So this week we have, in no particular order:
- Been to the beach at Mabelthorpe a couple of times. It’s a seaside holiday town with a huge beach (yes, with sand, not rocks) that stretches for miles. It’s kind of like the Gold Coast in the 60s – lots of fun parlours, gaudy shopfronts, etc. Still, there was sand and waves, so the kids have enjoyed it.
- Done laundry - fun for the whole family.
- Spent a morning in Lincoln getting a tyre replaced on the rental car. Even less fun than the laundry, although the kids found a pet shop that had unusual pets – things like Chinchillas, snakes, tarantulas. Lovely.
- Applied for a rental house and had no response from the landlord yet. Hopefully soon.
- Heard the final minute of the State of Origin over the internet. NRL gets absolutely no coverage here at all.
- Noticed that the only references to Australia on the news are to do with Kylie Minogue or the cricket team. Who the heck is Kevin Rudd?
- Watched the Labour Party, and the Prime Minister in particular, run headlong down the road to oblivion due to the expenses scandal. They had council and European elections yesterday and Labour is being well and truly booted out.
- Started the kids at school. They’re real little celebrities there, at least for the moment. Anna’s making friends with everyone, Jack’s taking his time but there is one boy his age with similar interests and sense of humour, so he will settle in over time. They’ve been doing assessments to see what level they are at in each subject and have done well so far. They will finish those tests today, we’ll get the last bits of uniform over the weekend and they’ll be into it properly from Monday.
- Got tired of living in a pub. It’s been pretty good, but we’re a bit sick of being limited to 2 rooms. We’re moving to a holiday house for a week in North Somercotes, which will cost about the same as the pub but we can cook for ourselves (instead of spending £30 each night on dinners) and we’ll have a living area. Hopefully by the time the week is up we will have the rental place organised. The pub has karaoke tonight, right below our rooms. If it’s anything like last week it will make us appreciate the holiday house even more.
- Started looking for work. It’s going to take some time by the look of things as Lincolnshire is not a centre for anything. Nothing to be anxious about, but I probably will be anyway.
- Spent some time looking around Louth, the nearest town. Eventually found a place that makes real cappuccinos and had dinner at a pub that was established in 1612.
- Tried some English food – Eccles cake, Cottage Pie (like Shepherds Pie), Flapjacks (more like a muesli slice than a pancake), Lincolnshire sausages
Introduced the kids to the local wildlife – Jack’s been stung by a bumble bee and Anna by a stinging nettle. - Registered with the National Health Service, so now we can have free health care. See above.
- Got our UK bank account organised and registered with a service that does transfers from Australia for a very low fee.
- Spent lots of time in our rental VW Passat Estate – like this but black and a diesel, which has done 600 miles (1000km) so far on ¾ of a tank.
More later, hopefully with pictures.
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