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On Imperial Time

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Perituss, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons People often ask us how we are adjusting to life in a new country. There are always challenges navigating the things that are new and different. For me it is getting used to the strange implementation of the metric system. Daily life is a melange of imperial and metric measures. Now this is not different from Canada. In Canada I measured air temperature in Celsius, but I used my oven in Fahrenheit. For cooking, I am equally comfortable in either cups or millilitres. I weigh myself in pounds and measure my height in feet and inches. And like many good Canadians, I measure distance in kilometres, or more often, time. Here in the UK it is similarly mixed, but what is commonly measured in imperial and metric is different. Body weight is usually measured in kilograms or the enigmatic stone. Air temperature is always Celsius, food at the shops is in grams and kilograms but distance is in miles. But one measurement still has me stymied and that is the diff...
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On Driving

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As our cabbie swerved in and out of traffic, we held on to the grab bars wondering where on earth he was taking us. He was pleasant and affable and driving for a reputable company. He chatted with us as he veered around bright red double-decker busses, parked vehicles and oncoming traffic, interested as to why we would want to move to London from Canada. He seemed like a decent chap, yet... I grabbed my iPhone and opened Google Maps to follow along with the journey, just to make sure he was actually taking us toward our intended destination and not giving us a "free" tour of London. He wasn't. He was driving "straight" there. There is no straight in London. There is no shortcut from here to there. The roads in London were set down by the ancient Romans and despite the changes in technology over the centuries, it doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone to update the roadway system to match modern vehicles.   Driving in London, in the parlance of the locals, i...
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On Books: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

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 Dear Reader! My apologies. It has been a very long time since last I wrote. I wish I could say its because I have been so busy, but that would be mostly untrue. We did have a period of busyness whilst we searched for our permanent home, but that task has been accomplished and now it is just sit and wait.  I sit and wait for my job to start in September. I sit and wait to move into our new home. I sit and wait and sit and wait. I've lots of books and crosswords and the BBC to keep me company and of course my walks in Richmond Park.  I joined a book club at my local bookshop. The book for August was Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. It was a great book. I loved it. I have lived on the periphery of the gaming industry for many years so lots of it struck home for me. The book club's opinion was divided however -- about half the group loved it and half the group did not. It was largely divided on age: Boomer v. Gen X and Millennials. LOL Why I loved it T...
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Hogsmill River

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 Hogsmill River is a small little river, some might call it a stream or a creek, that runs through Kingston-upon-Thames. This is next to the Kingston School of Art Knights Park campus where Owen works. This is where we ate our lunch today and watched all the little water birds milling about doing their thing. You can watch ducks, herons, moor hens, Canada geese and much more. There are even some good size fish in there as well. Enjoy this little video of the duck munching away on something. She is at the bottom in the middle. Eventually you see her swim/float away.
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Richmond Park

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 Alas dear reader, I am sorry. This is another post about Richmond Park. It is just such a bloody brilliant place to spend one's time.  Today I was there for a follow up visit for Holly Lodge. After my meeting, I wandered around again. There was another section of the park I wanted to explore. This time I came across a BUNCH  of deer.  There are two species of deer that live in the park: fallow deer and red deer. Today I saw both! I was walking along a path and across on the other side there was a small group of about six to eight fallow deer. I didn't stop to take photo as I was on a task. A little later in my walk I stopped at a kiosk to buy a sandwich and a drink. I sat down on a nearby bench to enjoy my lunch and I looked up and low and behold, there was another group of fallow deer munching away on something in the bracken. As I watched them, a small family of red deer walked up. They crossed the roadway and joined the group of fallow deer. They all seemed to ge...
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Random Thoughts

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 One thing we have noticed, at least in Richmond/Kingston, is the dearth of advertising in public places. There are no billboards. There are very few large poster-type ads in public spaces such as beside roads and motorways. There is no advertising on buses. There is no advertising in buses -- except ads for TFL (Transport for London) services or NHS (National Health Service) PSAs. Bus stops have no adverts. Even small posters advertising local bands playing at the local pub are few and far between. I have seen very few people smoking. So few that when I do see someone smoking it surprises me. Vaping however, is everywhere. So much vaping. You are allowed to smoke in the outdoor seating areas of restaurants here. Very weird.  I have yet to figure out how to walk down the sidewalk here. In Canada, we roughly walk down the sidewalk the same way we drive. Not here. There seems to be no consistent way to give way to a person walking toward you. Some people will veer to the right, ...
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On the Weather

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Before we left, many of my friends who have travelled here or lived here for any length of time told me that the stories of rain in London are greatly exaggerated. That certainly has been our experience so far. Yes it has rained and a couple of times a good hearty rain, but overall it has been very pleasant. Rains are often just a bit of a drizzle and they don't last long and it doesn't rain every day.  Temperatures have been in the high teens, low twenties every day. We often have beautiful blue sky. This is the perfect temperature for me having been born in northern Alberta and spending a large part of my life in the mountains. Like everywhere, they do get heat waves from time to time. In fact, one had just ended prior to our landing. Temps were in the high twenties and edged into the low thirties.  The view from my window today What is difficult for me here is the humidity. Twenty-three degrees feels much much hotter. I am always soaked through to the skin with sweat. Elect...
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