Of red clay and steel

On my first visit to England as I was driving away from the airport with the wonderful man who would become my husband, out of the corner of my eye I saw something that made my jaw drop and caused me to chuckle a bit wryly.  I had traveled thousands of miles, crossed the vast ocean to a strange new country and what should my wondering eye behold but a field of red clay.  Deep rich orange red soil such a familiar site in my Birmingham Alabama home where people did everything from dye clothes with it to eat it is also a common feature halfway cross the world.  It made perfect sense when I thought about it.  Our Birmingham is the sister city to the one in UK as both are steel towns.  Where there is steel there must be iron ore and iron ore concentrated in soil gives us that beautiful red clay that I have always thought of as being a strictly southern thing.  I later discovered that this area of the UK is also as loaded with limestone as my dear home state.  Sometimes the world really is a strange and small place for all its vastness.

Its the little things

It is the little things that often knock me for a loop.  Coming to a country where supposedly we share a common language you think that there will only be the slightest of differences and they won't really matter.  This, however, has not proven to be the case.  Just little observations.  One thing I have noticed is how the English refer to foods.  In America we might say that a dish we enjoyed was delicious or quite tasty.  Here in the UK, it is far more common to say such a thing is "lovely" or "beautiful".  I find it interesting in that one seems very much to be taste related whereas the other is a descriptive more commonly (at least in the US) associated with the visual aspect of something.  Other small differences are things like outlets, not the shape but the fact that you can actually switch an outlet here off.  Oh, and a lot of doors to houses don't have a doorknob.  Ours just has this little sort of small handle like thing attached to the lock at the top of the door.  Windows here generally lock with keys.  Where we live they give you a huge trash can (bin) for yard clippings but only give you a supply of black trash bags for your actual garbage.  There are no baggers in grocery stores here at all.  Cashiers may often sit at their till instead of being forced to always stand.  Another huge thing to me, being from the south as I am, is that they don't have the problem with heartworm here that we have in the states.  They use this stuff very much like frontline that you simply put between your dogs shoulder blades and its good for all kinds of vermin including fleas and something they have here carried by snails called lung worm.  The stuff runs about the same as frontline and you dont have to have your dogs tested for anything so its actually less expensive.  That will do for the moment but much more to come, I assure you:)

First time for everything

I have decided there might actually be some interest in my pondhopping adventures and the things I have observed and learned in my epic move from Birmingham Alabama to Birmingham UK.  In light of this thought a blog might be a good place to remark about some of the things I have seen and done if for no one else but myself.  Hope you all enjoy:)