A Different Perspective

Hello All! My name is TheStudent, and I am TJ's daughter. I've been working as an editor for many of the posts that go up here, but this week I am writing to you all while my mother helps to host some of our family friends.

As many of you could probably imagine, I love England just like my parents. I have since I was little, and have been fortunate to travel there on two different occasions now, with a third trip coming this summer. A big part of why I love to visit England is because I love studying history, especially when I can get to the historical sites themselves. In England, especially in the Northumberland area, there are dozens of historic sites within easy walking distance. That is an amazing opportunity for exploration, and I am very excited about the chance I get to explore again this summer.

However, much like both my parents before me, I am looking for bigger and better adventures that are peeking over the horizon. Currently, I'm a history student who is also seeking licensure to become a special education teacher. I still live in Colorado while I'm getting my bachelors, but after seeing my parents make such a successful transition to living in England while my father gets his doctorate, I am giving consideration to making the transition myself. Part of my journey this summer is going to include looking at degree options for my masters in special education overseas in England.

I am hopeful for what my future holds, but I know that even if I don't go to England for education, I will find some way to experience life in England for longer than a week-long vacation. My love for England is much like my parents, and I am hopeful that sooner rather than later I will be there, with my parents, for my next adventure.

Welcome to Our Neighbourhood

You've seen the inside of our place so I thought I'd give a brief tour of the neighbourhood we live in.  When we moved here I had some apprehension about moving to the big city since for the past 20 years or so we have lived in small towns or fairly rural areas.  My husband did a lot of research online looking for good student accommodations that would be at least partly furnished, close to campus, and would be close to doctors and hospitals (just in case).  We had a friend in the area who was willing to check out potential locations so we could see beyond the online hype and make sure the flat was as good as it seemed.  The flat we are in now was our second choice after our first choice was rejected by the letting company. Thankfully, this flat has turned out to be perfect for us.

We are in an area that is sometimes referred to as Heaton and sometimes Byker (we are kind of on the border between a couple of areas).  Even our mail is split between the different names.

Our little corner of Newcastle Upon Tyne is close to all the services I need (and some I had no idea existed), but far enough from the city centre so it doesn't feel overwhelmingly big. We are 0.4 miles from the Molineux Street NHS centre that has my GP (General Practioner), Psych, and pharmacy all in one building (the building also houses a Walk-In Centre, Dentist, Physio, Pain management and a whole list of other things I'm probably forgetting).  

Google estimates an 8 minute long walk and I would say that's about average.  If I'm walking with David it doesn't take nearly that long, and if I'm by myself it's probably closer to 10 minutes to get there.  The art studio (Chilli Studio) is just a bit farther at 0.5 miles but tends to take longer to get there (I average 12-15 minutes to get there).  

https://www.chillistudios.co.uk

These two are in opposite directions from each other, so that I take a left turn for the studio and a right turn for the medical building.  Both walks are relatively easy with not much in the way of hills between here and there. The worst part of the walk to the studio is having to cross a bridge that is very busy, so it's really noisy, but even that isn't too bad.

Looking right, up the road

Looking left 

The next great thing in this area, that we visit a couple of times a week, is our local grocers.  For most of our weekly shopping we use the local Morrison's, which is also about 0.4 miles from our flat, so when traveling empty-handed its about 8-10 minutes to get there. On the return with our bags full, it does take a little longer, but still not more than 15 minutes at our slowest.  Our Morrisons is huge, at about the size of the Walmart where we lived before, but this is almost all food stuff.

David will also stop on his way between campus and home at smaller stores to pick up something essential for that evening's dinner.  We both carry bags with us at all times just in case we need to pop in and get something so we don't have to pay for a bag (single-use plastic bags are not used in larger stores and there is a nominal charge for reusable bags depending on size) just to get something home.

As a quick run in, run out and to get a very random assortment of products, Wilko can't be beaten.  It's kind of like a high-end dollar store.  The prices are very reasonable, and while the quality isn't top shelf, it's decent, and you never know what you'll find if you spend any sort of time wandering the aisles.  So far Wilko is the main shop I can handle on my own without having a huge panic attack, because it's not as crowded and not as big, but I have my eye on Morrisons and I will conquer it.

Something I didn't imagine we would come to claim but this is our go-to pub, that serves decent food, has vegetarian options for David, and is quite reasonable.  It is basically next door to Wilko and not even a parking lot away from the GP surgery, meaning it's perfect.  It's called The High Main, but it is part of a chain called Wetherspoons, so there are lots of them with each having unique characteristics but being basically the same.  

There are multiple historical markers throughout our area mainly marking spots that relate to the coal mining that was done right under our feet early on in Newcastle's history.

Most neighborhoods we travel through have play areas for kids that can be used for multiple sports (but my guess is they are mostly used for football practice). The one closest to us has basketball hoops as well.  There are more traditional playgrounds for younger kids that have some very cool activities beyond just basic swings and slides. 

The park we walk through to get to the city centre has exercise equipment along the walking path with things like an elliptical machine and multiple ways to work out your abs.  Down along Quayside they have a similar set of equipment, but their equipment looks much newer.  I keep telling myself that I will go check it out, but for now walking through the neighbourhood is plenty.

