Conversions ... always doing math!

The UK decided to go metric in 1965, but somehow did not pass a law until 1985 to push the actual conversion. As a result, living here, I find myself constantly doing math. When I started to write this it explained why I am so tired at the end of the week. Now that I've finished the blog entry, I am ready for bed! My head hurts!

Driving
I have no idea how big my tank is in my car, but I know that last year I was spending 75 pounds to fill it up. When the exchange rate was nearly $2 USD : 1 GBP, I kept thinking in my head that I was spending $150 to fill my tank, and the only thing that made me feel a little better is that the computer in the dash of my car told me that I was getting 42.5 mpg. Miles per gallon? Well, I buy petrol [in my case, diesel] in litres, so is that good or bad?

Okay so do the math: 1 gallon = 3.79 litres.
Price of diesel 2008: 1.89 GPB / litre
So for 75 GBP, I was buying 39.68 litres of diesel which equals 10.47 gallons.

The car also tells me when I need to buy more diesel by telling me how many miles I have to go before I run out of fuel ... which means I get 11.21 mile per litre, by the way.

Currency
For the most part, forget the exchange rate [which is currently $1.43 to 1 GPB]. Except for a few items, things cost the same. A Diet Coke is 1.10 dollars or pounds. A BMW is 30,000 dollars or pounds. And a pint of beer is 2.40 GBP in Britain and $6.00 in Britt's Pub in Minneapolis ... oh wait! Beer is definitely cheaper here. So is golf.

The real challenge is traveling to "the Continent" [to Europe; I love saying that!]. As I get paid in US Dollars, which cash card should I use: the US or the UK?
USD : GBP
0.69 : 1.00 for 69 cents, I get 1 pound

USD: EUR
0.74 : 1.00 ... this one! for 74 cents, I get 1 Euro

GBP : EUR
1.07 : 1.00 for 1 pound 7 pence, I get 1 Euro

The Gym
Well, I did belong to a gym when I lived in Bristol, but not anymore. Anyway, you have to weigh in. Nice. Okay, I know what I weigh in pounds, but I have no idea what I weighed in kilograms. For the sake of this entry, let's say I weigh 145 pounds. That's 65.77 kilograms. That sounds better, doesn't it? Now lose some weight. Suddenly, losing a kilogram [2.2 pounds] doesn't sound like such a big deal. And so in true UK tradition, they revert back to what they like: the stone. It is the more accepted way to describe one's weight. One stone equals 14 pounds [6.35 kilograms] which means I weigh 10 stone 5 [pounds].

On the treadmill, I was truly lost. The treadmill measured speed in kilometres per hour. If I ran 9 miles per hour [or 6.6 minute miles; I never did that]. That means I'm running 14.48 kilometres per hour [kph]. I don't think I every did that either. Was afraid I'd fall off. Why do we run in KPH, but drive in MPH?

When you run a road race in the US, you run in kilometres for distance [5K, 10K], but you line up for your speed [9 minute miles].

Cooking
Which I do a lot of ... really.
LIQUIDS - my measuring cup has both ounces and millilitres. However, you buy milk in pints [primarily] and some quarts. It's all about your tea. You need milk for your tea.

In the pub, you buy beer or bitters in pints, or a glass [half-pint]. Wine comes in a small glass [125ml] or a large glass [250ml] which is 1/3 bottle [750ml].

MEASURING SPOONS - 1.6 Tablespoon = 25 millilitres. In the case of butter, this is marked on the package, so instead of having a pound [weight] of butter with four sticks with teaspoons [volume] marked, you have 250 grams of butter [yes, that's weight], or 0.55 pounds with markings for millilitres [yes, that's volume].

BAKING - Your cooker [oven] is either gas or electric. If it's gas, it has "marks". When you buy a pizza, it tells you to cook it on "Gas Mark 6" which is 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 degrees Celsius. You don't even have to think. Even your Sunday roast or whole chicken has instructions, "cook 30 min for every 500 kilograms at gas mark 4". Not only that, but the packaging introduces you to the farmer that raised the cow or the pig that you are getting ready to put in your cooker. Really. "This is Liam Mulroy. His family has been farming in Swindon for three generations raising Black Herefords..." [Seriously, I can't make this up!]. The food, meat or vegetable, is always designated as British or Scottish or Irish or Kenyan, etc.

For an electric cooker, I just have to learn the conversions. For the most part, Celsius is one-half of Fahrenheit. 350 degrees F equals 180 degrees C. 400 degrees F equals 200 degrees C. This is all good until you get to the weather.

