Venturing out!

Today I went grocery shopping by myself! It's definitely taking some adjusting to get used to the way things operate here. We miss some things and are enjoying others. As an example, the cottage cheese here (a favourite snack for both of us at home) is awful. It is like eating soupy cheese curds, and although I love cheese curds, trust me this is not a nice combination. Of course, most of the foods we are accustomed to are not available here, but we do have Frosted Flakes in the cupboard! And the cheese is delicious! Noise has decided he loves Weetabix, but I tried it this morning and ended up throwing it out. It's just a pile of mush! What we do love is the availability of prepared foods. For example today I picked up the items to have a stir-fry, and I bought roasted chicken breasts, prepared veggies (a bagged mix of snow peas, carrots, bean sprouts, etc), and some ready-to-eat noodles, so when it comes time to eat, it's just a matter of chopping up the chicken and stir-frying it all together! As most people know, they love the boxed sandwich over here, everywhere you go at lunchtime those are the options. We have been pleased to discover that Subway here is exactly the same as at home, and very reasonably priced! They have a"2 can dine" deal for £5.99, which gets you 2 6" subs, 2 drinks, and 2 cookies or crisps. A regular 6" sub on its own is around £2.50 to £3.00 which is pretty equivalent to the Canadian prices of $5.00 to $6.00.

Tonight Noise will be out at some sort of gathering for other "secondees", ie other people at his firm who are here on secondments, so I think I will have the pizza I picked up at Tescos today, just pop it in the oven and away we go!

Where I do get frustrated is in not knowing where to go looking for items that we need. Today I set off in search of a tea towel, as the only one here in the flat was a bit grubby. I tried several different stores and never did find one. I have to imagine that locals would know exactly where to go to find that, but I had to give up. I figured for sure Marks and Spencer would have one, but no luck!

I had hoped that tonight we might check out the local pub (it's only 2 doors down!) but since Noise will be out late I don't think we'll get out. Just down the street as well is another pub which is apparently listed as one of the top pubs in London or England or something. We have only peeked in as we walked by, but as soon as we go in to check it out I will report! It's very old-fashioned, very much what you expect of an Olde English Pub.

I popped out to the street today with the camera to take a few photos of the street, and also took some shots of the flat as it is now. I am in the process of uploading them to flickr, if my internet connection doesn't crap out on me. They can be enjoyed here! As a sample, I included a shot of the front door to our flat taken from the street level.

I'm starting to get used to the money. The notes (bills) aren't difficult of course, although they are all the same colour which makes it a bit more difficult to sort through in your wallet. Where I have trouble is with the coins! I love the pound coin, have always loved it. It's so thick! It's easy to pick out in your wallet, but the 5p coins are small and the 10p are large which is backwards to me (the 5p looks like a dime and the 10p looks like a nickel). Also they have 50p coins which look like quarters to me. Whatever, I will get used to it eventually I'm sure.

Now Buggy and I are off for a run! I hope we don't get lost! Later!

Keep to the right... I mean left!!

So we went on our first road trip the other day. We had quite a busy Saturday! First we went and signed the papers and lease and so on for the new flat, then went and met the landlord there. We went through the inventory of the flat, conditions of things, and so on. Also he showed us how to work certain things like the boiler that we haven't had to deal with before. We're quite excited about our flat, we lucked out by getting somewhere with a decent amount of space. The bedrooms are quite big by London standards, and there's a little private garden at the back which extends the living space quite a bit on nice days. It's what they call the "lower garden flat", which we could actually call the basement flat. The entrance is down a set of steps at the front, but the windows in the front are full-size, and by being in the basement we have sole use of the garden at the back. Both bedrooms are at the back and have full doors that open onto the garden. There's a lovely shed in the garden which will be fantastic for storing golf clubs, and so on. We think there's more storage space in the closets than we had at home in our walk-in closet! And the ensuite bathroom and shower are a big plus as well. We were lucky to get two bathrooms. The kitchen is a typical London flat kitchen, small but with lots of storage space and quite new and attractive. The only hitch is that we worked a deal to have a new washer/dryer installed instead of the washer only that was in place, and it was installed before we moved in. The hitch is that we tried it out yesterday and there's a leak in the plumbing under the counter where they attached the washer which is also connected to the kitchen sink, so we currently can't use either the washer or the kitchen sink! But we've been in touch with our landlord and the problem should hopefully be resolved today. One of the conditions of us moving in was that they would paint the bathroom which was looking pretty ratty (ok, the paint in most of the flat could use a touch up) and there is someone here today doing the painting.