This gate is at the very end of our street, and is closed most of the time, but if we leave the flat at just the right time we will find groups of mums (and dads too) dropping off their children to the school that is through there.  Such a beautiful schoolyard and during the day you can see lots of blue dots running around in the field (bright blue is the colour of the jumpers the kids wear as part of their uniforms).

If you exit the flat via the backdoor our gate opens into an alley, this lineup is what you will find.  We are amazed at how much easier and accessible recycling is here, and this group shows that.  The little blue bins are for glass, the big black bin with the multi-colour sticker on it is for recycling everything else (cans, aluminium, plastic bottles, etc), and the next big bin is for all of the things that don't seem to fit in any of the other categories.  This makes keeping up with and taking care of the recycling so easy; other nations need to get on top of this too.

At the end of our row of houses these pretty little flowers are already growing so well.  It's hard to believe that February is not over yet, but new growth is coming through.

This ring of flowers is in the green space around a high-rise set of flats and I can't wait for it to finish coming in, it will be beautiful.

Coming up the path from the studio at the end of the row of houses directly behind ours this famous face will greet you.  I haven't been able to find out a whole lot about Mr. Shakespeare and how he came to oversee our area, but you have to admit he is pretty cool looking and some serious work went into arranging the bricks into his likeness.  I've been told that during the Summer there are people who gather in the grassy area here and do yoga at least once a week, so I'll keep my eyes open for that.

In one of my earlier posts I talked about one of the reasons for not being interested in driving is all of the roundabouts.  This one here is outside of the Morrisons and is the smaller of the 2 that seem to be right on top of each other.  I had hoped to catch a shot of when the multiple busses will work their way around this at the same time with cars weaving in and out, but this is what I got.  Even without busses coming through there is way too much going on and I'm thoroughly impressed by anyone who can drive these things on a daily basis.

There is so much more I could show you all within an easy walk of our flat.  We have all of these amazing things at our disposal and we aren't even in the middle of the city.  We have found our perfect little nook of Newcastle Upon Tyne and we will stay here for as long as possible. 

More to come soon.  Cheers!

A trip around the Flat

We live in a small one bedroom flat that is the perfect size for the two of us.  Upon our move we found a basic set of furniture and friends of ours provided most of the items any well established British household could possible need.  A lot of what we use on a daily basis is run of the mill items any American household would find helpful and recognisable, but there are a few things that stand out.

Our flat is part of a larger row of terraced houses.  This means we have upstairs neighbours and ones on both sides of us.  Originally (like in the late 1800s) ours would have been a single family residence with an upstairs and downstairs.  Many have now been converted into multiple unit houses instead.  We live at the end of our road and sometime in the past part of the building was torn down to make room for a school and park that are at the end of our row.  All that means to us is that the other rows of houses are much longer than ours.  After the mass destruction of housing during the Second World War terraced houses were a quick and efficient way to rebuild, so there are some that are more recently built.

The room we use as a bedroom is at the front of our flat and would have been used as a parlour for when company came around.  Parlours were decked out with all the best in furnishings and decoration and were used to make a good impression on visitors.  Other areas of the house were for private use only and were not so elaborately furnished.  For just this downstairs portion we have 5 doors that control access between each room.

One thing that has taken adjusting to is the lack of door knobs on the exterior doors.  This is the inside of our door to the main hall.  To exit the top lock has a knob to disengage the lock, then pull and the door opens.  On the outside the key turned in the same lock and a push opens the door.  The door to the outside has the same pattern to the locks, turn and pull to exit, twist and push to enter.  Not sure if there is any sort of advantage but it's definitely different.

We spend quite a bit of time in the kitchen so we'll start there.

The gas cooktop is known as the Hob. Luckily ours has 4 burners even though many are just one or two burners.

Our oven is one of the most complicated models I have ever worked with, and this includes the couple of years cooking on a 70+ year old model.  One of the first things I learned the hard way is the temperature dial is in ˚C, so for recipes it takes a conversion.  So yeah, my first experience with this oven was a simple baking of chips that ended with me in tears, all of the smoke alarms going off, and a pan that had to be soaked and scrubbed a couple of times.  We have recently committed to a second year in our flat and I'm fairly confident by the end I will have figured all the settings out.

In our kitchen the fridge-freezer combination is roughly the size of a travel fridge in a trailer.  Ours is split 50/50 between the top refrigerator and the bottom freezer.  Fortunately for two occupants this is about perfect, except for the first day or so after shopping when the fridge is packed from top to bottom and an avalanche risk every time the door is opened.

Tea is a staple in most British households so they have perfected the quick boil electric kettle that can sit on the countertop waiting for the switch to engage and be at a rolling boil in a very short time period.  The kettle can of course be used for anything requiring boiling water, but I'm pretty sure it was invented to decrease the time from start to finish for the daily pot of tea.

The kitchen in a basic flat like we live in is on the compact side but not tiny.  Still there is no room (or need?) of a dishwasher.  You do sometimes see the clothes washer in the kitchen, but I think that has to do with plumbing more than space.

