Grab the bubbly and call Phil and Kirsty

So today we officially exchanged on our flat…exchanging is the legal exchange of contracts meaning both the seller must sell and the buyer must buy…no more risk of gazumping which is nice! If only Phil and Kirsty were here from Relocation, Relocation we could pop champagne and watch them flirt in a I-can’t-fancy-you-I’m-married kind of way.

Anyway the next step is to close – when you actually get the keys. I imagine that is the exciting part but, since the keys are in my handbag and we have been living in the flat for 2.5 years it is marginally anti-climatic. What will be exciting is when we get to get rid of the random stuff that the owner left behind with no intention of ever coming back for. Some of the things include 2 very rusty patio chairs, 16 mismatched tea mugs, 4 Christmas themed shot glasses and a lime green vase that she clearly got free from a magazine subscription. We don’t officially ‘close’ until the 8th but I have the boxes all packed and ready to go to the charity shop and we might have already started painting but we won’t tell anyone.

The only slight buzz kill was this headline I was greeted with on my way home:

Nothing like telling a new home owner that “House prices are plummeting at their fastest rate for almost two decades as the market faces collapse, figures revealed today”. Today? Really? it couldn’t have been a week from now after we had some champagne and visited the charity shop…or 2 months ago before we bought…no? …I might have just found a use for those Christmas shot glasses after all.

On a side note…the word decades can also be pronnounced “de – kades’ with a slight pause between the de and kades….its hilarious click here to listen be patient it takes a second for the dude to say it but its worth the wait.

Coming to a high street near us

Couldn’t help but snap a photo of this new gadget on our high street (aka the main street that runs through the area we live in…because our area is fairly young it is mainly full of bars and restaurants with a few grocery stores and clothing shops thrown in). Anyway I might have a heightened awareness of toilet facilities due to my husband’s mini bladder but I think everyone would find this pretty neat if they hadn’t seen it before……

Ta Da!

A retractile urinal (or your-eye-nail as the English pronounce it!)! Although it won’t do me much good I can’t help but be pretty impressed that such a vessel even exists. Men can stop for a wee on their stumble home from the bar at night but during the day when there is less of a need for such a facility, it gets swallowed into the earth! Although from the picture in the top left it sort of looks like you step in and you get sucked into the earth….either way it’s a pretty cool gadget…one in which I have a feeling my hubbie might find particularly useful.

Bank holiday DIY

So we did a little DYI (aka home improvements) to our flat this weekend.  We are in the process of buying our flat (see my previous post on the UK housing market ) and should be exchanging contracts this week and closing in about 10 days.  Even though we don’t technically own the flat yet, we thought it was a good weekend to start on the list of things we want to do as it is a pretty long list as clearly nothing has been done in the flat for years (at least the past 2.5 years we have been bumbling around in it).

 

We started with the baseboards as they are this glossy yellow ish colour which just looks kinda gross and dirty.  Because the current paint was a gloss, we had to put primer (or undercoat as they call it here) to cover up the gloss so we can paint over it in a white flat/matte (not glossy paint). 

We went to our local B&Q (equivalent of Home Depot) to pick up our baseboard paint and were directed around the store by the helpful paint dude who gave us a Matte for the ceiling and a Satinwood for the baseboards.  Happily we dragged our supplies home and started panting.  The undercoat went on well but we chose to start in the hall which has 6 doorways in it which are particularly annoying as the doors have two sides (facing the hallway and facing in) as well as loads of little grooves. 

 

We finished the priming Sunday and started on painting the baseboards white on Monday.  I did notice that the paint smelled a bit stronger than the undercoat which I thought made sense then I noticed my  hands sticking to my brush more than the undercoat.  I ran my hands under water and found that none the paint was coming off…I also dripped a bit on the carpet (which thankfully we are replacing) and noticed it didnt’ come off with water either.  After a few minutes we realised that this ‘non glossy’ paint was in fact just as glossy as the yellow crap we covered up and was oil based so was a b*tch to get off of everything (including ourselves).  Standing back pondering the three door frames I had just painstakingly painted we realised that this was basically the white version of the yellow crap we just tried to cover up…grrrr

 

I gave up on DIY at this point and threw in the brushes to start again another day….with the correct NON GLOSS paint. 

 

Interestingly I googled Satinwood and got this description:

Dulux Satinwood is a beautiful satin finish specially designed for use on interior wood and metal, including radiators. It is a subtle, attractive alternative to gloss. It is just as hard wearing and washable as gloss. Dulux Satinwood is easy to use, it needs no undercoat and can be applied directly over old gloss paint after preparation.