In the living room (called the reception room here) there is a lovely futon, which I think we may move into the second bedroom as our spare bed and buy a couch to put in the reception room. The spare room isn't big enough to keep a double bed in at all time as it would obstruct the door to the garden, but a futon would allow for use of the room on a daily basis, but then could become a bed for guests. We'll see how things go. I've set up the spare room as my "dressing room" and created a little vanity from a small table and mirror to use my hair dryer and so on, as the bathrooms here don't have outlets for anything other than shavers which use a different type of plug. And I used the closet in the spare room for my clothes, so it's my little space.

We rented a car on Saturday, so while we had the use of it we gathered up all our luggage from our temporary flat and carted it over to the new place. Noise did all the driving, and it was exciting! He very quickly got the hang of driving on the left and shifting gears with his left hand. As I knew he would, he quite enjoyed it! The trouble was that we needed to get out from Central London and it took hours! But finally we got down into the countryside in Surrey and were reunited with our Buggy! He seems none the worse for having flown to another continent and spending almost a week in a kennel. Although he did need a bath immediately as he was not smelling his freshest. ;) He has settled in to the new place quite easily and seems quite comfortable and relaxed. We've been for lots of walks over the last couple of days, which I'm sure also helps him to sleep the rest of the time. One of my worries was that he would relapse into his days of separation anxiety, but yesterday we went out a couple of times and left him alone and he didn't seem to be bothered. When we came back we could see him sleeping on the rug in the reception room. So I think he will be fine. Those of you who know Buggy will know that he is badly behaved when he sees another dog while on his leash, but with the use of his remote-control citronella collar he is doing very well, we have seen lots of other dogs, even at very close quarters (the sidewalks here, called pavements, are narrow!) and he has barely blinked. I've only had to spray him once.

Just to liven things up, we discovered after we had gotten him home, and Noise had taken the car to stock up on some groceries, and then returned the rental car by dropping the keys in the night slot, that we had left Buggy's papers in the car! We thought they must have gotten underneath the seat or tucked in beside it and then when Noise dropped off the car and looked around to make sure we hadn't left anything, he didn't see them. So the next morning we walked over to where the rental car was parked to look in the windows to see if they were in there (the office was closed until today) and there they were! While I was contemplating the best way to make sure we got them back as soon as the office opened, Noise had the bright idea to try the door and lo and behold, he hadn't locked it! So we grabbed his papers and all is well!

So much to write about... what else has happened? Since we moved in to the new flat we haven't had an internet connection, which is why I haven't been updating the blog. But I've got one for the moment so I am using my time wisely!

I guess my last news is that I got the job! I can't remember what I had written about the clinic, but it's a lovely clinic in Wimbledon, which will mean a 20-minute tube ride for me on a direct line, with an 8-10 minute walk at each end. The clinic has 4 vets, the owner/partner who is a specialized surgeon and runs a referral orthopedic practice, 2 younger associates (one who is my age and another who I think is a little bit older), and a 3rd associate whose place I will be taking. They seem to put value on practising a high quality of medicine, no cutting corners and so on. They had been talking about starting at the end of July but I indicated that I didn't want to wait that long to start work, so in fact I think they are going to have me start next week to cover some holidays. So it looks like I will be employed again soon! One thing I like about the English -they take their holidays seriously. I get 4 weeks holidays to start. The clinic is open on bank holidays, though, but not on Christmas, Boxing Day, or New Year's Day. So I will have to work some of the bank holidays. Anyway, we'll see how it works out, I am hopeful that this will be a good fit for me.

