Petrol and Diesel aka Gasoline

I have been watching my US friends on Facebook whine (ops did I really write that I meant proclaim) about the gas prices lately and I just have to shake my head.

It is well known that the US is the nation of cheap fuel, especially compared to Europe.  In the UK, it is expensive.  It was the fuel prices that drove us to get the most fuel efficient cars that we could, which meant we got diesels.

The nice thing about the UK is that we don't see the constant jogging of petrol prices.  Diesel has held pretty steadily around the £1.39 price until recently.   At the beginning of the year, there was talk about an additional 3p petrol tax, but it was protested highly and did not go through as David Cameron had hoped.

Last month diesel rose about 8p to £1.47/8/9.  The further away from the cities one is, the more expensive the fuel costs rise.  Interestingly enough the price of petrol did not rise.  All in all in means that I am paying about $11.30 a gallon.  Eat that US friends and shut your big fat whiney mouths!  (OK, but you do have a valid point with your whining only because the UK has a much better bus and train infrastructure....)

Starting Monday we the radio has been talking about the possibility of an upcoming petrol driver strike.  They are apparently unionized and the strike is coming from the union.  The unions that are talking about striking represent about 90% of the fuel stations in the UK.  The worst is apparently suppose to hit Easter weekend.  It has been announced that the government in anticipation of this happening was training up members of the army to step in so that there will not be a big disruption in supplies for the delivery at the petrol stations.

It was also announced that big oil companies and the government were sitting at the table with the union to sort things out.  The union is stating that there are safety and training issues that are being ignored to save money.  Right now things are apparently looking more toward a strike as the radio advised today for citizens to start hoarding fuel.  There was a strike in 2000 that left many fuel stations without any fuel.

Projections are for the strike to really take effect right over the Easter holiday, when we of course are planning to go tour to the north....

Taxes, the Taxes....

Ouch!  My aching head!  Every time I see a friend on Facebook mention their taxes now I feel a bit frantic.

My husband has long been my tax man.  He has done them ever since we have been married.  I did used to do them when I was single, when we were married it was something that he took on and has done ever since.  He presents me with the forms and I sign them.  We call it done!

This year being overseas it is a bit more difficult.  My husband had long maintained that he intended to do at least our state taxes himself.  He was a bit more intimidated with all the additional work that would be involved in the Federal taxes since we were now overseas.  He received all the information with everything that he needed to do, logged in and fully intended to do his part on it.  I did offer to do something, but he seemed determined to get it done himself so I just left it.  Last week he asked me to do it by saying, "why haven't you done the taxes yet?"  So, I reminded him that he wanted to do them but I told him that I would get them started.  I looked at everything this weekend, logged into the site and then went into a bit of a panic.  Our documents needed to be into the company by 5 MARCH!  (It was 25 March)  Well, we blew that deadline.  I immediately, wrote in and asked them to file the papers for an extension.

The problem is further complicated that we have a very busy next few weeks coming up.  We have some visitors coming in this week.  The school will break on Friday for 3 weeks as it is in the end of term.  After our visitors leave, we plan on making a trip north to visit York, Alnwick Castle (the castle used for Hogwarts in Harry Potter I&II), Edinburgh and then finish our trip at Centre Parcs where we will celebrate Cian's birthday!

So, I don't foresee that I will be able to have the tax documents uploaded to the tax preparation crew anytime soon.

Dear Mr. Taxman, I promise to pay you, soon.  'K Thanks.  The Beary Family!

Glorious Spring Days

I often hear the question, "What is the weather like over there?"  I hear the question asked both from UK citizens who often ask about my obvious accent or from my American friends and family.

When we found out we were going, my mother in law shared with us her memories of the weather when she was here as a girl.  She remembered it to be cool and rainy.  She also lived further north then where we are now, which could be a big factor on the weather difference.  It is cooler where she lived even now.  I can't attest that if is it rainier or not though.

