CupTeaLuv?

But we emerged with a piece of paper that promises a visa… that was meant to arrive on Monday, but then they lost — then found — one of Andy’s important documents, so now it is due to arrive on Tuesday…
AND while we were driving down to London, the estate agent rang to arrange a viewing!!! Boy is the house a mess! And I’m working tomorrow, so we’ve called in the Cavalry — hopefully it will be a bit better by Monday afternoon when the viewer comes around.
I’m shattered and still ill — horrendous cold (from the moment we checked into the hotel until we left this morning for the appointment I was in bed) — and being in all that cold and rain didn’t help. I’m off to bed!

because they continue to refuse to acknowledge Robbie Williams as a musician.
Apologies to any English folks who are Williams fans, but I cannot abide the man.

there’s been a shooting at a heavy metal rock concert in north columbus… frightening…

I’ve just been reading this article on Yahoo news about this Christmas movie that people will be able to see on “destructable” dvds– basically on the play side of the dvd there is a chemical which reacts when it’s packaging is opened, and anywhere from 1 hour to 24 hours it ruins the play side because of being exposed to the air.
That’s weird, but not the weirdest bit… further on down the article the following line appears:
“McDonald’s has even installed DVD vending machines in more than 100 Denver-area restaurants, where they rent for $1 per night with a credit card.”
DVD vending machines at Mickey D’s… how bizarre is that?

This morning I phoned the embassy and found out that:
a.) I am not on the special list of names of people whom they can tell things about Andy’s visa application. (which really honks me off as I’m his flippin’ sponsor and wife!)
b.) The embassy let the phone ring huge amounts of time to rack up the money…
and
c.) Even though the lady on the other end of the phone wasn’t supposed to tell me anything, she let slip that all our paperwork is indeed filed and on record and that all we need to do at this point is wait for that all-important letter that tells us when to go down to London!!!
If it’s 4-6 weeks, like everyone keeps saying, that means the interview could be as early as 20th November or as late as 11th December… going to be cutting it close to be in America for Christmas…
Specially with what the estate agent said tonight about the housing market being really quiet at the moment, and only going to get quieter as Christmas approaches….
Nevermind.

The house is on the market!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
whohoooo!!
After huge amounts of hard work (and aching backs) and a nice weekend away, I was back to work today to get the last few things done on the house before the estate agent came around to take the photos of the house for putting it in the papers.
Great and HugeHug thanks go to Bjorn for all his painting and handyman helps! Dave Long helped Andy fix the tiled kitchen floor and now you look at it and you can’t even tell it wasn’t always perfect!
Andy put in a huge day of work with me on the Thursday before the cleaners came and all of those things added together meant that when the estate agent walked into the house this afternoon…
he was stunned.
And that was worth all the hard work just there.
Well almost.
It’d have been even more worth it if he had been a buyer and walked in and been that pleased!!
Nevermind.
Watch this space for updates on how things are going!!!

Who? Me??

this morning I had to ring the American Embassy in London (at the fine and worthy rate of £1.20 per minute!!!) to ask some questions about our pending application for a green card…
Once I got through the automated phone voice (cha-ching) I got through to a live person, a Scottish-accented person!! How ironic eh? Phoning the American Embassy in the heart of London, and hearing a lovely broad Glaswegian accent tickling my eardrums.
anyhoo, this lovely gentleman informs me (after I briefed him of our situation) that we need to download and fill in 2 forms that weren’t even mentioned in the paperwork we have received recently from the Embassy. So I have now downloaded the forms– and now it makes sense! We fill in the I-230 and send it off, and once we have all our paperwork together, we send off the DS-2001 form to let the Embassy know they can schedule us for a visa interview.
makes so much more sense! THAT was worth £6.

there are many things about England I will miss.
the wonderful accents
the wonderful people
the beautiful countryside
my church family at WHBC
The Sewing Club/Craft Club gang (specially Abi & Becks)
pukka fish and chips
the fab vocab (– I’m going to be teased so much when I get back and have to learn how to speak all over again!)
Chester
Bath
pubs
chips with gray-veh
cupstealuv
the history that is all around– how you’re never more than a mile away from something that has been there for hundreds of years
Wales
my friend Lori
my friend Ione
my friends Liz and Liz called Bert and all their babies!
my friend Crazy Lady and Jane
eating with my fork in my left hand and my knife in my right, with the fork facing down! (i am still going to practice this while in the states, much to my mother’s dismay i’m sure!)
speaking with a lilt (because I bet I’ll lose that soon after I’m back talking to Americans all the time)
narrow country lanes with stone churches/walls/hedges
seeing british people sitting on portable chairs having a cup of tea at laybys
our pond & fishes
to be continued (and amended i’m sure!)……….

the other day Andy and I were talking about things we have to do to this house to get it ready for sale, and we were talking that night about things that we’d like in our future house in america.
basically Andy just wants a nice office– with a nice big desk and lots of room to spread out his computer paraphernalia (bet you didn’t know there are 2 r’s in that word– I sure didn’t, but good old Websters helped me out!). Me? I want a huge lounge/family room/living room (don’t care what you call it) with lots of huge comfy overstuffed furniture (possibly leather?) and a nice home entertainment system worthy of my dvd collection. I also would like a nice big kitchen with room to move and loads of countertop space. (My mother would insert a comment here to say that there wouldn’t be loads of space for long– it’s one of my best tricks, filling up countertop space with junk!) The other things on my wish list are 2 or more spare bedrooms for company (and one I can nick for my cross stitch stash!!) and a screened-in porch (where the future jacuzzi will go) and a 2 car garage so we don’t have to scrape the windshields every day in winter. Last item on the wish list is a utility room where we can designate space for the kitties’ litterbox, where they can use it in peace and privacy, and we won’t have to worry about being grossed out at the dinnertable!
dream… dream dream dream….