Newsy Email

Yay, Our Shipment Came!

I skipped last weeks newsy email because our stuff came! I’m still missing some Tupperware lids etc, but its small stuff.

We only have 1 real closet, and 1 half closet, so we need to buy a couple of hanging racks…and get rid of more stuff. We also are still keeping our clothing in plastic tubs in my case, suitcases in John’s. Its fine temporarily, but we need something like chests of drawers eventually. Maybe an IKEA trip soon. Or a town furniture auction!

We went to John’s office Christmas party, which was held at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, south of Cambridge. We enjoyed viewing many planes and war machines, and they even had a real concord airplane. The story we heard is that it landed at this airfield for some reason, but couldn’t take off without them adding a whole lot to the end of the runway. So it became part of the museum. They were about finished flying the concord by that point anyway. It is an impressive and long airplane!

The food was good, and the company as well. We met a couple…who live in our neighborhood! Small world. They seems very sweet, and have a daughter who is 2.5. At one point the husband said- yes, we used to go to galleries and museums, and now we go to parks and beaches. He sounded wistful. That’s parenting! We understand.

Also last weekend the village of Oundle had a Christmas market day with stalls of food, drink, fudge, art, 2 real reindeer and a Santa with elves. We didn’t stay for the carols and tree lighting, as we needed to get to the Christmas party. We will choose a less freezing evening and walk into town to enjoy the lights and the tree.

We bought Jenny’s little Honda Jazz, which allowed us to turn in the rental car. This will eventually become my car, but John is now looking for another car for us, because the jazz needs some work to pass the M.O.T., which is a safety check of some kind- in January. It is tiny and zippy and easy to park! YAY! We also went to base last week for a mandatory safety briefing on driving on the other side of the road. Then we got our Brit drivers licenses. Buy by bit we are checking off all those “have to do” things on the list. We have now been here 1 month!

I’m still moving piles of stuff from room to room, but am hoping to be happy with the rest of the house, and be able to set up my sewing room later this week. YAY! I met a lady at church who had bought a pattern and fabric and then chickened out making it, so maybe she will be interested in having me help her. I think she doesn’t have a sewing machine either…which would make it hard.

I have found out that there are a couple of crochet, knitting groups in Oundle, so I will try to join one soon.

I take long walks to the grocery store, line dance in the kitchen, keeping myself busy with new and old recipes. So far I have not run out of things to do here. The sun is setting before 4:00 each day, but the light is so interesting and has a different quality, as the rays are so slanted…but its not nearly as cold and dark as Norway. Not that I minded the dark in Norway, there was always night skiing, sledding, iceskating, teen get togethers…

I want to send you our addresses — the APO is fast and just takes regular postage, the local would need more stamps- no idea really how many.

Or the local:

Whew! Its a windy day so I’m trying to dry laundry on an outside clothes line….when was the last time anyone did that?? I didn’t have enough clothes pins, so I have had to go out and rescue socks from the shrubs. Sorry there is no video. I’m afraid it was hilarious — rescuing clothes happened a few times. Oh well, I need to add clothes pins to the market list.

A milkman stopped by last week and so I signed us up for milk and cream on Mondays and Fridays. How very quaint!

Much love for each of you as we head towards Christmas. Our needs are slight, our coats are so warm, our house is snug. Until next week loveys —