All and all we have been blessed with a mild winter.  The last 2 winters have been described to me as brutal, brutal to my UK friends is not necessarily what I would term brutal though.

We have now finished with winter and we are fully into spring.  The daffodils are out in full bloom, the crocus are gone and the hyacithins and the trees are blooming and it is getting greener every day.  I say greener, because it doe not get as brown here, things stayed relatively green here all winter.  The rhododendrons are 12 foot hedges here and they stay beautiful and green all year!

We are having a true spring, even though it is a bit warmer then usual.  The temps are in the 60's right now, but we have cool mornings and evenings.  We are actually looking to have a cool down into the 50's later in the week, which will send my friends and I out of our cotton sweaters and back into our puffy jackets.  When the wind picks up, which being on an island, it often does, it can be quite chilling.

I live on the South East part of England, just north of London.  Being an island, the weather generally blows in and out.  The west part of the island typically experiences more rain.  In fact, the South East is considered in a drought right now.

I am enjoying the true spring weather and season that we are having.  I have found in Fort Wayne that our spring is very short and we quickly go from spring to summer with in two weeks.  The weather is glorious and the sun shines often.  The kids and I are enjoying the sun as is our Chippy dog!

Duke of Edinburgh Award

Colin is joining with some of his fellow classmates (6 boys and most of the girls in his year) to earn the DoE (Duke of Edinburg) award.  What is this you may ask?  Let me tell you!

The DoE is a service award for kids that do not belong to a uniformed service organization, like scouts.  There are three different levels to the award and the level of award that you earn is dependent on your age.  When you are 14, your work on the bronze level, when you are 15 (Colin is) you work on the silver level and when you are 16 you can work on the gold level.  I think that you can earn them all if you it is of interest.  You have until you are 25 to complete the requirements.

With the silver award, Colin has 4 skills he has to do for varying times.  One skill of for 3 months, one is for 6 months, another is for 9 months and the last skill is for 12 months.  One of skills will be his drum lessons, another will probably be his Tae Kwon Do, he was close to a black belt before we left the US, he wants to use his Yu-gi-oh card playing and collecting as another and we are still trying to find the last one.  Fencing is something that Colin is interested in learning.  He also needs to do volunteer hours for an organization.

Along with the skills that he has to work on they are also doing a hike and an overnight.  For their expedition, they are heading to Scotland to Hadrian's wall.  So, knowing that that was part of his expedition, we managed to see Hadrian's temple while we were in Rome!  To prepare for their expedition, we had to buy some outdoor equipment.  Colin got a new pair for Berghaus hiking boots.  Berghaus is the British outdoor brand.  He also needed some gators and a new compass.  We found out after his first training weekend that he also needs Goretex pants and some zip off nylon pants as well.

Colin has 3 more training days/weekends filled with various activities to prepare and the final expedition is in September.  Then there is a group presentation that needs to prepared and presented to the parents at the beginning of October.  Their progress is tracked every month as they have a meeting with their advisors.

I am really excited that he decided to do this and as I started looking into it, I found out that it is also offered in the US.  When we come back I am going to consider leading a group and see how it goes.

Loosing a Dear Friend

Death is a fact of life, no doubt.

When we accepted the foreign assignment to live overseas we had some definite concerns about loosing someone close to us while we were gone.  Sean and I both have elderly grandmothers left on this earth.  There is also the fact that unexpected things just happen.

A few weeks ago, I lost a good friend of mine.  Now I must digress...

I tend to find friends in unusual places.  One of my BFF's in Fort Wayne I met at the library, another I met at Scouts.  My BFF in the UK introduced herself to me at the open day at the kids school.  My friend that I lost?  I am not exactly when was the first time that we met.  I know that we talked briefly at her mother's funeral not long ago.  She is my step-fathers cousin, Jane.  Meeting her and the rest of the family, I gained some new friends on Facebook and Jane was one and she quickly became an important one.

