Gilberts' Fridge

Eleven Days!

I can't believe it's been eleven days since I last posted. Life sure does get busy sometimes, doesn't it? It doesn't even seem like half that much time has gone by. Plus, it doesn't really seem like anything has happened in that week and 1/2.

I guess stuff has. Our bank, HSBC, has done the valuation of the Fleetgate house and they've OK'd the amount of money they're lending us for it. Our solicitors have started the local search, so we should have a moving in date soom (even if it's just a tentative one). Martin's interviewed for the assistant manager position at work. I've cooked a lot of meals and cleaned the house a few times. Life just gets swallowed up by all the mundane things you have to do!

England continues to amaze and inspire. The weather is getting warmer all the time (highs of about 65, but it's humid so it feels warmer), and with the thaw in the weather, the people seem a little bit friendlier as well. Plus, I have never seen such a glorious spring. It seems like everything is blossoming right now. The flowering cherries have shed their petals, but now we have the crab apples, and this other tree that I've never seen before but it has huge pink blooms that look similar to carnations. Even the hedge rows are full of beautiful flowering white hawthorne, and the farmers are all growing bright yellow rapeseed. All this country needs is a little sunlight to make it beautiful!

So yeah, you may have noticed that I am completely enamored of spring inEngland. I hope that when we DO eventually have a baby, it's in May. Then my parents will come to visit, and they will understand why I love England so much. Even though it has its quirks and annoyances, this is a truly beautiful place.

Martin and I are really starting to look forward to moving into 48 Fleetgate (though the address isn't nearly as fun as our current one)! The freaked-out feeling of going into that much debt has started to fade, and we are both starting to look at it as an adventure, and as something a little more grown up and stable. And we are really looking forward to central heating! We have been wandering around home improvement stores like single women wander around bridal shops and married men around shopping malls--looking and lusting! We've chosen the colours for our living room and know the general look we're going to go for (feng shuy-ish but modern) and have startind making flooring choices. We were looking at kitchen appliances the other day, for crying out loud. We are going to start making decisions about the bedroom soon. I can't wait to get in to the house and start doing the work. Not that I particularly like painting and stuff, but I wan't to live in a nice place. I want to have a beautiful house that I can be proud to have friends and family come to stay in. And, let's be honest, I'm all about the central heating!

Non-house news: We went to another Scunthorpe United football match yesterday. Martin got free tickets from work again, and it was a good time. More people went this time, and it was a really exciting game. They were playing Blackpool (say it like the Southerners and call it "Bleck-poo") and it was a goal-less game until the 90th minute. Scunthorpe scored a goal in injury time, and the Blackpool fans were really angry about the ref's decision. About 20 of them stormed the pitch, and they got chased off by security guards and police. I actually saw a man being beaten with a night stick. English bobbies don't need guns--just big flashlights! It was brutal. Good game!

Tomorrow is another bank holiday. Normally you don't have so many this close together, but Easter was very late this year. This means another short work week, and we are going to Lincoln tomorrow. We're going to do some window shopping, go up steep hill, browse in bookshops, and have lunch with Martin's cute and oh-so-eligible cousin Gareth (that's right, he's single, ladies. I'll get a picture of him--you'll see what I mean). We're both looking forward to it as we haven't been to Lincoln since the Christmas Fair. Since I'll have the camera with me, I'll take a few pictures of England in bloom. Who knows, we may even get pictures of the two of us on the blog.

The work week is looking busy even though it's a short one. Work has been very busy and annoying for me (Yvonne is getting worse all the time. I hope she finds a new job soon!). Martin's boss is going to Orlando for the annual Enterprise managers' retreat, and leaving Martin in charge. Well, Martin and his collegue Fran. They are acting manager and assistant manager, respectively. He's definitely up to the challenge, and is hoping that it will look good for him when the decision is made about the job. We're just hoping he passes the drug test. : )

That's all the news from the Gilbert family. More updates to come!

Love and miss you all terribly!!!

XOXOXOXO