Weather
In school, I learned that to get from Fahrenheit [F] to Celsius [C], I had to take the F temperature ... let's say 85 degrees F ... subtract 32 [53] ... divide by 9 [5.89] ... then multiply by 5 ... and you get 29 degrees C.

Fortunately, I don't have to do that here because we have temperature in Celsius. So right now, it is 9 C. So follow the same conversion with some inversions. So, begin with the 9C and multiply by 9 [81] ... then divide by 5 [16.2] ... then add 32 ... and you get 48 degrees F.

Forget that! My friend Jyl told me to take the Celsius temperature [9 C], multiply by 2 [18 C] and add 30 [48 C] and you're close enough! Amen sister!!!

By the way, I heard on BBC2 a few months ago: there's no such thing as bad weather; just the wrong clothing.

Time
Greenwich Mean Time [as in Greenwich, London] is zero. From here, everything is tracked, so Eastern Standard time is -5, which means five hours behind London. When the US moved to Daylight Savings time [pushing their clocks forward one hour], then Eastern DAYLIGHT time is -4, which means four hours behind London. The UK moved to SUMMER TIME this weekend, pushing their clocks ahead. Now we're back to being 5 hours ahead of the Eastern seaboard in the US.

Okay, see why my head hurts? Cheers!

Driving on the left side of the road

I found this blog post and thought it was interesting...

Before we go into why Americans drive on the right side of the road, let's understand the reasoning behind driving on the left side.

Since most people are right-handed, swordsmen preferred to keep to the left in order to have their right arm nearer to an opponent and their scabbard [the sheath for the sword] further from him [or her]. Moreover, it reduced the chance of the scabbard (worn on the left) hitting other people. So it is natural that once cars were introduce, you would drive on the left side of the road.

Americans began driving on the right side of the road following the revolution [I'm assuming they were "driving" their horse and buggy]. In the early years of English [colonization] of North America, English driving customs were followed and the colonies drove on the left. After gaining independence from England, however, they were anxious to cast off all remaining links with their British colonial past and gradually changed to right-hand driving.

The first law requiring drivers to keep right was passed in Pennsylvania in 1792, and similar laws were passed in New York in 1804 and New Jersey in 1813.

There you have it.

Visiting MN & Linda B's Birthday

After a rough month at work, I decided that I could use a little R&R [rest & relaxation] before my wings were clipped [my work permit is up for renewal which means I have to surrender my passport which means no international travel until it is returned].

So on a whim, I purchase [very reasonably priced] tickets to Minneapolis and arrived there last Thursday, 19 March. My intention was to surprise my friend, Linda B, who turned 40 on St. Patrick's Day. The night before I left, however, I posted a note on Facebook that announced I was looking forward to a break in MN. Linda is not usually out there, so I didn't think much about it. This time, however, she was, and she saw my post. Rats! Part of the element of surprise was ruined.

Thursday afternoon I met my friend Tone' at the Town Talk Diner in Minneapolis. We had some catch-up time, and then our friend Baynes arrived for dinner. As my clock was set 5 hours ahead of Central time in the US, I did pretty well. I even watched a bit of the 1st round of the NCAA basketball tournament, Texas v. Minnesota ... and Texas won, knocking MN out!

Friday night, I crashed Linda B's birthday dinner where she and her husband, Dave, put together a Raclette dinner; Raclette is a cheese indigenous to parts of Switzerland. This picture of Linda on the left is Linda saying, "Dave, I'm in charge."

The Raclette cheese round is heated, either in front of a fire or by a special machine, then scraped onto diners' plates. There is a modern version involves an electric table-top grill with small pans, known as coupelles, to heat slices of raclette cheese in. We used this. [No open flames around Linda B.] The cheese is brought to the table sliced, accompanied by platters of boiled or steamed vegetables, and perhaps seafood. Then each of us cook small amounts of meat, vegetables and seafood on the griddle and add the cheese. It's safer than fondue with boiling oil and very good!

As a part of her birthday, Kimmers collected stories about Linda from about 45 people and put them together for Linda to enjoy. It was hysterical. I'll highlight one, but let's just say there were quite a few to choose, ranging catching herself on fire, getting hit by a car...twice!, and screaming that a snake had dropped down her shirt.

This is a picture of Linda trying to read one of the stories.

We were camping in the Boundary Waters on a big trip of nine women. I think it was both Mo's first and my first trip. As we finally settled into our tents one night, Linda breaks the silence of the night by shouting, "What's that song? The one about the trees and leaves?" No one responds.

Linda shouts, "Come on you guys! It's my favorite song. "

And Mo begins to sing, "All the leaves are brown..."

And Linda shouts, "That's it!" which echos across the lake. And then Linda says, "what comes next?"