One of the reasons that I started this blog was to be able to share some of the interesting things about living in England, the small things as well. But right now I have so much big news to share that it doesn't leave time for the small things. But they will come!

Right now I must run as hopefully they are going to fix the leak under the sink. Until later!

PetDoc, MRCVS

I'm in! I went today and registered with the RCVS (Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons) and swore the oath and so on. So now I'm in and legally entitled to practice veterinary medicine in the UK. Yay for me! Now I can use the letters MRCVS (member of RCVS) after my name.

No other real news today. We are all set for a move-in tomorrow at the new flat, although I am still paranoid that something will happen and things will fall through. You have to jump through a lot of hoops here to rent a flat, can you imagine what it would be like to try and get a mortgage? Anyway, once we're all moved in I will post some photos of the flat. We also have a rental car booked to drive down to Surrey and pick up Buggy!

Today we traveled out to Wimbledon as Noise hadn't had a chance to check it out yet. We considered for a long time living in Wimbledon, but decided it would be too far for Noise to commute in to the city for work. So we walked around the Broadway and poked in a few shops, and then I popped in to the clinic where I had an interview earlier this week (to drop off a reference letter), and had a nice chat with the owner there. Things look somewhat promising there! Keep your fingers crossed. I also picked up a bag of food for Buggy so he won't go hungry once we get him back!

Interesting news this week, during the excavation for the 2012 Olympic site they found an unexploded WWII bomb in a river. Today in particular the tube was disrupted while they carried out a controlled explosion. We don't get much of that in Canada....

Tonight I think we're going to head out and find ourselves a nice spot in a pub for the evening. Should be fun!

Tourist day

I've been meaning to write on my blog today to catch everyone up, but of course here it is after midnight and I'm exhausted, so I may have to keep this a bit short!

To start, yesterday I went for a job interview at a lovely clinic in Wimbledon. It seemed like the kind of place I could be happy working at, and the people were very friendly. We'll see how things go there. I have another interview arranged for early next week as well.

While I was at my interview, Noise went exploring at Fulham Broadway, which he is now in love with. It is a busy high street area with lots of shops and restaurants down tiny little side streets. We went back there for dinner and had Spanish food as our first meal out in England!

This morning we finally got ourselves connected and bought a pay-as-you-go mobile phone. This is a stop-gap until we decide exactly what type of phone and what sort of plan we want to go with longer-term, but in the short-term in order to have a phone we bought just a cheapie. It doesn't look promising that I will be able to unlock my phone to use it on the networks here, so I will probably be buying a new phone, but we didn't want to rush into anything. So now I have a phone! Yay!

The rest of today was spent doing the touristy stuff - getting our bearings in the city. We took the hop-on-hop-off bus tour (Mom's idea) and toured all around. We started at Buckingham Palace (and not thinking, we arrived at 11:30 when the changing of the guard was happening). The last time I went to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace I passed out waiting in the enormous crowds. So today I had Noise take a picture of me in the spot that I passed out 13 years ago. I stayed on my feet this time! We also made a stop at Trafalgar Square and popped over to Leicester Square on the tube to check it out. The bus took us past all the major landmarks, and provided some great photo opportunities as well. Then we got off at Tower Bridge and took the river cruise down the Thames back to Westminster. On the boat we had our first Pimms! Delicious! I'll post some photos tomorrow hopefully!

To wrap up our day we went to see The Sound of Music at London Palladium at Oxford Circus. It was fantastic! I admit I teared up a few times, and even Noise admitted he was moved. The highlight of the show for me was Climb Every Mountain at the end of Act One - wow! After the show we walked around Picadilly Circus and over to Covent Garden before catching the tube home again.

