We are buying a house in England

"Hold your nerve", I say to my husband, the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist with whom I share my life (and fleas).  "Buying a house is not easy in this country".   I use both of my tiny little monkey hands to lift the 3L bottle of Co-Op London Gin up onto the kitchen table, and get the winch out.  I realise he is only partially aware of what 'Grade 2 Listed' means, and I am not in any hurry to get into any sort of deep chit-chat about the ramifications of living in a house with a thatched roof.   The winch is winched; the bottle tips; the drink is 73% gin.

In Canada (where we have been), buying a house is sort of like it is in Scotland: you say you want to buy it, you sign a thing, you do some surveys and that and then - assuming you haven't got cold-resistant termites or bodies in the converted basement - 5,000 square metres of fine Canadian real estate is yours for the price of a one bedroom flat in Shepherd's Bush.   There isn't any of this 'gazumping' nonsense; agents don't seem to be massive cocks and people tend to do what they say they will.

In the England, it is different. Our offer has been accepted and the house is "Sold STC",  but someone could pop up offering 30p more than us and - in theory - the owners could take the offer and we would be back where we are, i.e. living in nice but leaky rented house with carpets like those you would find in an office just outside Coventry,  surrounded by sinister people who live in bungalows, drive top-of-the-range Audis and shout 'THIS IS A PRIVATE ROAD' after you, the suspension on your 2007 Ford Fusion Zetec audibly snapping as you speed away, bouncing over potholes on the way to the Co-op.

But. But.  I think it will be OK.  The owners (Scottish, very nice, fine taste in gardens and basins) seem excellent, and want to get back to Scotland.   While we wait, we wake up at odd hours in a cold sweat trying mentally to fit our enormous Canadian furniture into a house built by toothless Tudor cordwainers; even if we grease it up good and proper it's going to be a struggle worth buying tickets for, and some things will have to go, or go into storage (e.g. collection of fezzes, furniture built purely to hold your television set, The Complete Ant and Bee, etc).    I have spent 23 minutes looking up "How to cook on an electric Aga", an hour being put on hold by various 'mortgage providers' and 15 minutes talking to a solicitor who tells me there is nothing she likes more than 'dicey permissions'.

I will not go on more.  We will have to see what happens. It is too soon to show interest in the fact that the Parish Council have had to buy a new Dog Poo Bin themselves because Cambridgeshire County Council simply REFUSE to pay for it themselves.  I also have ZERO interest in the fact that pub (6 minutes' walk from our front door) has a Pie Night every Wednesday. Of even less interest are the quality of our cricket teas, and whether we will be featured in the monthly village newsletter, which makes a point of welcoming new people to the village. "Please welcome the new arrivals to Monkey Cottage at 1 Bingbong Lane.  They have just moved back to the UK from Canada. Say hello to NWM, JM and their cat, Steve".


Talking of Steve, this was the picture on his cage at the rehoming centre.  We got him two weeks ago. He is excellent but now gigantic, and chews on our toes in the night.



Pip pip!

NWM

Cottaging

We have put an offer in on a house. The house is in fact a cottage with a thatched roof in a village with a cricket club, the WI, two pubs and a very low threat of flooding.  It is what North Americans think most houses in England are like (if they are not Downton Abbey or Buckingham Castle). 

I realised tonight that if this thing (that we weren't planning) happens, there's a very high chance I may 'take to my blog' again. Why? Because I know that you - my adoring readers and/or fans - will want to know every detail of the WI talk about "Swedish Customs, Cakes and Coffee" that I plan to attend in late November, and I want to tell you every detail about 'Fruits de Mar Panini' on the menu at Pub 2. 

Are you in?  I know I am by Christmas, if all goes according to plan. 

Pip pip!

NWM

English Items (Various)

An update for you, my adoring readers and/or fans (should you still exist).

I Now Live In The Almost-Country
More precisely, a village that is technically in Cambridgeshire, but has a Royston postcode ERGO is not 'real' country (i.e., you don't need wellies and Ocado offer a number of convenient delivery slots).

Good things about the village:

1. I live in a (rented)  Georgian house with 3 bedrooms, a garden full of gigantically fat pigeons and a leaking conservatory (that's big enough, should the village hall burn down, to host the Am Dram Soc's peformance of Pirates of the Penzance, inc audience). The entire house costs the same to rent as a 1 bed flat above a chipshop in Shepherd's Bush (actual fact). It is very pretty and very wonky and after 8 years in Canada,  it is just the ticket. My husband, a Canadian, keeps bashing his head on the doors which, bearing in mind the Georgians weren't THAT stubby, tells you something about his extraordinary manliness.
2. There is a very good butcher that also sells a) 'loave cakes' and b) 'home fashioned fruit pies'
3. There are 2 other shops, notably a corner shop they call "Dips' Shop", a magical emporium that sells a range of items including sausages (of high quality), dustpans (and brushes should you need them), firelighters, 3 types of crumpet, papers, broccoli, discounted Valentine Chocs and party hats.
4. It is a 15 minute walk across a field to train to London that takes an hour, and you can always get a seat.
5. There is a really good GP full of excellent doctors and receptionists and people who are complaining. To these people I say: leave the UK for 8 years. (Try living in Canada, even, which allegedly has a health service of its own.) Then come back, experience the NHS again for 5 minutes and weep hot tears of gratitude. 
6. There is a kebab van in the car park (6-10pm every night inc. Sundays) that has the mystery meat on a pole, but also has meat on a stick.
7. We are not in London. I am from London. Born there, went to school there, lived there most of my life. But I do not want to live there anymore. 

Bad things about the village

We have 3 pubs and they are all shit.