When I went to Indianapolis for anything, Jane and I would try and meet for lunch if we could.  Jane became an important Facebook friend and her comments and encouragement became very meaningful to me.  We often joked that if my family moved somewhere sunnier, Jane would follow or at least visit us often.  She even considered coming over for a visit when she had a break.

When we picked up and moved to the UK, she was behind me all the way.  She read my blog and sent me incredibly supportive messages that I treasure.  Looking back at our move here and reading her messages to me I realize that she is right.  I did an incredible job.  I found us a house and 2 cars, found the kids a school all while living in The Shack of Bats. I did it all without cell phones and access to out main US bank and with spotty access to our secondary US bank.  As I worried and fussed about everything and everyone else, in true Jane fashion, she worried and fussed about me.

Jane bravely said that she would send our doggie Chip to us.  So, I did all the paperwork that I could and then settled him in a boarding facility that was near her home and happened to be very familiar with long term boarding.  I say bravely, because never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that it was going to end up to be as involved as it did.  Jane put her grit into it and got him over.  It only took 2 or 3 runs to the vet, three trips to the USDA office and three trips to the airport!  Her persistence paid off and the Bearys were reunited with our lovable fur kid.

Jane had signed up to take classes and to obtain her masters degree in Library Science in November.  Not only was she a warm and caring person, she was brilliant as well.  She was adding this degree to her law and her nursing degree.

I learned of Jane's passing just about two weeks ago.  I went to pieces and I have had my share of sad days and I know that I will have more of them yet.  It has been difficult mourning from here.  Jane left behind her three beautiful children that she often told me about.  She is so proud of them, they were an important part of her life.  She is a vibrant soul, and she is dearly missed.  

Rome... Some Final Reflections

When we first got to Rome, my kids were not excited.  They wanted to spend their whole holiday playing games or something.  Sean and I had different ideals of course and so we drug them around the city, and we pushed them to do quite a bit of walking.  We walked 3-5 miles everyday.

When Sean saw the boots that I brought, he joked with me that "those boots better be made for walking"! Lucky for me, they were, I ended up wearing them all week.

The kids did seem to enjoy the trip, at the beginning of the trip they were awful and terrible whiney about all the walking and such that we forced them to do.  Sean and I were a bit put out by them and we kept telling them how lucky they were.  They did not really seem to believe us though.

Thankfully, they all seemed to learn something as well.  Take Cian for instance.  When we were in Pompeii, the guide talked to us about the Roman bricks and how they are a distinctive part of Roman buildings and how they were a sure way to tell that the building was Roman.  One day, when we were walking through Rome, Cian suddenly yells, "Those are Roman bricks!".  It was a proud Mommy moment for me!

Liam realized when we got back home how cool Rome really was.  He and one other boy went to Italy over half term.  The other boy went skiing.  Liam's teacher wanted to hear about his adventure.  So, he was happy to oblige.  One night, later that week he was sitting beside me while I was on the computer looking up things for my pictures and posts.  He got to see other people's picture and descriptions of things that we had seen in person.  It totally dawn on him then that Rome was pretty cool!  So cool, in fact, that he asked me to send an email to his teacher in the US to tell her about where we went.  I also included a picture of him in Rome to share with the class.

We had fun at our dinner at Dine e Tony's.  We all had a giggle there at Cian and Tony.  We also enjoyed our lunch after our Colosseum tour in which my shrimp had their heads attached.  Liam was not impressed.  We also laughed at the antics from the staff and how the owner thought Liam an Cian were twins.

On our last site seeing day, Sean and I had a bit of a row that turned funny, when in frustration I turned and yelled "NO" really loudly at a street vendor who wanted us to tour the Vatican.  The vendor was appalled that I yelled so loudly and rudely at him and told me to "Be nice" in a thick Italian accent.  The kids and I laughed and laughed all the way back to the hotel.  The street vendors, we all found quite annoying. Mark in particular was very uncomfortable with them and the kids asked me why I did not yell at one of the more annoying ones instead of the poor tour guide!  Which, set us all into more fits of laughter.

