On Saturday morning there was a stake activity for the relief society sisters and the primary children at the London England Temple.  

For the last few years in our ward in Kuna the RS quit having “children’s classes” at RS activities.  (Meaning there was no longer a place to leave your children if you wanted to attend or participate in the activity.)  I’d heard the reason given as an expectation for the husband’s to take responsibility for the kids.   During the years that Richard traveled quite a bit this was a problem for me.  There was usually an option to call a member of the RS presidency and she would coordinate a babysitter for you, but this required advanced planning (which I’m no good at) and a phone call to arrange childcare (the bane of my existence, yeah?).   

I was thinking about this temple activity and wondering why the stake was offering childcare for the women to go to the temple, because shouldn’t the husbands just take responsibility?  Then I realized how many single mums there are in my ward, and probably the stake, and I felt really grateful for this inclusive and supportive gesture.  

Unfortunately my recommend is packed away in a bag that is still crossing the ocean, but I wanted to see the temple and wanted my kids to have the chance to also, so I decided to go and just tag along with the primary.  We left Simon behind with Richard and Cameron, Eli and I rode with a new friend (Yay a friend!) of mine.  It was so nice for me to chat with an adult woman again.  She is from the U.S. and married to a Brazilian who has two British daughters from a previous marriage.   She and her husband were actually sealed that morning. 

We arrived early so the kids and I just walked around for a bit while we waited for the primary activity to start.  

We made our way back to the Visitors Centre where we were supposed to meet for the activity.  We sat there for nearly an hour, waiting for everyone to come, including the leaders who had an organized plan.  Once everyone arrived we played a get-to-know you game out on the lawn.  Then we took a tour of the temple grounds, the kids got to step inside the foyer and see the beautiful paintings there, and then we made our way back to the Visitors Center where we watched a couple videos.  We finished it off with a picnic on the grass and Cameron jumped right into a football game.  Sports are the best way to make immediate friends.  By then it was a bustling, place, families having picnics all over.  It was sunny and warm for the first time all week and we were all soaking it up.  

Miriam is still referring to “brown” people but I’m hoping that before our time here is all said and done this little Idaho girl won’t be quite so aware of those things.  (Idealize much?)  Cameron has asked a lot of questions about different nationalities and I think he finally gets the concept of Indians actually being people from India.  

A couple conversations from the excursion that amused me. 

1- There was a boy wearing a NY Yankees baseball cap. 
Me: “Are you a Yankees fan?”  
Boy: “What’s that?” 
Me: “You have a Yankees baseball hat on.  Do you like the Yankees?”
Boy: “I don’t know what that is.”
Me: “Where did you get your hat?”
Boy:” J.D.”
Me: “Hmm. Okay.” 

2- I brought Miriam back to the Visitors Centre to use the toilet and some of the adults who had finished their sessions were sitting around.  As I walked in several said 

“You’re right Jo.”

I looked around confused and a few people repeated it exactly the same.  So of course I said 

“What am I right about?”  And they all laughed and said 

“No.  Are you a’right?”  

After spending Monday at IKEA, Tuesday and Wednesday assembling furniture, and Thursday sitting around the house (in our pajamas) because of pouring rain, Friday morning we all woke up with serious cabin fever. 

The rain and cool temperatures and general gloominess were getting to me.  I was longing for a hot summer day in Boise, spent at Eagle Island or Ivywild, or boating and cooking s’mores.  I had a hard time getting out of bed, and facing another day with the kids.  There was just a cloud of melancholy hanging over me, and therefore the whole family.  I don’t know how to DO summer vacation here. I know there are endless possibilities and places to visit but I didn’t have the energy to look them up.  Our belongings haven’t arrived yet, which include the kids toys and a few books about London activities for children.  The rain also made an outing less appealing.   But someone from church had suggested Horniman museum, which is in our borough and only a bus ride away.   I couldn’t spend one more day cooped up in our pajamas so I decided to go check it out.  

I took these pictures with my phone because I was all self-conscious about pulling about my camera to take pictures of photography.  There weren’t any signs that said “No Photography” or else I promise I wouldn’t have taken them. I’m law-abiding like that. 