I can see how helpful paint dude may have gotten confused was it the bit about us buying undercoat (which he helped us pick out) to cover the gloss which was already there or the bit when we said WE DIDN’T WANT A GLOSSY FINISH. 

 

This guy is employee of the month material I wish I could do my job that well.

No wonder our bags felt heavy

Today is one of my favourite days…it’s a Friday before a long weekend…the only better day is the Friday before a holiday…or maybe the Friday you retire but since that day is over 9000 working days for me I will take the two aforementioned Fridays.

 

Anyway I am looking forward to this long weekend as I plan to do nothing…well not really nothing because I have a list of things to do as long as my arm starting at laundry and ending at picking out paint colours and flooring (as we are buying our flat and want to make it look like a proper flat and not somewhere we have just been squatting in for almost 3 years).   In between those chores however I plan to sleep, eat and sit on the couch and catch up on some sleep from our trip. 

 

I am also looking forward to tucking into some of my favourite foods which we smuggled back into the country including:

 

 

Cheeze Whiz- a processed cheese – or cheez rather – that you can put on everything from toast to celery or melted over broccoli…mmm

 

 

 

 

 

  

Kraft Peanut Butter – tastes marginally like peanuts but probably more like sugar. How can you resist, it’s got bears on it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Franks Red Hot- hot sauce like tobasco but thicker…like a ketchup tobasco or kabasco hahaha – that’s for the hubby I don’t like hot stuff, I find pepper spicy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marshmallows- I brought back two bags but already ate one and a half – had a few for breakfast mmmmm.  I bet the second bag will be done by tonight or tomorrow morning

 

 

 

Kraft Dinner  – for the hubbie – basically boxed macaroni and cheese but fake cheese – but they don’t put the z in this cheese

 

 

 

 Creamy Cucumber Salad Dressing – couldn’t find a picture of this stuff…this flavour and Catalina are my favourite dressings, you can’t get the same massive selection of salad dressing here. It’s either a few flavours of Kraft – Italian, thousand island, balsamic or some random Newman’s own flavours…not the shelves and shelves of options we have!

 

Jello pudding- not to be confused with the British notion of pudding which actually means dessert, in Canada pudding is a thick mousse type stuff made with milk…but you technically eat it for dessert so in Britain I could say I am having pudding for pudding hahaha

 

 

Microwave butter popcorn - you can get microwave popcorn here but its not as good…

 

 

 

 

Wow that sounds like a lot of stuff.  Did I mention we brought an entire set of pots and a new set of utensils?  No wonder air lines are cutting back on their baggage allowance…its cause of people like us!!

 

Time to go home now…yay!

On the road again

When I was home I drove for the first time in ages which was quite fun. As a result of taking over my parent’s car for a week I had to do the essential trip to the gas station (or petrol station for you Brits) before returning the car to Mom and Dad (yes, I am 16 again).  As I was filling up and watching the dollar signs go by at breakneck speed I remembered when I started driving and gas was $0.42 per litre and you could fill up your car for just over $20…I also remembered that way back then I thought there was no way prices would go over $1.00/litre because there was only space for 2 numbers on their price signs (as per image below).  Amazing how quickly all the stations upgraded to digital signs with enough number spaces to cover them until it hits $1,000 per litre.

 

 

Earlier this week, back in the UK, I had to go to a meeting with a colleague…in a car…something I don’t do often -drive in a car…not go to meetings, I do that all the time.  But I still find being a passenger here quite fun seeing that I am sitting on the other side of the car driving down the other side of the road.  Anyway we stopped to fill up with petrol (not gas cause we were in the UK)…it was busy so we waited behind a guy filling his car.  When he was done he let go of the lever (stopping the flow of petrol) then took the black gas tubing and lifted it above his head and shook it like it was a poisonous snake who’s head was stuck in his tank.

After doing a double take I asked my colleague what the hell he was doing.  My colleague looked at me blankly and said…’Getting all the petrol out of the tube, there is still lots left in the hose when you turn it off’ (he may as well have ended the sentence with a big fat DUH!)  Anyway it was at that point when I glanced at the petrol prices which were at £1.11 ($2.22)/litre…FAWK for that price I am going to drive my car up to every pump and do a big ol hose shake at every station I can find….or, I will just continue to take the tube – that whole ‘ driving on other the other side of the road’ thing freaks me out.