The kids really got a good idea of city living.  In places there were lots of graffiti and garbage was kind of all over.  The cars were parked in a mismash of places and we saw a Smartcar with the back window broke out.  They were exposed to the really poor, homeless, the beggars, the annoying street vendors and just a different culture all the while listening to a different language.  It was different then Fort Wayne or even where we live in England.

As for their favorite place to visit?  They all really enjoyed the cat rescue in the ruins.  It was hands down their favorite place.  They thought that the Colosseum was impressive and they loved the gelato and crepes.  Cian, though, I am not sure where he comes from, he was the only one that did not have lemon gelato.  He only ate chocolate the whole time.  What??  Really???

They were also all fascinated with the different currency.  Italy is on the Euro.  I think that everyone found a few Eurocents on the ground.  Colin was ever hopeful to find an Italian trading card store in hopes that he could find some Italian Yu-gi-oh cards.  But, in all of our wanderings, one never did turn up.

We ended our trip Sunday morning.  We checked out of the hotel and headed to a place where Sean thought we could catch a shuttle to the airport.  The city was very quiet, I imagine that everyone was at church.  The shuttle was not a shuttle but an advertisement and so we were with out a ride.  We did manage to catch a taxi, and this time it was a cheap one.   We headed to the airport and got onto our plane, which was weird.... the boarding in Rome is not typical.

We checked in, made it though security and grabbed something to eat while we waited to board.  When  boarding time came, were shuttled onto buses and then taken to the plane.  When we were finally let off the buses to board the actual plane, there was a panic with one of the staff member, she screamed that we could NOT board the plane until fueling was complete.  Really?  I know that I have been on planes in the US while they were fueling, but ok.  So, back on the buses we went and then, we were finally allowed to board.  We arrived in Heathrow and since we did not have Europe or UK passports, we had a short line.  Our only mistake was not filling enough customs papers out.  So, fill them out we did!

We finally made it to the car.  We were happy to see the snow was gone and the tire was still holding air!  Yeah!  After we were loaded in the car and starting out, the same Suzanne Vega song came on the radio that we heard when we arrived at the airport, "My Name Is Luca".  Hmmmm....

We got home safe and our doggie seemed to have done well with his doggie walker.  So, all in all or trip was a good one and hopefully the kids will have fun memories for a long time.  I know that I have tons of pictures, and some of the ones that they took I need to ask then about!  We missed the Spanish Steps and I would not mind going back and looking though the Vatican again.  Our guide rushed us through so quickly...

By the time we left Rome, the kids seemed to really be getting into the site seeing.  I hope that when we make our next big trip, that they will have a good time as well.  It looks like we are headed up to Edinburgh, Scotland over the next break.  We hope to start in York, head up to Alwick Castle (think Hogwarts Castle, where Happy Potter 1&2 was filmed), go to Edinburgh where I will hopefully catch up with a Kentucky classmate.   We will finish our vacation and head down to Centre Parks where we will celebrate Cian's birthday.  

Saturday, Last Site Seeing Day in Rome

Saturday was our day to catch those last things on the LIST.

We hopped on the metro and headed to the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini church.  It was an crypt in which walls were decorated with bones.  The different crypts contains bone themes.  One crypt focused on using scapulas, others focuses on other bones, like the pelvis and the femurs.  The crypt contains the bones of over 4,000 friars.  If you would like a bit more information read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_della_Concezione_dei_Cappuccini.

When we were done, we headed to the Trevi fountain to throw in our coins.  Legend says that if you throw it in with you right hand over your left should (see Cian's picture) that you will come back to Rome someday.  I think that everyone did it, except for Sean.  Colin did it just to prove it wrong, he apparently is not keen on coming back.

 He looks so thrilled doesn't he?  Are you convinced that he wants to come back?  Me either!

 Then we started walking.  We first came to the Temple of Hadrian.  Which is timely as Colin is going to be making a hike to Hadrian's wall in Scotland later this year (more about that in a later post).

