Quick Some Promised Verbal Diarrhea

Okay, so we had problems getting phone service here. Apparently because we've never had a phone in the UK we need to pay 150 GBP to BT. However, we need to pay with a UK credit card. Not having a UK credit card, our relocation expert was nice enough to lend us his. Next to set up a bank account we have to have a utility bill with our address on it. However, it can't be the first bill. Well, I just moved here you twit, figure that one out. So once the phone line is established you have to wait three days before setting up Internet and then once they have signed you up, it takes another 5 business days to hook you up. I still don't have a checking account, will call tomorrow to find out about that. They decided to send me a letter to tell me that they needed additional information which I received on Friday after having gone into the bank the previous Friday to set up the account. Hopefully everything is good tomorrow and I can go deposit the check that I have that is in pounds which I don't want to cash.

The children have been going to school and are currently out on term break. They have two weeks instead the public school's one week. Then five more weeks and they are done and we have the summer to play and figure out where to go and what to do. Phil has to work, so I'm thinking the kids and I might have to brave it on our own. Not that I'm feeling quite up to that, so if you want to plan a vacation, call me, we'll figure out something. Anyway, we haven't been anywhere since Bolsover castle. A few walks in the moors, but no actual castles. And yes, I realize that I'm a horrible writer with sentence fragments galore and run on sentences divine, but it's just a blog.

Lady Jane's Birthday

Of course, this was a while ago. She spent the day at Nursery and shared fairy cakes with her class. That evening she put on her princess dress and hat and something spilled on it. Tears ensued and we calmed her down and changed into princess jammies. We had a catepillar cake, because every other prepared cake had raspberry filling which Lady Jane and I do not like. The cake was very yummy. For her birthday, we got her a digital camera. Yes, a digital camera for a four year old. We decided against the cameras built specifically for kids since they tended to have some glaring problems. Chopping off people's heads being one of those. Everytime we go anywhere, Lady Jane is asking us to use our cameras. My Canon is a little big for her hands and the Pentax is definitely too big, besides the fact that we don't want her to break either of those.

So now she has her own and we'll post some of the photos she has taken on Flickr. Phil has a link to our Flickr account on his blog. She also got some great cards from her cousins and grandma & grandpa. Thanks for bringing "Jungle Boogie" into our lives. Her other grandparents sent a present that took a few weeks to get here, but when she finally got it, she was tickled.

It's raining here today. It rains a lot, but I'm okay with that. I finally figured out how to actually make my washer/dryer almost dry the clothes all the way. We have a beautiful view from our apartment and if I can ever get it organized appropriately, I'll take pictures and post them.

Anyone Else's Kid Go to School with a Rock Star's Kid?

I'm not going to name name's, but Little Man is in the same class as a rock star's kid. I won't name the band either, but if you were anywhere near a radio in the late 80's early 90's (high school time for me), you rocked out to this band. I'm not the type to get all keyed up about celebrities. I think they are real people with real lives besides the one's we get to see and those lives are their own. It is kinda cool. He actually dropped his kid off at school one day. No, I didn't say anything. It was just cool.

Anyway, things are going well. The school is about to let out for holiday for two weeks, then five more weeks and all done with school for this semester. Then it's full time mommy. I've got to find something to keep them occupied all summer. I've already warned Phil that we may take off at will (Poor Will). Anyway, I'll post more pictures later.

As Promised Chatworth's House

This is as seen from the road coming into or in this case going out of Chatsworth house. You can see the extensive house and gardens from this view.

These are from the entry way and through out the house.

The statue above is seen in the new Pride and Prejudice movie with Keira Knightly. Which is very good by the way. Yes, I like the BBC version and yes, I've read the book. The gardens are huge. The maze is the best maze I've been in. We seriously got lost in it for over an hour and finally made our way to the middle. It was a great day and is the distance from our house to the zoo. Apparently the gardens are a meeting spot for quite a few of the mothers at Little Man's school.

Bank Holiday Weekend

Sorry you'll have to wait a little longer for photos as we only have the laptops on line and should be online with the main computer over the weekend. So you'll have to be content with me telling you about what we did. When we last left our heros we were moving to our new apartment. That weekend was a Bank Holiday Weekend, Monday was a Bank Holiday. I'm sure that if you looked it up it would be something similar to our odd ball holidays in the States, but nobody really thinks of them by their names. They are all Bank Holidays. So that gave us a three day weekend. We finished moving all our stuff on Saturday morning from the apartment in the City Centre turned in the keys and headed over to the new apartment. I had planned for the weekend to go something like this: move Saturday, go to Bolsover Castle Sunday for the Romans to Royals event, and Monday go to the Highland Fling in Graves Park.

So this is how the weekend really went. Saturday we finished moving in the morning and then went to Ikea in the afternoon. We needed some drawer space since all we had was closet space. We also wanted to look at either bunk beds or a loft bed for the kids. We found some shelving for us, a bookcase for the books I brought with, and a loft bed for Little Man. Though we still had the Minivan not everything would fit, so we had it delivered which would be sometime on Sunday. So Sunday we went to Asda Walmart (yeah, their here too) and bought a bunch more stuff for the apartment. (I spent Friday at this wonderful place called Dunelm buying bedding and kitchen stuff.) Then came back when Ikea called to say it'd be about 30 minutes until they were going to be at the apartment. We got back they unloaded and Phil and I set to work on Little Man's loft bed.

Monday, we decided to go to the Romans to Royals event at Bolsover Castle. The event takes place on the Castle grounds. They had a Roman army camp set up and showed some manuvers. They also had jousting with horses. We got to go on a tour of the Little Castle which Little Man had trouble with near the end. It wasn't what he wanted to be doing, but it was really neat. We had a picnic there which we had to stop at a grocery store before heading out. I found Skippy peanut butter. It was the happiest moment of the day, I swear. They just don't understand what peanut butter is supposed to be over here, which if you read the label of the Skippy you'd understand why. "Try topping Skippy Peanut Butter with bananas (okay not a bad suggestion) or cooked chicken (What?!) or even Marmite yeast extract (GAG!) for adventurous sandwich fillings." No respect for the peanut butter. I'm tempted to make them all peanut butter cookies and see if they truly learn to respect the peanut butter. Chicken? Anyhow, since Lady Jane is surviving by only eating Peanut Butter sandwiches this was a wonderful discovery. I digress.

We had a lovely picnic while watching the jousting. Lady Jane picked up a princess dress at the fair along with the coned princess hat, early birthday presents.

We're Back! - Online That is

We finally got phone and Internet sorted out and the waiting is over. After spending a few hours catching up with junk e-mail and reading the assorted blogs I read, I'm caught up for the most part.

Fair warning to expect some verbal diarrhea for the next few days as I catch up, but right now I have only 20 minutes before I have to leave to pick up Little Man from school. I need to hang some clothes to dry first.

Maintain Radio Silence . . .

We finally got everything in order for our apartment and are in the process of moving in. It's going to take a little while to sort out the phone and internet, so we won't have internet access for a while. We'll post pictures of the apartment and the castle and fair we are going to this weekend next week sometime. I've got to get packing again and get the clothes over to the new apartment.