Smudge the super Springer Spaniel, going for a run down Carr Road

What is Haggis, you ask?

Apparently there has been some confusion about haggis, which I wrote about earlier. Well, haggis is a delightful bit of Scottish cuisine that consists of oats, herbs, and all the left over parts of meat from the butcher's shop. It's all packed into a sausage casing and steamed. It sounds nasty, I know. Trying it was pretty scary, but I believe you can't really say you don't like something if you've never tried it.

Nothing new here, really. Martin and I are enjoying a quiet night in, watching Star Trek, Nemesis. We are so boring! He has to work tomorrow, so we are not going out partying this weekend. Tomorrow is going to be spent in more house hunting and a little bit of Christmas shopping. We have to send our American Christmas gifts by the end of the month if we want a guarantee that they'll be there in time.

Our weekend after this one is already planned--we're going to Mablethorpe to visit Martin's grandparents. Both sets live there, which makes a visit very efficient. I'll make sure to bring the camera so we can get some pictures of the North Sea on the blog. Mablethorpe is right on the coast. I'm looking forward to next month. Martin is going to take me to Donner Nook, which is just north of Mablethorpe. Apparently the seals have their pups there, and you can walk right up to them. That'll be a picture-worthy trip!

We'll keep you all posted on any new stuff--if there is any! Bye for now!

It's been a shockingly long time since I posted to the blog--Martin and I have been really busy with various things, and going on line takes low priority sometimes.

So what's new? Well, we had a little bon voyage pub crawl for Martin's mate Adam. He's moving to Canada for the next 18 months or so. There was a big group of us, and we just went 'round to several pubs in Grimsby. Martin and I sucked down Coke and ginger ale all night long. His friends are all amazingly understanding about Martin not drinking any more. Of course, he could never hold his drink anyway from what I gather. At any rate, Adam had a good send off. We'll both miss him.

We also had a church Stake swimming gala, which Martin and I both participated in. All the wards in our stake competed against each other in races divided up by age & sex. After the racing, we had a free swim. That was even more fun than the pub crawl. When we go to church activities, I feel like I'm home again. That's the only place you really see a lot of families with their children.

Also on the church front, we had a fancy dress party. But it wasn't really "fancy." We got dressed up in the most mis-matched clothes we could find. Everyone in the ward did it, and it was hilarious. Martin looked fantastic. He wore a pink Wrangler western shirt, a paisley tie, and his fish pants. Martin's mum took a picture, and I'll try to get a copy of it posted here soon.

We also got some good news, and my faith in the National Health system was restored. I went to see my GP on Tuesday, got a refill on asthma meds, got a flu shot (called a "jab" instead of a shot here), and got an automatic referral to a fertility clinic. The whole visit took less than 30 minutes and cost me £6.50 (for the prescription). Now we just have to wait for the fertility clinic to call us--we've gone as far as we can on this one.

So that's all for now--I'll update in more detail when I'm not at work!

I tried Haggis!!!

Well, that's the news of the week. I sampled a little bit of Scottish cuisine that most people would not, and it was fabulous!

Nothing else has really happened. We went to look at a flat yesterday, but the whole thing fell through. We are starting to get really frustrated in the house hunt. We looked at a little house on Algernon Street in Grimsby on Friday night that we are considering. It's called Hog Penny Cottage, but little IS the operative word in this case. We might take it anyway, out of sheer desperation!

In church related news, Martin and I have both received callings in our ward. I have been called to be the Primary music director & pianist as well as the assistant ward pianist. Martin has been called as the assistant ward missionary. We were already set apart, too. Not sure how we feel about it, honestly, but we will serve with smiles. I may learn how to play the organ, as I will have to play in Sacrament meeting on occasion anyway.

I did receive a great blessing when I was set apart that eased my mind quite a bit. To be perfectly honest I have been wondering if we'd done the right thing or not, moving to England. But today we learned that we ARE in the right place. What a relief!

Anyway, that's the only news for now. Not even any pictures this week, because we haven't gone anywhere cool. But next weekend Martin isn't at work, so hopefully we will go someplace groovy then. More later, when something exciting has happened.

York Minster--how'd you like to get married there?

Castle Howard (a family actually LIVES here!)

FInally, a few of the pictures from our anniversary weekend in Yorkshire. Have I mentioned what a fantastic weekend that was?