 Then we wandered to the Monumentale Augusto.

We settled for some lunch at this fountain.  We just had some crackers, parmesan cheese, sausages and water to drink.  Some of the crackers were quite pulverized so we feed then to the birds that were around.

 While walking around we found this little festival.

This picture may seem odd, but I have reason behind it, promise.   All the time that we were walking around Rome, we would see confetti on the walks.  So, we naturally wondered about all the confetti.  Rome does not seem to be a party city, remember there are over 900 churches! Twice, we saw little kids in strollers with a bag of confetti, throwing it.  One mother got a little cross because he son was throwing it in the air above his stroller, instead of throwing it on the ground.  Sean and I had a little laugh about it.  So, while we were in the festival, we saw lots of confetti being thrown by the little kids.  Maybe I am wrong and there are more parties in Rome, they are just festivals!

This is a hire car, one that you can rent in the city.  Genius! 

Castel Sant Angelo in the background....

Here are Cian and Liam, we were back at Castel Sant Angleo.  They are standing in a low arch, above them is a walk way that the pope would use to leave the Vatican to go to the castle if there was a threat of trouble.

Here are all the boys, our last picture with the Vatican behind them.  So, ended our last day in Rome!  Dinner was take out from a tattoria so we could finish up our packing and head back to the UK the next morning....

Colosseum and the Forum

Friday, we had our last tour of the Colosseum and the Forum.  My husband and I were looking forward to it, it was one of the most anticipated tours.  We had to leave early and meet our tour at the metro station near the Colosseum by 8am.  It was an awesome sight to see as we stepped out of the station.  The weather was warming up, so we did not layer as much as we had been all week.  We were a bit nervous that the tour would be canceled again, as it was earlier in the week.  We were lucky though and the tour was a go.

We met our group and quickly learned that two portions of our tour would be canceled.  We had wanted to see the basement and the third tier, both parts were canceled.  In the meantime we got to know our wonderful guide, Francesca.  She is a fellow Archeologist!  I was thrilled!  She is also the mother of a little girl that had recently turned 5 and she did a great job on the tour with the kids. We had a lot of kids on the tour, not only were their my 4, but there was also a 13 year old girl and her little brother that was 18 months old.

 Our guide started out by asking our youngest two if they were twins!  Our 9 year old quickly set her straight.   She was not the only one in Italy to do this, when I was trying on clothes in a store, a clerk thought that I had two sets of twins.

We learned some very interesting facts about the tour.  The Colosseum was built in a mere 8 years.  Which was incredible, especially when you see the size.  It is a massive structure.

Our guide really wanted us to get a real feel for how the Colosseum was really used, so one of the things that she showed us artist drawings of what really happened when the Colosseum was being used.  It showed people tailgating, fighting, cheering, delivering food, resting....

Here is our oldest son, we were on the ground floor of the Colosseum.  The blue box around his neck is the device that we used to hear out guide.

Our guide next to what to what used to be the steps going to the third tier.

Looking down from the second tier into the "basement".

The kids, we were on the second tier looking down.

The Forum.

After we finished our tour, we grabbed lunch in a little tattoria that our guide recommend to us.  The woman that seemed to be in charge, loved on our youngest two boys.  She also asked if they were twins.  We giggled at the antics of the staff as things started going a little crazy and the waiter walked by muttering da, da, da, daaaa under his breath.

After lunch we decided to walk back to our hotel and catch some sites on the way.  We managed to hit some of the fabulous sites in Rome.  The picture above was one of the kids favorite places.  We found after we were there, that among the ruins was a cat sanctuary.  The kids were thrilled to see the cats in the ruins.  For more of my pictures, check my Facebook page.

We saw a lot of the major sites in Rome on Friday and Saturday we finished up what we could.  All in all, we only missed one major thing, the Spanish steps.

Because we had such a busy day, we ended up just eating crepes with Nutella for dinner that night.  Yum!