Mark's been working 2-3 days per week regularly at 2 schools. The students all like Mark and tell other students that he is safe (good/cool) and to treat him properly. Not bad for a supply teacher in England where the kids are notoriously terrible. He also has no shame in pulling out the Canadian card and talking about Canada, Drake and Justin Beiber, as needed. One girl started crying when he told her he'd been to Stratford before (where the Beib's from). It's apparently the worst time to be a substitute in England since the new government announced major cuts in October - although most education cuts don't take place until April or August (end of terms), if Head Masters/Teachers (Principals) don't manage their budgets they'll be fired. So they are trying to get by with their internal staff they have if they are short a teacher. Most of Mark's work is on-call, so he finds out the morning of if he'll be working and where. He goes to Manchester each morning by train and waits for a call at the Starbucks at Piccadilly Station whilst enjoying a filtered coffee and his book.

Filtered coffee is something we miss. Most coffee's here are pressed or are made from espresso (americano style), which tastes good (sometimes too strong), but how can the random coffee grind be better? But I digress.

We had a family trip to London in mid-November to see England play France in a friendly football match at Wembley Stadium. England lost 2-1, and the game wasn't that great, but it was really amazing to be in such a huge stadium for us 'fanners' - there were over 85,000 people in attendance! It was Gemma's first sporting event and she really enjoyed it. The game didn't start until 8pm so we weren't sure how the kids would be considering they are both usually asleep by 8:30! They both stayed up for the entire match, we didn't even have to leave early like we did at Toronto FC games with Liam! Gemma was so excited, clapping and 'hooraying' throughout! She enjoyed taking part in 'the wave'. Liam loves any opportunity to yell and cheer, but started yelling out his cars' names towards the end of the match. We took the train from New Mills to Manchester to London and stayed overnight in a hotel near the stadium area. We walked to the stadium, taking Gemma in the carrier and fearing for the safety of our pram in the hotel - not because it was dodgy, but just because it was London, and it could have stood to be a bit less dodgy. We stored it in an awkward place within the room just in case but it was waiting for us when we returned with our two sleepy kids.

England has been treating Liam well - he gained 5-6lbs in the first 3 months we were here - must be all the chips and beans! He's also gotten a couple inches taller. Each night we see what 'his numbers' are on the scale at the house which measures in stone: 1 stone = 14lbs. So he tells us if he's 2-2 or 2-3 (for 2 stone, 3 lbs). We've been prepping him for Nursery (preschool) where he'll go for afternoons in the new year with all the different 'English' words they'll be using, such as:
nappy = diaper
toilet = potty
wee = pee
bottom = bum
(yes, we're still toilet training!)
sledge = sled
dinner = lunch
tea = dinner
football = soccer
jumper = sweater
plaster = bandage
beanie = toque (actually, I just thought of that one and will have to tell Liam)
He and Gemma are still having lots of fun at the Children's Centre and Liam has embraced the new words to the Hokie Pokie - the Hokie Dokie. It's totally different and I had to get Mark to teach us the song so we could properly participate and avoid the fit of tears we had one week. There's running into the centre, knees bending, arms stretching and rawh, rawh, rawhing!

Other mum's have been commenting on how much Gemma is progressing! She is so pleased to be standing at the sand box and also doing her own artwork (without too much help from mum) at 'Messy Play', and clambering about at 'Healthy Active Tots'. This week she climbed up the two steps to the little slide and once down (with mum's help) she tried to climb up the slide - the little adventuress. I took both kids to be weighed at the walk-in Baby Clinic held each Monday at the Urgent Care Centre and Gemma almost weighed 15lbs. When we've weighed her at home she has been 1 stone 2lbs = 16lbs, but it's quite difficult to get an accurate weight because she's so light. In England she falls into the 0.4th percentile and in Canada she is in the 3rd. So English kids a tad larger than Canadian kids - I know Gemma's tiny, but I thought the clothes sizes here were big! She can feed herself quite well with a fork or spoon and is trying to stand by herself and walk, but is not quite there yet.

Gemma was poorly (sick) at the end of October and missed out on trick or treating. We took her to the urgent care clinic to get assessed and she got anti-biotics and an oral steroid (things she's had before in Canada). But we didn't have to get a prescription and take it to the chemist (pharmacist) because the Dr. had all the meds in the clinic AND kids under 16 get free medications! I mean, I know it's not that different from Canada if you have a drug plan, but it what a great system! The Dr. also gave us a bottle of paracetamol, which wikipedia told me is the same as Tylenol. Gemma also got her jabs (immunization shots) so she's caught up for English kids. I tried to get her a chicken pox vaccine, but they don't have it here. I'm going to keep trying because one of our friends said she knew someone whose child was imuno-compromised and got one. The NHS sends letters with appointments already scheduled for children's immunization shots, through the local health visitor's office. They also send reminder letters to adults for recommended check ups, but appointments aren't already made for those. Both kids also got their flu jabs since they fall into a priority group, having to use inhalers.

I (Krystal) got my first English haircut & colour. Did you know bangs are called fringe here? I didn't get any, but they were discussed. I was pleased to have received a great recommendation from a mum friend on where to go - a great salon with no ego and reasonable prices.
I've also discovered Tesco has one of the best loyalty programs out there. When I finally got around to check out their online grocery shopping and delivery service, I happily found that they have tracked all of my in-store purchases and keep them in 'my favourites'. It was like having my very own Krystal aisle. 
I've had to keep up with 'my shows' online on random websites since they aren't  to date here on regular tv and I can't access them on the North American websites since they know I'm in the UK and I'm not supposed to be watching new Glee's right now. Urg, that interweb and its smarts.

We drove to Birmingham to visit with Mark's Aunty Margaret, Uncle David and cousins for a visit - had a great pub lunch. Liam and Mason ran around the pub's Funky Forest indoor jungle gym, while Gemma and Evie played side by side in their high chairs. Then a few weeks later, we enjoyed having Rog, Hayley and Evie for an overnight visit. We went for a rainy but lovely walk along the snowy Sett Valley Trail in New Mills - Liam in his new sledge. We had a yummy dinner and stuck into some mulled wine, mince pies and X-Factor after the kids were asleep.

A getting sorted for Christmas blog to be up soon - for real this time.

Photos: Facebook

Keep warm everyone,
The Nicholson Family

Random UK Commentary:
1. The Brits love their comedians - they have so many quiz shows and weekly news shows on the tele with a panel of comedians commenting on current issues. Mark's fave is Mock the Week.
2. They also love their reality shows. The most popular ones (like X-Factor, the new Idol) air on Saturday nights! We told Mark's cousin the only thing that's really on tv on weekends in North America is sports.
3. England hasn't been recycling for very long and each county is different. Derbyshire has been taking food waste separately now since April and are quite proud of themselves. They have separate bins for waste, food & cardboard, bottles & tin, and paper but we have to take plastics and cartons to community drop-off points - usually found at grocery stores. I'm all for being 'green' but c'mon, that's a pain.
4. We would like to congratulate British Telecom for entering the 1990's with the introduction of personalized voice mail on landlines and a beeping ringtone to alert you of a voice mail. WOW!
5. Packaging here is all about the resealable tab (on coffee, pasta, rice, anything in a bag, really) which more often than not, is shite and either ends up ripping the bag or just ripping off. Then you need a clip otherwise your rice is going to fall all over the floor. So now Liam and Mummy are obsessed with clips - they're on everything.