The weekend is finally here! Martin's job is improving every day. He is carpooling to work now with a guy named Gareth who is pretty cool, so the ride to work is a lot more fun than it used to be. He has also applied for an assistant manager position in Grimsby, and it will be great if he can get that.

Work is going well for me, also. One of the women I work with is really unpleasant to me, but I can't tell if it's because she doesn't like me or if that's just her personality. At any rate, everyone else there is lovely and I am getting a little better at the job all the time. If it turned in to a full time position, I would consider staying.

Christine has gone to Helensburgh, Scotland, and Laurie has gone to Liverpool, so Martin and I have the house to ourselves all weekend. It's like heaven. I'd forgotten how nice it is to be able to do whatever you want and not feel guilty if you don't do the dishes right after dinner is over (we still did them, but we didn't have to).

We still don't have any callings at church--apparently the ward clerk is having a hard time getting our church records transferred over. That should change fairly soon though, and we'll let you all know what happens on that front.

That's all the news--this is a lot of posting in not too many days, so feel lucky and hopefully not too bored!

I think I've got the pictures thing sorted out. I'm going to try a few just to make sure, and then Martin and I are going to go watch a movie. I have to get all dolled up, because the women and girls here really get dressed up to go out. I think it might have something to do with the fact that they tend to have strange looking features and have to compensate for that by being very stylishly dressed all the time. Just a theory. We can discuss it at greater length some other time.

The Gatehouse at Thornton Abbey--about 2 miles from Wendover, Carr Road.

I'm gonna figure this out!

It's my goal to figure out the pictures thing later tonight or maybe tomorrow at the latest!

Martin was kind enough to post last night--I went to bed at 9:30pm and slept until 7:30 am. I think the lack of sunlight is starting to get to me.

As Martin mentioned, I am working for Volvo in their PDI centre. I am classed as a secretarial/admin worker, and I am doing a little bit of everything. I answer phones, laminate and post certificates, code invoices and enter them for payment, raise jobs and purchase orders, etc. The work isn't hard, just very very involved. I am frustrated, but every day gets a little bit better.

Last weekend we didn't do anything really exciting. Most of the weekend was spent at church watching general conference. We did manage to look at a few places for rent, but nothing really grabbed our attention. On Friday night we went in to Grimsby and played Snooker with Martin's friend Adam, which was a really great time. Snooker is sort of like pool, but the table is twice as big and it involves different colored balls that have to be hit into the pockets in succession. Way fun, and very difficult. I'm terrible at it!

This weekend we are going to look at more houses and flats. We were looking at buying an old Methodist chapel, but backed out of it when we discovered that there wasn't going to be much property sold with it. If we had bought the land at the back, it would have cost us an extra 30,000. That's pounds, not dollars. At the current exchange rate, we would have been paying $60,000 dollars for a piece of property about the size of mom and dad's family room. It didn't seem like such a good idea.

Anyway, that's the news. I'm going to try to figure out the picture thing now, so hopefully we will have some pictures for your viewing pleasure soon!

Okay, so this is an update plus an apology of sorts. We keep promising pictures, but we are having technical difficulties on that front. In light of this, we are making efforts to resolve this so we can show how much fun we are having.

In the meantime, in between fun and games, we have to do the work thing! I am sure most of you know I am still working for Enterprise, but it is a whole different kettle of fish to what I have been doing in the U.S. Not bad, or worse, just different. And about a tonne more paperwork! It all seems to be a bit more involved if you ask me.

Jamie has actually started working for Volvo. "Oh" you might say, "she is working at a car dealership?" Well, no. She is actually working at the PDI centre for Volvo Plant machinery. PDI stands for Pre Delivery Inspection. Now, Jamie doesn't do the inspection, but what she does do is take care of invoicing and working with salesmen as well as doing a bit of everything on the paperwork front. I don't know the exact details but I am sure if anyone has any major questions, you can direct those to Jamie.

We both enjoyed conference this weekend, althought having to put on church clothes and physically go to work was a bit of a pain. But the whole thing was still quite edifying. Someone did inform us that it can be watched through Sky TV, which is the english equivalent of ish Network, but we didn't find this out until too late. So, next year we are going to get it taken care of earlier so we can watch in the comfort of our home and wear pyjama's instead of church clothes!

That's about all for now. Hope to be in touch with you all soon.