Image source http://www.gassigns.org/ (not kidding, its a site full of gas signs.  I love the internet)

Oh (Air) Canada

So we are back from a busy lovely trip home to see the family. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t as stinking hot as i expected and we saw a fair bit of rain (contrary to the belief of my niece, I had nothing to do with the rain and in fact I did not pack it in my suitcase and bring it from London).
We did arrive safely but much to my disappointment we had to fly Air Canada. I am not sure what specifically it is that i hate about Air Canada but I do, and have had enough annoying flights with them that even if they upgraded me every time to their schwanky business class pod seats (which are still not as nice as British Airways) I would still find them annoying.

It could be the fact that they taunt us by flying airplanes that instead of having TV’s in the seats with on-demand programming (that about every intercontinental airline has) they have a fancy upholstered pillow. Its almost as if Martha Stewart came on the flight and said ‘hey do you know how to hide that hole that should contain a tv? Put a pillow in it and match the fabric to the gross seats..no one will notice‘. On the upside, the seats in front of you are so close that if you lean forward about 3 degrees you can use said pillow as a head rest (or to repeatedly smash your head on while repeating why didn’t I fly BA).

Another thing that bugs me is that if you order a can of pop, they don’t give you the whole can!! Are you my mother? Are you afraid I may wet my seat if I drink the whole can? or that I might stay up too late? Seriously, they give you 19 ice cubes and three tablespoons of coke…I am stuck in a metal vehicle with a forehead pillow for 8 hours the least you could give me is a sugar rush.

On this particular flight we were fortunate enough to have Ned Flanders as the cabin service director who was responsible for all of the in flight announcements. This guy may as well have started with hi-diddly-do-passengers because his (numerous) announcements were filled with annoying phrases like ‘when we get across the pond’, ‘jump this puddle’, ‘get to jolly old’…blah blah blah. Not only was he living his dream of being a radio announcer but he repeated his stupid soliloquy’s in English AND French (god bless our bilingual nation).

My favourite bit came near the end when he started telling people how to transfer to a connecting flight from the Toronto airport as if it was brain surgery…if it is that complicated that Ned Flanders has to give a 20 minute lesson then Toronto airport needs to sort their shit out…other airlines will say “and if you are connecting, follow the signs as we assume you are all able to read’. Ned Flanders even went the extra mile listing out the gate numbers for ALL possible connecting flights, I counted 15 cities before I almost died of boredom…then yup he did it in French too.

As you can imagine I was minutes away from jumping out the window as not only had Ned spoken for 20 minutes but the pilot decided that circling Southern Ontario in the plane drawing a pair of reading glasses on the GPS map would be WAY more fun than actually landing (below is an ACTUAL picture, yes I was that bored).

If this wasn’t enough, the kid behind me decided that we weren’t landing fast enough so started sobbing so hard he was hiccuping… ‘Why (hiccup) aren’t we laaaaanding yet (hiccup)? We (hiccup) were supposed to land 15 minutes agooooo’ repeat 750 times. I am not saying this wouldn’t happen on BA but at least the kid would probably have a cute little posh English accent and say something like; Mummy, why do you reckon this plane is so tardy? I was under the impression we were to arrive a quarter of an hour ago (sips tea with his pinkie up)’

On holiday..

I have arrived safely in Canada and am eating my way through my favourite chain restaurants.  The weather has been crappy and rainy but I have spent most of the time sheltered from the rain in the safe confounds of a mall so the risk of drowning is minimal.  Looks like it will be nicer starting today but I still plan to be in a mall just in case.

Must be off…have my breakfast double double and a shot of maple syrup.

I thought she was a Football WAG not a Cricket WAG

While brushing up on my daily gossip (as I do) I read that Colleen Rooney, a fairly popular WAG (see definition here)  who is married to footballer Wayne Rooney, splashed out £20,000 ($40,000 CDN) in 2 hours at Liverpool’s Cricket Boutique. To which I exclaimed to my colleagues…”If I was going to drop £20,000 in 2 hours it wouldn’t be at a gift shop at a cricket ground!” (picturing her bags of designer cricket wear similar to what you would find at the Wimbledon gift shop)

 

Apparently however, Liverpool Cricket Boutique is actually a fashion boutique called Cricket…in Liverpool.  They stock all the latest designer fashion and are known for their sought after, animal print carrier bags…as you can see, I’m still learning…and today I learned I sooo need one of those carrier bags!