Anyway, it was an exhibit of photographs of Siberian reindeer hunters over the last decade or so.   These two were a couple of my favorites.  The one on top is a man dumping BOILING water out of his mug, in -53 degrees Celsius.  (Which is -63.4 Farenheit!!)  Anyway, the water not only froze instantly, but made this awesome spectacle.  

The picture below is just an adorable little Siberian girl making friends with a reindeer.  The exhibit kind of blew my mind.  They live in tents made out of reindeer skin, and pack up and move all the time and it’s just SOOOOOOO cold.  No hot showers, no mattresses, no internet!? Wha?! 

On that note…

We stopped at a bakery on the way home for muffins and we were all feeling better.  An important lesson I’m learning in life is that feelings rarely come before action. I rarely FEEL like running before I get my shoes on, but I’m always glad I did.   That’s sort of how my week went.  I didn’t FEEL like doing anything but the enjoyment came once I showed up.  

I had no idea so many people were reading this!  I just want to say thank you for the comments, FB messages and emails of support.  I write mostly for journal purposes, so we can look back and laugh at ourselves.  But I’m glad that people who are reading haven’t gotten bored with it.  Yet.  Or at least not the people who have spoken up. 

Anyway- thanks again.  

KPMG gives us two options for a car.  We can take an annual car allowance and purchase a car, or we can forfeit the allowance and use a car from the company’s fleet.  For convenience mostly, we decided to just lease a car from the company fleet.  Unfortunately, (but not surprisingly) they didn’t have a car in their fleet big enough to fit our family so they are going to acquire one.  (Buying a car just for us! Yay!)  In the meantime they have given us this VW Touran to drive until September.  (It is a rental.) 

It is so small compared to our van from the states.  It’s size hasn’t been a problem yet, in fact it makes driving in the city so much easier, and this car is on the big side of things.  I can’t imagine trying to drive anything bigger than this.  It seats seven, two in front, three in the middle and two in back.  It’s quite cozy.  There is no way for me to “walk” to the back and hand out snacks like I could in our Sienna.  Sorry kids!  There are no aisles or very little legroom to speak of.  But the biggest difference is the “boot” or the trunk of the car.  It fit one suitcase, as opposed to the Sienna that could fit six or seven.  

A lot of things that are new to us with this car aren’t unique to the UK, they are just new to us.  For example, it’s a hybrid, so whenever the car is at a standstill with your foot on the break for more than a few seconds it turns off.  This is such a strange feeling! At first I kept thinking the car was dying over and over.  It was unnerving and it takes some getting used to.   To get the engine running again you just put your foot on the gas and it fires right up.  

It has no “oomph” at all. Which suits me.  I’ve never had a need for speed and I do believe in being ecologically responsible so I’m willing to sacrifice that for fuel efficiency.  And did I mention 

IT IS SO FUEL EFFICIENT! 

Here they call gasoline “petrol.”  And it isn’t cheap.  But our little road trip to Ramsgate and back only used about half a tank of petrol.  Not too shabby.   

I was under the impression that all distances here would be measured in kilometers, and sometimes they are. But most of the time they are measured in miles.  And all the speed limit signs are in mph.  Time is usually done in what we call military time on digital clocks.  2:00pm=14:00.  That is taking a little getting used to.  And temperature is in Celsius, which I am still trying to make myself familiar with.  19 degrees Celsius is just barely starting to mean something to me.  (That seems to be the average temperature of our house.)

Anyway, the car is working quite well for us.  Richard has already become an all-star parallel parker.  And you can park on either side of the street, facing either direction.    The problem is, the roads are so narrow that if you are driving in a neighborhood and someone is coming from the other direction, one of you has to pull over into a parking spot in order for the other one to get by.  This usually goes smoothly and naturally, but sometimes it doesn’t.    

Driving on the other side of the road takes some getting used to, I’ve had to remind Richard a time or two that he needs to be on the left, and as I mentioned I’ve had my own moment of mental lapse.  

We don’t plan to use the car much.  It’s easier for me and the kids to get around by bus or train and Richard will never drive to work, all for the same reason which is parking.  I will probably have to drive the kids to school because we chose a school that didn’t happen to be very close.  And by very close I mean that it is 1.3 miles away and my walking limit is one mile.  (With the kids anyway.) And we will probably drive to church.  Otherwise it will be used mostly for little day trips or weekend holidays.  