1. Parvenu Hotel Resstrunt Bar. High gloss textured wallpaper, does weddings. Rolls-Royces parked outside. Slacks. Slippery 'Chesterfield style suites', Chef's Snack Platter. No. 
2. Pub of Danger.  It is where you go if you want some crack cocaine. Driving past it you would take one look and shriek "Oh this MUST be in The Sunday Times' 50 Best Pubs Within Commuting Distance of London 2012 Guide!!!". It is all wattle & daub glory and creaking signs. Then you park up and cross the road, feel your way through teenagers with tiny eyes sucking hard on cheap cigarettes, and find that the pub is full of people that would probably kill you and put you in the ham sandwiches given half the chance. "How charming!", you shriek, necking your pint in record time as you leg it out the back through the car park.  
3. Pub of Laminate. Is the pub that you think, well if nothing else we'll go to there, for it is managed by a reputable - nay, celebrated - nearly local brewery,  surely it'll be OK. But it is not. It is over-lit and full of laminated menus and you feel genuinely indignant that you don't qualify for the Pensioners' Weekend Meal Deal.  There are fake fires and people in their late 20s silently eating a Sunday Roast Meal Deal (your choice of chicken, beef, pork or lamb with an alcoholic beverage of your choosing) with their parents. Everyone is on high stools, and no-one is comfortable. 

I am now a headhunter
The irony of this is not lost on me and yet. And yet.   In this job, the idea of work is an abstract. There are headhunters that headhunt headhunters to go and work for other headhunters.  We don't earn commission (no no, we are not THAT kind of headhunter) and I am paid a salary to sit and talk in the abstract about work all day long. It is probably the perfect employment for a Non-working Monkey.

It is fucking ace to be back
So great, in fact, that I have not been able to write it down. I keep wanting to start and then don't know where to, because there's so much.  But I have been inspired to get to it again because ....

....A great person has written a great book

It is Emma Beddington, AKA Belgian Waffle, and her book is really, really good. I read half of it in one day and I am wanting to chomp more of it down.

I told her it was a relief it was good, like when your pal has a baby that doesn't look like a potato with marshmallow eyes so that when you say "oh isn't he/she LOVELY', you actually mean it.  Have a look. (I also found out within the first 10 pages that she lived next door to the man who let me in to the University of York, where I got a Desmond and got up to no glorious good for 3 years).




I find Faceswap 3 years too late and laugh until I can laugh no more

Here I am as a dog, for example:





















I wrote a post about a Barbour when I got back that was a bit odd, so I've got rid of it but there were some very good questions in the comments that I will go back to and try and answer. In the meantime, if you have any items you wish to discuss with me I encourage you to fill the comments box(es) with your topicks.

Pip pip!

NWM

Home

The original version of this post contained a strange transcript of an email I wrote to Simon at work asking for advice about Barbours. I was going to bin the post but the comments were lovley so I have cut the boring bit out and put the end bit in, which will explain the comments. Please and thank you. 

___

I have so much to say on the subject of being back in Blighty after 8 long, long, unremarkable years in Canada that I don't know where to start. If you, my adoring readers and/or fans, have any 'questions' or 'topics', insert them forcefully into the comments box below and I will do my utmost best to answer them.

Pip "Mince Fucking Pies Everywhere and Permanently Drunk - Isn't Life Grand!!" Pip

NWM

Things I Will Miss About Canada, Pt 2: Relationship With The Weather

As they are with distance, the people of Canada are as hard as fucking nails when it comes to the weather.

For e.g., here is a Canadian train dealing with snow:

And here is an English train dealing with snow:

"Snow is nothing but trouble", he moaned.  Precisely.

In case the point is not clear enough, I have taken some time out of my "busy schedule" (pronounced "skedjooll", rhymes with "Medjool") to build a simple chart  that will demonstrate exactly what I mean. In it, I compare reactions to various temperature levels, England* vs. Canada**.

UPDATE: An eagle-eyed reader points out that the scale below should be C not F.   And now we may begin:

In the winter in England, all you would have to do to get out of the house would be put on a coat, scarf and gloves and grumble a bit (maybe scrape a bit of frost off the windscreen), and get on your way. In Canada, you have to get special snow tyres put on and stock up on 100L of de-icer - then every day, you:

1. Check weather the night before
2. Wake up, see if car is still visible under 15ins of snow, realise it is not
3. Drink coffee, get dressed quickly
4. Put on large coat, big boots, insulated gloves, hat, scarf etc
5. Pick up snow shovel, sigh
6. Dig car out of snow
7. Dig drive out of snow
8. Sweat
9. Take off large coat, big boots, gloves, hat, scarf etc
10. Steam
11. Have breakfast, have shower, put on clothes
12. Put on large coat, big boots, insulated gloves, hat, scarf etc
13. Make way to car already under another 4 ins of snow 
14. Turn on car, hope it starts
15. Wait for heating to take temperature inside car from -25 to -10
16. Drive off
17. Hope to fuck the snowplough has been.

I will miss this very much, and am already preparing myself not to shout CALL THIS COLD? TRY SAYING THAT TO A CANADIAN!!! at the first English person who moans about the cold when I get back.   Still, at least I'll only need one coat. 

Pip "a few degrees off thermals!" Pip

NWM


* When I say 'England', I probably mean lily-livered Southerners, of which I am one. As any fule kno, the Scottish and Northerners are as hard as fucking nails and should not be messed with in any circumstances. I cannot speak for the Welsh.
** When I say 'Canada', I mean East Coast Canada, or more specifically Quebec, where I live. As we all know Toronto has semi-tropical climate compared to that of Quebec, and Vancouver's climate is like that of Swansea. I have never been to the prairies, Alberta, the Northern Territories, etc.