Next let's look at the loo.

Many of the bathroom taps have this configuration with separate nozzles for the hot and cold water.  To get lukewarm water you use the plug and fill the sink with a magic combination of the two and work from there.  In public restrooms there is usually a sign warning of "Very Hot Water, Caution", because of the boilers used for hot water the water goes from cold to hotter than hell in no time flat.

Many of the toilets have variable flush volumes triggered by one of two buttons.  They are usually of different sizes to make things easier to identify with the smaller button used for wee and the larger for poo.  This is a water conservation feature that is brilliant.  In public toilets the multi-flush is not always seen and a more familiar lever or button is used.

One of my favourite features of the bathroom is our radiator/towel rack combination.  Around 5 minutes before a shower I will engage the boiler to start warming the room up but also to warm the towel to be used at the end so it is comfy cozy warm.  When getting into a shower I will hang my dressing gown on the rack so it's nice and warm too.  Definitely not a necessity but it is a welcome luxury.

Speaking of the boiler this is the magic box that provides all the hot water for the taps but also for the radiators that keep the rooms warm.  It is controlled by a fairly complicated set of switches to allow for it to engage at set times or has a bypass switch to fire it up on demand.  It is incredibly efficient and within minutes of engaging the radiators are almost too hot to touch and all you can use hot water is flowing from the taps.  So far we have not run it out of hot water so it puts out a crapton at any given time.

Most of the room radiators look like this, they are not huge but they do a great job of warming up even the coldest of the rooms.

Our little washer is nothing fancy and it does a great job with whatever we throw at it.  The problem we have is that without a dryer we need to hang dry our loads but in a climate that is cold and humid (when it's not outright raining) things just don't want to dry.  We have gotten creative with locations to hang clothes in our flat and most of the time they are ready by the next day.  An early lesson we learned was small frequent loads and don't count on the outside clothesline.

When traveling overseas an outlet adapter is a necessity.  Here in the UK our outlets look like this.  We are using a combination of adapters and purchased plugs for our USB chargers.

One thing that I had never seen or heard of was that each plug on an outlet has a switch.  Here is one of our kitchen outlets where the left plug is powered on but the right is off.  The one on the right is the plug for our toaster and since we rarely use it we leave it in the off position, which of course means I forget about the switch for at least a few minutes while I fight the toaster to toast and then have my Duh! moment and turn it on.

Our Christmas lights came like this, with an interchangeable plug end that can then be screwed onto the light string.  My husband says (and he's usually right) that this is because the plug types in the UK were not  universal in the past so this would allow for greater flexibility.  Along with this many appliances come with wiring diagrams so that one type of plug could be removed and a new one wired into its place.

A quick trip back to the bedroom and you will find no closet but instead clothes are hung go in our wardrobe.  It wasn't until getting here that I finally understood the wardrobe portion of C.S. Lewis' book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  I can totally see hiding from my siblings in here (without shutting oneself in) and suddenly finding a portal to another world.  I'm perfectly content with exploring the new world I have found myself in without travel by wardrobe (and I prefer Jelly Babies to Turkish Delight when it comes to sweets).

We love our flat and feel like it was the perfect place for us to land.  We are within walking distance of everything we need and have access to amazing public transportation.  Finding a place that can feel like home has helped the transition.

I hope you enjoyed your tour.

History in everyday Life

Welcome one and all,
I’m sitting here somewhat bleary eyed after experiencing my first Major UK holiday.  Since we kicked over into November every night has had a barrage of Thumps, Pops and Explosions.  I knew enough about the calendar to know 5 November is Guy Fawkes day, and because of his misadventure it was decided (back under King James I) that the day would be commemorated by Bonfires and Fireworks, and that tradition continues even in 2018.
     See Guy Fawkes and a group of coconspirators were very unhappy that the King was forcing upon the population a conversion to Protestantism and singling out the Catholics.  The group with Guy were very much Catholic and more so Roman Catholic and saw the changes so they decided to do something.  So they stockpiled barrels of gunpowder under the Parliament building and were waiting for the perfect time to blow Parliament sky high.  Unfortunately under one of Guy’s turn at guarding and preparing to ignite the gunpowder he was discovered.  Because this was seen as high treason he wasn’t treated well and when the trial ended he was sentenced to death by hanging and then to be drawn and quartered with his limbs being sent to all the four corners of the Empire so that others could see what a bad idea it was to try to blow up a King.
   Last night was intense but amazing.  Some of the mortars they used were completely new to me and that made it all the more fun.  The closest display to our flat was 2 1/2 blocks away and we greatly underestimated the number of people that would be there.  I had with me all the things necessary to soften the blows from the explosions with music, headphones and earplugs even.  I came through on the slightly overwhelmed side but I’m pretty sure that was from the number of people crowded around us.  Next year will be even better. we know we need to leave earlier, and to bring the right kind of music to go with such an amazing display.
     Today is a day to get back into the routines.   Laundry, errands, and cooking dinner later today.  I’m hoping to stay awake through it all, but a nap is nothing to scoff at either.
More to Come, join me for the ride,
👋