Freezing in the UK

Welcome to Lew & Jean's blog.  

Going to house sit in France is a totally new experience so writing a blog for the first time is all part of it.  There were a lot of requests to "keep in touch" and the blog seemed like a good way to do that so we'll give it a go.  We're not too sure how often we'll post updates and it's unlikely to be completed on a regular basis so best to check into this blog site when you wonder what's happening in our world.
The different font colours is the cunning plan to stop the squabbling about what to write.  I'm sure you'll soon figure out who's writing what!

Frosty start for the rental car in Rugby.  This Kia Venga is
 fantastic. Luckily we got upgraded from a Vauxhall Corsa match box!

Arriving in the UK has been a bit of a shock.  First of all we arrived into Birmingham and went straight to The Merchants pub in Rugby to watch the All Blacks get ambushed by the English.  We cheered loudly when the AB's surged back into the game after half time but that didn't last long and we snuck out of the pub quietly soon after full time.  Nothing worse than being in a pub full of excited Englishmen.  Most of them hadn't experienced England beating the All Blacks before so it was best to leave them to celebrate the unique moment without us.  Secondly it's ridiculously cold over here!!  All I can say is thank goodness for central heating.  That is one thing they do very well here.   The weather has been brilliant with frosty mornings and generally clear sunny days but bloody hell it's cold.  I've lived in this part of the world before but I can't recall it being this cold.  The down jackets, woolly hat and long johns are life savers.  A better pair of gloves is definitely required.  

  

Really enjoyed a walk along the canal near Rugby with Amber and Jean's brother Mark.   Ice had formed on the canal and the boats smashing the ice caused quite a spectacular noise.  

Amber provided a great commentary on the wildlife and birds some of which had come down from the Artic.  At least they'd be used to the cold!!

We spent most of the first week searching for a car to buy.  "Kate" the new Garmin sat nav has been invaluable.  Got that on the first day at Halfords in Rugby.   We thought a Renault Scenic Estate was a good option for us, having rented one 10 years ago when we drove through France.  We used Auto Trader and Auto Express to find a few cars we wanted to look at.  The reputable Renault dealers tend to sell used cars that are no more than about 5 yrs old and flick the rest to auction or second hand car dealers.  We could also buy privately.  So we started by going to a few second hand car dealers close by in North Hampton and Burton on Trent.  Unfortunately we didn't take any photos to show the huge variation in where these dealers operate from.  Most seem to have yards either in the countryside (literally in the middle of no-where with cars scattered across a paddock) or in town they have a back alley lot up a side street with 20 or so cars jammed in door handle to door handle. Most of the cars we saw in the first couple of days weren't suitable to keep a dog in, let alone drive around the country safely.  Two were full of water under the carpet - yeah we looked everywhere.  Finally discovered "The French Car Centre" in Cheltenham, who are much more presentable and reliable (we hope) and bought a 2004 Renault Scenic from them.  Managed to talk them into a full service, MOT (warrant), new top engine mount, new cam belt, repair some panel scratches, fix the fan on the AC, and fit a new lock on the roof rack as the key was missing, all for the asking price of 3000 Pounds!  Picking the car up tomorrow, photos to follow.

Yesterday (12 Dec) we had a bit of a "culinary tour" of Somerset with my parents.  The first stop was a cider maker where they were hard at work shovelling the apples into the press.  The dry matter, known as "cheese" that was left went up a shute to one side, where a young lad was shovelling it into a trailer and it goes down the road to a farm for cattle feed.

They make several types of cider, and also sold apple juice which was labelled by the apple variety.  The second stop on the tour was.....a cider maker!  This one however specialised in perry (using pears), plus apple brandy, so we had to have a bit of a tasting session, working our way through the brandy vintages from 1 to 3 to 5 to 10 years!  We were on a roll by this time, and moved onto the morello cherries marinated in apple brandy, then some apple liqueur, and finally some cherry brandy.  It was a fascinating old place, we wandered around the vats and barrels for a while to sober up and continue the tour.

Next stop was a smokery, where they smoke everything from fish to macadamia nuts.  Apparently the smoked eel is what everyone comes for from miles around, including my parents, so some of that was purchased, along with salmon and duck, to bring out over Christmas some time.  They also did a great carrot and ginger soup in the cafe, which warmed us up a bit - the cider places in particular where freezing buildings to stand around in. In the carpark was a guy wearing a woolly hat with New Zealand all over it.  Had to chat to him of course but he was from Somerset - been out to NZ.  Too warm he reckoned so came back for some decent cold weather!!

So, other than drinking our way around Somerset, the main activity since arriving has been spending money!  My English bank account hasn't seen so much action in 20 years, and we are content in the knowledge that we are helping pull Britain out of the recession single-handedly!  We've bought a car, car insurance ( the cost of that alone would feed a family of four for  several months in NZ ), ferry tickets to France, bike helmets, gloves, pumps etc, walking boots, gumboots (or wellies, as we have to call them here, or no-one knows what we're on about), and all the other paraphernalia that we couldn't be bother to pack.  The only thing left on the list now is a bike for Lew, so that's this week's task.  We're off up to Sheffield tomorrow, dropping the rental car off and picking up our car.  Apparently its colder up there.....      Let's hope it's warmer in southern France or I'm going to carry on driving to southern Spain!  The other thing I had forgotten was that the days are soooo short.  Even on a sunny day it's dark by 4pm.  Yip - she's all a bit of a shock to the system.