Today was our wedding anniversary, so we thought it was suitable to celebrate with a day and night on the town! It was a beautiful day and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

In other news, things are looking very promising that we should be getting our first choice flat and able to move in on Saturday! If so we are hoping to rent a car and venture out into Surrey to pick up Buggy!!! We can't wait to see him and get him settled in with us here in London. If there are any delays and we don't get to move in this weekend it will be early next week instead. I guess we're close enough now to having it that I can post some details, but bear in mind that we feel things aren't definite until we actually have keys. But anyway, it's a lower-level flat in a (I think) Victorian conversion, with two bedrooms (yes, Mom, I got you a bedroom AND your own bathroom), a small kitchen, reception room with bay window, and a small private (paved) garden in the back. It is about a 10-minute walk from the Barons Court tube station, and a 20 minute walk to Fulham Broadway. And there's a local pub a few doors down and a Starbucks a few blocks away. ;) Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes according to plan!

Tomorrow I'm off to the RCVS to get registered to work in the UK! Those are all the plans for tomorrow at this point. We may go up the London Eye if the weather is good. We've discovered that the weather forecast here is completely unreliable. Today they were calling for rain and it was beautiful all day! So I think it's more of a play-it-by-ear thing. Check back!

Flat hunting!

Today we spent the day flat-hunting around various parts of the city. Although our options were somewhat limited due to the need for a place that welcomes Buggy, we still had lots to look at. There was a clear winner in our minds, but I don't want to get into any details yet in case we don't get it. Now we have to go through the whole reference/deposit/etc process and it's not for sure that we'll secure it. Once I know if we got it I will tell you all about it! We certainly have some options for a second choice if this one doesn't work out, but we are hoping to get our first choice. I'll keep you posted!

That's pretty much all we did today, since it took most of the day. It rained off and on again today, although the rest of the week is supposed to be nicer.

Tomorrow I have a job interview (gulp!) in the afternoon, so in the morning we are heading over to an Argos store (like Consumers Retail in Canada) to buy me a hairdryer so that I can attempt to look somewhat professional! They are also advertising a flat iron like the beloved one that I left behind in Canada for half price, so hopefully I will come away with one of those too!

Keep watching this space for more news!

Traveling news

I feel like this has been the longest day of my life, but in fact it has really been two days so I suppose that's reasonable. I have lots to share, so sit back because this is going to be a long one!!!

We started the journey off in Toronto Sunday morning, with a somewhat lazy morning as we couldn't do anything before noon anyway. Unfortunately I was decidedly uptight about all to come so I wasn't really enjoying the time off! At noon we loaded up all our luggage (we are pros at this now, and can move all our luggage at once without the need of a cart) and filled up the airport shuttle. There was another family taking the shuttle and they had 3 times as much luggage as us, which made us feel a bit better! We arrived at Terminal 3 at about 12:30 and killed some time before we could check in at 1:00. The first perk of traveling premium economy - our own line! We didn't catch what the grand total was for our luggage weight, but they didn't comment and didn't ask us to pay, so we figure we weren't too far over the limit - but I expect they would have complained if we had been subjected to the 20kg limit instead of 30kg! Free of all but our carry-on luggage, we opted to walk over to the cargo check-in area to meet Buggy. It was only about a 20-minute walk, and that was taking a somewhat roundabout way. We arrived there about 2:00, and Buggy was due to arrive at 2:30, so we just waited there.

The pet travel agent (I'll just call her L) who had taken over his care the night before delivered him to the cargo check-in at 2:30 as expected. We cannot say enough nice things about this lady, who got called in at the last minute on a Saturday evening to handle this delay. We had paid to rent a kennel but the cargo people didn't seem to know that, so she had even come prepared with an extra kennel just in case. However, that got sorted out and a lovely new plastic petmate air kennel was supplied for him. L bedded it down with shredded paper and his blanket that I brought for him, and filled up his water container with ice cubes to provide water for the entire length of the journey. We were able to take him for a walk before checking him in (on which he had an Austin Powers-sized pee, good thing!) and then after lots of hugs and kisses we got him loaded into the kennel. We were thoroughly impressed with the way things were handled by the Zoom representative at check-in (not the difficult one from the day before), and after everything was taken care of she even offered to drive us back to the terminal! We accepted and after she dropped us off when I offered my hand she moved in for a hug – the personal touch, I guess! In any case, we were left feeling like they definitely knew what they were doing, and he was in good hands.