 

 

Cupcakes and body cream

I know we are supposed to be the fairer sex and all but recent events involving my hubbie make me think that although fairer we are the ones who were given the gift of common sense….or maybe my husband was away the day they were handing out common sense…he was probably off in the corner reading the Financial Times.  Anyway I have three examples that might help you understand where I am coming from

 

1)    We were staying in a hotel and hubbie went to have a shower.  He hopped in the shower before I had time to unpack out my travel shampoo and conditioner so he used the hotel stuff.  When I got in the shower I started unpacking my various toiletries and looked down noticing that there was only a bar of soap and the bottle of hotel body cream in the shower.  I ran out and asked if the hubbie had used the cream instead of shampoo….he looked at me blankly and said…”I thought it wasn’t lathering like shampoo”…best part, he didn’t’ even re-shower to get the body cream out of his hair, I think he enjoyed sporting the greaser look that day.

 

2)    Hubbie was complaining that his socks were a bit crunchy when they come out of the wash (because we don’t use a dryer so they don’t’ get all fluffy like they do at home…not cause they aren’t clean).  I promptly went out and bought some fabric softener to remedy his sock issue.  I came home the other night to find that he had washed a bunch of his shirts (aaaw bless) and was hanging them up to dry.  I started helping hang them when I realised the fabric softener was out, I said “oh good you used the fabric softener on these”…he said “oh,I thought that was soap“. He has done the laundry quite a few times and has used the proper soap and the fabric softener package, nor the actual liquid looks anything like laundry soap…no wonder the shirts felt a bit glossy and soft….unlike his hair incident I did insist on re-washing the shirts.

 

 

3)    Finally (okay not finally I just can’t think of anymore right at this instant but there are more) this weekend was a baby shower for a friend of mine.  I volunteered to make cupcakes (mainly cause I love them and haven’t had them in ages).  I made my first batch using a mix I found in the grocery store but ended up throwing them out cause they were dry and gross.  I then found a new mix and made them except the cupcake (or fairycakes as they call them here) paper holder things were super small (probably to cater to those fairies).  Stressing about this I still made them but doubled the batch so everyone could get enough .  Anyway these ones still didn’t taste like the ones from home but I painstakingly decorated them so they all spelled Baby when you laid them out.  I stuck them in Tupperware and was done with them.  I had to go out before the shower but the hubbie was meeting up with me to bring the baby present and the cupcakes….he shows up with the cupcakes in the bag with the present….the cupcake containers on their SIDE…icing and remnants of the word Baby stuck to the top of the Tupperware.  His explanation…”you should have told me how to hold the cupcakes I didn’t’ know they would tip over”….right, he can figure out how to hold a beer, hamburger or kebab right side up but a tupperware container…blah, I give up.

 

 

     (secretly I wasn’t that mad as they tasted like crap and this was a way better story than “the cupcake mix here is crap” but I neglected to mention that to him).

 

 

Give me a minute…there are more…

As Canadian as…

We are heading back home to Canada at the end of the week and I am quite excited…not only for some new blog material but to see the family and friends…so far we have a birthday, wedding, stag & doe, stagette, parents anniversary, family BBQ and three new babies to meet so needless to say we will be fairly busy.  On top of that we need to go to our favourite restaurants which include a wing restaurant, steak restaurant and rotisserie chicken restaurant and of course stopping by Tim Hortons for a coffee (it’s mandatory or they won’t renew our passport).

For those of you non Canadians reading this blog, Tim Hortons is a coffee chain similar to (but waaaay better than) the American chain called Dunkin Donuts and is known across the country for their filter coffee…to put it in perspective if you were to drive from Toronto to Ottawa (5 hour 55 minute drive) you would encounter 87 Tim Hortons locations (thanks to this handy Tim Hortons finder on their website). 

On a side note I tried to get it to calculate a route entirely across Canada to see how many you could encounter but the stupid mapping software takes you through the USA...there aren’t any Tim Horton’s in the USA, great tool guys, thanks.

 

 

 

Tim Hortons is also synonymous with the Canadian phrase ‘double double’…meaning double cream double sugar (in your coffee) If you ever find yourself in Canada, rock into one of the numerous Tim Hortons locations and order a medium double double and you will have just written your ticket to Canadian-hood, not long after uttering this Canadian phrase your Canadian passport will arrive along with your plaid shirt and keys to your brand new igloo…it doesn’t get much more Canadian than Tim Hortons. 

PS Tim Horton was a hockey player…told ya it didn’t get more Canadian than that.