Saturday night, I crashed date night for Kimmers & Matt and we headed to downtown Stillwater. Some friends of theirs, Matt & Moxie, were celebrating 10 years of marriage and we met them at Ruby Begonia's on Main Street in Stillwater. Any place that you have to a) walk up the stairs, b) get to sit in large over-stuffed [primarily red] couches & chairs, and c) has live music ... has got to be a recipe for fun! Some might say there was too much fun ...

there was singing ["... sweet Caroline ... dum, dum, dum ... good times never felt so good ... So good! So good! So good!] ...

... there was dancing ...

... and then we were asked to leave. I had to go confirm for myself that we had really been asked to take a hike. We had. All-in-all, it was a good night! No permanent damage.

Sunday, I was able to finally get my Irish fix for the week and had breakfast with my friend Mo at Liffey's Irish Pub in downtown St. Paul. Mo is doing GREAT, celebrating 10 months of good health, though not without some worries now and again. Her family continues to grow [can't believe that Grace is two and Eli has long hair...he looks good!] and Scott continues to work on the house. The latest project finished was the dining room, complete with a new piano window. It looks great!

Sunday afternoon before leaving, I was able to join part of Linda's daughter, Leah's Irish Dancing programme. This this was the first time I had been on St. Kate's campus since commencement in Dec 1997, and I was back at the scene of the crime, back stage at O'Shaughnessy Auditorium. The programme was really nice and I'm attaching a video I took of Leah doing The Bowtie Dance. She did a great job!

And then it was back to the airport for me to make the trip home to London. I slept as much as I could, but wasn't nearly enough to hit the ground running on Monday. I bugged out of the office around 3:00 to rescue the dogs from the carers' house and because it was raining [sideways] and I was tired, I took a taxi from the train station. The dogs really don't know what to do in a taxi. They can't lie down and they can't hang out the window. They just sort of get tossed around the back between my legs and the luggage.

Thanks all. I needed that!

Visiting Exeter

Okay, so finally, I am back to a little adventure in the UK. It has been a WHILE.

On Friday, I had to go to a meeting in Dorset. I took the train to Bournemouth [Google it!]. This is the third time I've been in Bournemouth, and I have yet to see the beach. Allegedly, it is seven miles of white sand. I'll have to get there someday.

One of my staff members, Dianne, met me at the meeting. It lasted an unprecedented three hours! Usually, we are ushered out after an hour. As this last week, Dianne and I were as originally planning to be in the States, her husband planned to fulfill one of his sailing qualifications [and sadly, it was his birthday]. We decided to hang out on Saturday.

Dianne and her husband have a cottage. The property backs up against nine hole golf course. They are currently working on the garden: walls, water feature, orchard, vegetable garden, solarium, and so on. It's a really nice place. Originally built in the 1860's.

They are just outside of Exeter. Exeter is the other place that I looked to move to when I was moving here. It's a seaside town with a rich history. Exeter is a city, district and county town of Devon, England. It's located approximately 70 miles (110 km) southwest of Bristol[where I did move], on the River Exe. The city has a population of 111,076. Exeter was the most south-westerly Roman fortified settlement in Britain.

On Friday night, we went to a pub on the Moors for dinner. The Moors being Dartmoor National Park where I spent last Easter with the dogs. It was really cool. Small rooms. Fire places. Traditional pub fair. On our foggy drive out of the Moors, we saw the most famous of its residents, the ponies.

On Saturday morning, we went to Teignmouth, a town in Devon, situated on the north bank of the River Teign. In 1690, it was the last place in England to be invaded by a foreign power [important information!]. The town grew from a fishing port associated with the Newfoundland cod industry to a fashionable resort of some note in Georgian times, with further expansion after the opening of the South Devon Railway in 1846. Today, its port still operates and the town remains a popular seaside holiday location.

The red sandstone headland on the Shaldon side called "The Ness" is the most recognisable symbol of the town from the seaward side. This is it on the right from a view under the pier.

The itself sits right on top of the seaside. Here are a coupled of cool photos where you can see the sandbags outside the houses to keep the tide out during high seas, AND the cool set up of the village.

One of these dingies had a sign painted on the inside, "if you borrow this boat, please return it".

The town backs right up to the seas. Can you see the sandbags near the front doors?

Just in case you need a pair of boots ....

After the walk a bit of lunch, we went into Exeter for a rugby game. This was my first live rugby game. It's as cool on the ground as it is watching the Six Nations tourney on TV. The Exeter Chiefs are not a bad team. Dianne and her husband are season ticket holders.