Once back at the terminal we passed through security and went to find our gate. The flight had been delayed from Saturday 22:25 to Sunday 17:00. Of course once we found our gate we discovered that now they were saying 18:15. More delays. We eventually found out that the plane that was supposed to take us Saturday night had not come out of maintenance in time, so we had to be put onto a different plane, which had apparently arrived from Italy Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately it arrived late from Italy! When it finally pulled in at the gate all the passengers waiting applauded! In the meantime we went in search of a meal and a glass of wine. I had my appetite back once I knew Buggy was accepted for travel!

While we were waiting at the gate I was watching them load some cargo, then I saw that one of the carts was curtained, and just past the curtain I could see the edge of a large dog kennel! I knew he was the only animal on the flight so I walked over to where I could see them loading the kennel onto the plane – and so I saw my Buggy heading up the ramp into the cargo hold! I could see him quite clearly and knew it was him, and could see him looking around. It was more than I expected to be able to see him go on the plane with my own eyes! I admit I got a bit teary as I watched him go up the ramp. As we were boarding the plane the ground guys were there and we heard one of them say he was going to “go check on that dog”, so we asked them to confirm and the guy said “oh yeah, the big hound! He’s fine, he’s on.” How crazy is that – probably 300 people boarding that plane and they happened to mention him right in front of us.

The flight finally left at about 7pm, and was an especially smooth flight, which I was grateful for for Buggy’s sake. I managed to doze a bit but no real sleep. Noise did sleep a bit. Not a lot to report about the flight itself, except to say that apart from the significant delay, I have no complaints about Zoom. And yes, the upgrade to premium economy was definitely worth it! The legroom was fabulous, and the luggage allowance was a must! Also our luggage was tagged as priority, which meant it was among the first off the plane when we arrived at Gatwick.

When we arrived we hung around and asked the flight attendant (Noise had made friends during the flight as he usually does) if we could confirm that Buggy was ok. So they went right away and opened up the hold he was in and the ground guy came back and reported “Absolutely fine!” We walked a little way through the terminal but stopped and watched them unload him into a little animal carriage, and we could see him looking around so we knew he was ok.

Passport control was smooth and easy, we collected our luggage and dragged it over to the trains. We saw the line for the tickets and decided to buy our tickets on board as it is no extra cost and you can pay with a credit card on board as well. So we got onto the train (this was the hardest part for me, I definitely hit a wall of fatigue there...) and rode the Gatwick Express in to London Victoria station. From there we got a cab to our temporary lodgings, only a £6 ride. The first thing for us to do was call our pet travel agent and check on Buggy and she reported that he had been cleared through customs and quarantine control and was on his way to the kennel! Yahoo! Ok, I admit I cried again. I have been so worried about him having a problem so what a relief to know he got through! She called back later to let us know that he was nicely settled in at the kennel, so I hope that he’ll just hang out there until we can get him here with us, and be happy enough. We miss him already!

Phew, ok that’s one day, I have a whole second day to talk about! Our temporary flat is not bad – typical London flat, pretty small but I guess all you really need. I’ll try to get some pictures tomorrow and post them. It’s definitely nothing exciting and I wouldn’t want to be staying here long-term, but it’s fine.