So that’s that.  Our {little} car.  

In the morning we drove to the White Cliffs.  (After a tasty continental breakfast wherein I consumed multiple croissants and Simon consumed pork and beans.  For breakfast? Seriously?) 

There have been many things that have fallen short of the way I imagined them.  Reality is sometimes disappointing.  But the White Cliffs of Dover gave me the special experience of being better than I imagined them.  They were majestic and I felt euphoric standing on the edge with the sea breeze blowing my hair and feeling on top of the world.  They have their own beauty, sheer white cliffs so high it takes your breath away.  And history too- I imagined what a welcome sight they were to many an Englishman sailing home from the mainland.   I could have stood there, or sat down for a really long time if it weren’t for hungry and tired kids, who probably needed to use a toilet.  (Or poor Cameron’s desperate pleas for me to come away from the edge.)  

It took most of the morning to hike out to the viewpoint and back.  There was a lighthouse Eli really wanted to walk to, but we were pushing our luck with the kids and so we didn’t go for it.  We grabbed lunch in the town of Dover and then went to the castle. 

Once we found out we were getting a car I planned a little roadtrip.  I was dying to see the ocean and we had to get out of that apartment.  Someone at church had suggested Ramsgate, and then I saw on the map that it was close to Dover Castle and the White Cliffs of Dover.   We packed light because of our little car and off we went! 

The traffic in London is terrible.  The other day when it took two hours to get to IKEA, Richard said 

“Oh Eagle road.  I’m so sorry for thinking you were so awful.  You have never caused me as much grief and frustration as I am currently experiencing.  Except maybe turning left onto you from McMillan.”

But in terms of distance it doesn’t take long at all to get to the countryside.  And it’s so beautiful.  So many trees! And sheep. All told, it only took about an hour and a half to get to the coast. 
  
The first night we drove straight to Ramsgate and ate dinner at a place called “Oh My Cod!”  Talk about a hole in the wall.  It was run by a family from Cyprus.  (I love asking restaurant owners where they’re from.  It’s a new hobby.)  It was an older couple, their daughter and her husband and her little girl.  She was also due any day with #2 and she served us in sweat pants.  We had fish and chips and we had the restaurant to ourselves.   They were so kind and chatted with us about our kids, where we were from, and of course the World Cup.  Thank goodness for the World Cup!  It’s been an automatic ice breaker in so many conversations I’ve had including the Nigerian IKEA delivery guy, the Brazilian server, and the Turkish restaurant owners, just to name a few.  

Most everything else in the city was closed for the day so we just walked along the harbour and let the kids gaze upon the sea while we tried to force appreciation on them.  Richard says he didn’t see the ocean until he went on his mission at age 19.   

We checked in at our hotel where the concierge was American and gave us some great suggestions about where to go and how to get there.  We had to get creative with sleeping arrangements because the room was so small but it was reallly inexpensive.   It took a little while and some smacking but eventually the kids calmed down and fell asleep.  Richard and I were forced to read books of all things because we couldn’t watch t.v.  But eventually it was relaxing and quiet, just as a holiday should be.  

It’s almost midnight here, what a day!  Our internet access has been inconsistent because we haven’t arranged for internet service yet, but you can pay a few pounds for temporary internet access through local hot spots. I’m not exactly sure how it works but I begged Richard to get me connected to the world again! 

I have spent the last two days assembling furniture.  My knees are sore and my back aches and my forearms are weary.  But little by little our house is starting to feel comfortable.  It won’t really feel complete until all our belongings from the states get here.  (Probably in a couple weeks still.)  As a side note, when people ask where I am from I always say “The states.” And they look at me confused.  So I say “America” and they nod and say “Ohh. Okay.”  But I was once told that South Americans and Canadians resent it when Americans from the USA monopolize the term “American”.  But maybe that’s all hogwash.   (Side note to the side note- I’m sorry if my punctuation is bad tonight, or always.) 

Tonight I did two brave things.  I drove for the first time! And I went to grocery shopping and bought more than ten items for the first time.  It happened like this. 