I would have to say that my favorite play in the game is the line-out. It is a way of restarting play after the ball has been knocked or kicked out of play past the touch line. The line-out consists of three to eight players from each side, up to 16 in total, and is taken where the ball went out of play. The aim of each player is simply to get their hands on the ball for their team. So how does it work? The advantage is with the team throwing in. They get the ball because they were not the team who last touched the ball before it went out. They also get to decide how many players will make up the line-out. The cool part is when the team throws a player up into the air to catch the ball as it's thrown in. Why don't we do this in the US in basketball or soccer?

Anyway, other than the incredibly intoxicated woman I saw at the train station yelling, "agghhh!" Which is drunk-girl for , "Scott!", the weekend was quiet and restful. Definitely going to have to go back.

Living in London

I moved to London in November and I never talk about it. It occurred to me this morning when I saw this older man with a REALLY bad toupe' [looks like a 4" wide strip of black fur on top of his bald head with a few white fringes of hair left around the base of his scalp] ... this was the second time I had seen him. So, it occurred to me that I haven't talked about my time in London and it is really different than having lived in Bristol. A little bit like moving from LaGrange, KY [you can Google it] to New York City.


For one thing, I don't drive anymore. The ugly Renault is just a reference point for me to tell the taxi drivers where to stop to drop me off. I live on a "close" which means a street that ends with no place to turn around. If you could, it would be a cul-de-sac.


To get to work in the morning, I walk down a path between the gardens and use a card pass to open a gate which pitches me out onto Crescent Road. From there, I grab a bus on Worple Road to the train station. I talk an overland train from Wimbledon Station to Vauxhall. At Vauxhall, I get on the Tube [Victoria line] to Oxford Circus and I walk to work.


On the High Street outside of Wimbledon Station I have access to everything I need. Grocery stores, electronics, my hair salon, cobblers, restaurants, pubs and so on. Usually, when I get off of the train at night, I drop by the grocery to grab what I need for dinner and then take the bus to the top of the hill and walk down to the Close [easier to walk downhill!].

Speaking of the bus going up the hill, unlike in the US when buses will stop along their route to get back on schedule. Here in London, they just run every 6-8 minutes and what happens is they get bunched up. This morning, as I was coming to Worple Road, two buses went by, so I walked to the station since it would likely be 15 minutes before the next bunch would arrive. At the same time, six were coming in the opposite direction off of the High Street having just dropped their folks at the train station.

One night last month, after a REALLY long day traveling, I stopped at Morrison's [grocery] after getting off of the train and I decided that I had enough in me to take the bus to the top of the hill. Typically, if it's after 800pm, I take a taxi from the train station. It's worth the £5. Anyway, the bus was uncommonly crammed with people for it to be 8 o'clock at night, so when we made the last stop before going up the hill, I was busy balancing my briefcase, purse and grocery bags on my lap so that folks could sit down. We slowly dragged up the hill into the village and made it about 1/2 mile more, and the bus stopped working. Just dead. Had to walk the last mile to my house ... in the rain. Couldn't very well hold an umbrella... and the briefcase, purse and grocery bags. Can't make this up! Got off of the bus giggling, as was the walking woman behind me.

The week before I was on the same bus, got up the hill and the bus was diverted due to construction [that wasn't there when I left earlier that morning]. Apparently, a water main had burst, so the bus was diverted off of Ridgeway for SIX STOPS! There was literally a two-mile stretch where we drove alongside the Commons, but mad no stops. And of course, BEFORE the diversion, we didn't know that we were being diverted, so folks that thought they were getting off at the next step had to WALK BACK 2 MILES to their stop! I only had to walk 1/2 mile. It wasn't raining this night.

So, since I've moved, I've lost about 9 pounds. I walk everywhere, unlike Bristol when I walked out the door and either sat in the car or on trains. Just to get to a train, I am walking 0.5 to 1.5 miles every morning.


And then there's the Commons where I take the dogs, which I have written about. In a future post, I share some photos of Wimbledon Village. It's at the top of the hill.

Happy Birthday, Brian!

This week is my nephew, Brian's birthday. He will read this [he keeps me honest] so I have to let him know that I left his birthday present with uncle Mike at Christmas. He should remind uncle Mike [and I'll do the same] that he needs to find it!

This year Brian is 12. Big brother to Katie and Sean, he's always busy. When I get time to spend with Brian, he is often beating me in some game and then teasing me about losing to a 12 /11 /10 /9 year old [this had been going on a long time].

I tried to think of something to do to celebrate, but not thoroughly embarrass him. I haven't been able to come up with anything so, there you have it.

Oh wait! I really think that this picture on the right could be how Brian celebrates his birthday....

Happy Birthday, Brian!