Our first job of the day was to get set up with travelcards. We bought Oyster cards, which in London is the best way to get around. The Oyster card can hold your travelcard, and also hold a balance for pay-as-you-go travel outside of the zones of your travelcard. We just got a 7-day travelcard to start with, but I expect once we are settled into a routine we will get monthly ones. We hung back for a minute and watched a few people go through with their cards and then followed their lead! And it’s easy! We handled the tube quite well today we thought, at least we didn’t get lost! We took the tube from South Kensington, the closest stop to our flat, to Holborn on the Piccadilly line, and changed there to the Central line to get off at Chancery Lane. This is one of the stops closest to Noise’s office, so we went and found the building where he will be spending much of his time! We also spent some frustrating time trying to sort of financial things. We went into the bank where our account is (the Holborn branch) where they were supposed to have our PINs to activate our debit cards. And they didn’t... anyway, after standing in several long lines and being frustrated we left the bank and walked a block and discovered the Holborn Circus branch, where in fact they did have our PINs! So our debit cards are activated, and the money that Noise’s company was supposed to put in the account for moving costs is there, so then we were happier. Unfortunately it turns out that it is extremely difficult to move money from our Canadian account to our UK account quickly unless we go into a TD branch, which is pretty difficult seeing as we are in London. We can take cash out from the TD account on the machines but not much at a time. The only frustrating part is that tomorrow we are going flat-hunting, and we had hoped to have moved money into the UK account to be able to give a deposit on a place. But we should be able at the least to give a cash deposit so hopefully that will do until we can move some money around.

We definitely hit a low point today trying to deal with all that after no sleep for 48 hours, but after having a power nap we are feeling more optimistic again. We hit the local Sainsbury’s for some basic groceries, cooked dinner in our flat, and walked around the neighbourhood several times (mostly in the rain of course).

Tomorrow we go flat-hunting, so hopefully we will have a better idea after that where we will be living and how soon! And how soon we can be reunited with Buggy! On Wednesday I have a job interview in the afternoon. Thursday we are hoping to do a bit of sight-seeing, maybe see some of the sights we had hoped to do today when we thought we would arrive yesterday. Thursday is our wedding anniversary, so if we can relax and enjoy London it would be a nice day for us.

We’ve made it to bedtime, so now we can go to bed and I’m sure sleep like logs through the night. Tomorrow will likely be another long day. Until then!

Change of plans

So we are not off after all... we were all set to leave today when we discovered that our flight has been delayed by almost a full day! Instead of 10:30 tonight we are now leaving at 5:00pm tomorrow. This wouldn't have been a huge deal except that there is a 24-hour window in which Buggy had to have his final tick and tapeworm treatment done before he checked in for the flight. So because now we're flying tomorrow that will mean his treatments will be expired. I had this nightmare last night but didn't expect to live it today. So after a flurry of phone calls we ended up checking him in to an approved boarding facility tonight, where he will be considered to be "contained" and therefore not exposed to ticks and tapeworms, and tomorrow he will be transported to the airport by a pet travel agent. So essentially he is out of our care now. The poor guy has to stay in one kennel tonight, drive to the airport tomorrow with a stranger, then take a 7 hour flight, then go to another kennel. I hope he can forgive us. It turns out that having a pet travel agent is worth every single cent, as the "emergency on-call" agent in England not only got all of this arranged for us, but also appears to be making the airline pay for it all. The Zoom representative had the gall to suggest that it was our fault because we had the treatments done yesterday - we fail to see how it is our fault that the flight was delayed by a day! We did the treatments when we were supposed to based on the scheduled flight time. But I digress...

So we are situated in a hotel near the airport for the night, and tomorrow we will (hopefully) go and get Buggy checked in and ourselves checked in and fly to England!

We traveled to Toronto in a little convoy, as I rode up with my parents and grandmother, and Noise rode with his parents and sister. We had to say a lot of goodbyes today, and I think saying goodbye to my parents was the most difficult thing I've ever done. It's a bit easier knowing that I will see them in August (they booked flights today) but I've never been more than a 4-hour drive away from them. I will miss them dreadfully. They are my rock, my support, but I guess being a bit further away doesn't really change that. I managed to stay more composed than I expected while we were saying goodbye but once they were gone I broke down and had myself a good cry. I'll miss you guys...

So I'll try this again - hopefully the next time I post on this blog it will be from London! Cross your fingers for us!