The supermarket I went to is less than a mile from our house, and I would normally walk but it turns out when you move into a house with nothing there is a lot to buy.  Let’s face it, the Ramen-ish noodles from the Indian market could only go so far… I didn’t want to send Richard because I wanted to get what I wanted to get, and he couldn’t be trusted.  (Sorry babe, love ya.)  And because today was his first day of work, which meant my first day alone with the kids cooped up in this house with no toys and no t.v. all. day. long.  All of that to say that I was forced to drive.  

Aside from trying to get into the car on the left side (something I laughed at Richard for doing) and not knowing how to turn it on, the drive to the store went quite smoothly.  I need to write an entire post about the car but I’ll save that for later.  

I took all these pictures with my phone so they are what you get from a phone camera.  What makes the house so loveable to me is that it has a lot of “period features” but is modern in the important areas.  (Kitchen and bathrooms.) 

A couple months ago I downloaded the IKEA UK catalogue on my iPad and perused it’s pages.  Then a few weeks before we moved I spent a couple hours doing a more specific search for the most inexpensive and practical furniture.  It was really fun and I had a great time choosing things.  I imagined going to IKEA and wandering leisurely through the showroom and market and warehouse gathering the items I needed to make our new residence a home.  KPMG gives us a relocation allowance so I was thinking “What could possibly be better than shopping at IKEA with someone else’s money?!”

Let’s just go ahead and add that to the list of things I’ve romanticized about moving to London.  

We made our first trip to IKEA last Tuesday.  We took the train to get there and it was relatively easy and straightforward. I had made a list from my favorites in the catalogue and brought along my trusty notebook.  We planned to leave the kids in Smaland and have a much needed break.   Turns out the kids can only stay in Smaland for an hour, so we only got about 2/3 of the way through my list, recording the item numbers, and locations in the warehouse.  Then we hurried back to pick up the kids and called it a day.  IKEA will only deliver items one or two days after purchase, so we had to wait until Saturday to buy everything anyway. 

By Saturday we had received our car so we decided to drive to IKEA.  So we drove.  And drove and drove.  We actually drove down the longest high street in Europe, Streatham High Street.  Traffic was terrible.  And then we got lost.  The British equivalent of Siri was telling us the most bizarre things.  We could SEE the tall smokestacks in the IKEA parking lot, with the blue and yellow banners but we could not GET to them.  It was infuriating.  By this point we had been driving for nearly two hours and the kids were hungry and impatient and someone had to use the toilet.  (WHY DO MY KIDS HAVE TO PEE SO MUCH?!) 

It was pouring rain and by the time we got into the store I was already grumpy.  There was a 30 minute wait for Smaland so I let Richard sit with the kids and I got a head start, which turned out to be grossly insufficient.  By the time our hour was over we still had a lot left to do so there was kid shuffling, kid distracting, a trip to the cafeteria, a few trips to the loo, walking walking walking.  I’m sure every IKEA is busy on a Saturday but I’m quite sure this IKEA was exceptionally busy. 

The thing is, picking out pillows and mattresses gets really boring.  And then it becomes really stressful when you throw four kids in the mix.  We had to have everything delivered so in sheer desperation we opted for an extra 10 pounds to have IKEA staff get our items from the warehouse for us.  SO WORTH IT.  

We had a cart full of items we needed to pay for, and the lines were horrendous.  And then we had our list of items that needed to be retrieved and delivered, and arranging for IKEA to do that apparently requires enough paperwork to organize a small country.   I kept taking the kids and leaving Richard to do said paperwork and then he would have to chase me down in that HUGE store to ask me a question.  Because, did I mention, his phone had died? 

At last the work was done.  We got ice cream cones, made one last trip to the loo and were off!  Trouble was, Richard’s phone was dead, and I’m still figuring out how to to get a functional data plan on mine, so we were on our own without the help of Mr. British Siri to get back to our apartment.  But we made it, in half the time! And no one had to pee the whole way home.  Thank goodness because I was utterly exhausted. 

The only part about the whole experience that makes me smile (at this point, maybe I’ll feel better when the boxes and boxes of unassembled furniture that surround me actually resemble FURNITURE) was that the IKEA staff loved the little American kids.  They loved them on Tuesday and they made a big fuss when we were back again on Saturday.  And it’s a darn good thing, because guess what? 

We get to go back again tomorrow.