A Warm “Howdy Doody” and “Hey up “to you all!
As they say on all good television shows, previously on “Linda and Eddie’s Excellent Adventure”, we mentioned that Eddie had been offered a position with The Automobile Association, working as a Customer Service Advisor in the town of Cheadle in Cheshire. Eddie accepted the position and was very happy to do so. He started on 21st November.
In this economic climate, when the naysayers predict doom and gloom, it’s worth mentioning that Eddie was offered FOUR customer service roles. It has to be said that the power of the Recruitment Agency cannot be underestimated and a big thank you must go to Manpower based in Stockport and Manchester.
He is now gainfully employed answering members’ queries from “What am I covered for?” to “What’s the weather going to be like tomorrow?” He’s also expected to sell products to existing customers. Rome wasn’t built in a day but Eddie’s doing OK with his new job. He’s still in training but has been upgrading policies in his usual “Steady Eddie” fashion! Pleasingly, some of his Customer Service Skills haven’t left him – the ability to build rapport with people is still there!
To give you some kind of perspective of how far Cheadle is from Congleton, think Hatfield to Springfield and you won’t go far wrong. The drive to Cheadle takes about 45 minutes, which is OK but he has had to leave home at 6.45am in order to be settled and ready for an 8am start. He gets back home around 5.30pm. It’s a long day and the weekends have been greatly appreciated by us all!
Meanwhile, whilst waiting for the job to start, fun and frolics still were the order of the day!! Once of these frolics was a visit to the Trafford Centre, located just outside of Manchester, after a lovely Sunday lunch in the pub.
The Trafford Centre is the mall to end all malls. You truly needed the floor map you could get to help you. It truly was an experience. Every well-known store seemed to be there, along with countless eateries and a huge multiplex along with a performance area. Our original intention was to see a movie (which we did) but the desire to poke in stores overcame us!
When we finally found the cinema, we were exhausted! The nice comfy seats were worth the admission fee. However, going to the cinema in England is way more expensive than back in the USA. The film we saw was Mr. Clooney’s political thriller “The Ides of March” which was wonderful, although some of the political nuances were lost on the English audience. On one or two occasions, we were the only ones chuckling at some of the references.
It truly is a magnificent venue to shop; however, you have to come prepared to walk a heck of a lot! Its design reminded Linda of a giant spaceship that has landed on old industrial ground. The prices also reminded us of the value of outlet shopping and reinforced our love of charity shops! You don’t have to shop in Harrods every day you know or Macy’s for that matter!
November 5th is a day to remember here in the UK. It is Bonfire Night, or “Guy Fawkes Night”. It commemorates the day back in 1605 when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament in London. Bonfires are lit all over the country to celebrate the fact that he was caught before any destruction occurred. Congleton is no different. It was a carnival atmosphere at Congleton Park with games and rides for the children, good food and drink and a HUGE bonfire, lit as a brass band played in the background. A magnificent firework display rounded off a wonderful evening’s entertainment.
One week later, as in the States, Great Britain paid homage to its veterans with a parade through the town. Wreaths of Poppies were laid at the cenotaph in the town centre. It is customary to wear a poppy around this time. There was hardly anyone who wasn’t wearing one.
We’re glad to report that around this time, our search for our first English home together was coming to a successful end, as we fell in love with 19 Bridgewater Close. It was abundantly clear that our time with Aunty Dorothy was coming to an end. However, our date for moving in was still some time away. We always say “everything happens for a reason”. Our time spent, as you recall, perusing the internet in Costa Coffee (the upmarket “Starbucks”) proved to have more than just a silver lining.
We had become friendly with the staff, to the extent that they noticed us when we weren’t there at our usual time. One Saturday, we got chatting to the Manager of the store, a wonderfully kind man called Alec, and during the conversation our need for new lodgings became apparent. He came to us with the idea that his in-laws had a spare room at their home in a place called Knypersley, twenty minutes south of Congleton. He suggested we call his Mother in Law to chat about the possibility of us staying there.
We’re so glad we did. We met and got on like a house on fire. We moved in two days later and had a great time with Marilyn and John and their wonderful dog Max. We made three new friends during our two weeks there.
Our new home, 19 Bridgewater Close, is set in a very quiet and respectable housing estate. Very clean, with a brand new boiler, it cried out for furniture! We’d looked at one place which was kitted out with everything that you could possibly need . . . but our chosen home gave us the opportunity to have the one thing we really wanted – a cat. Our new landlords permitted us to have one. That was the clincher in our eyes. Both of us are committed cat lovers, and virtually everywhere we’d looked at said no the idea of a cat. Thank you very much indeed Mr. and Mrs. Seddon!
You don’t have to shop in Macy’s or Harrods to get value for money. We’d discovered the joys of charity shops early in our return to England and a furniture charity shop was our next find. “Frenchie’s Furniture” located in Antrobus Street in Congleton, sold excellent condition, branded furniture for very reasonable prices. We weren’t to be disappointed. We bought an excellent dining table complete with eight chairs for only £175 and a two piece living room set for £140. The living room set is lovely, suede finished and chocolate coloured and is very comfortable – excellent for us as we do like a nap once in a while! Our kitchen was completed with a washer dryer combo and a fridge freezer. We noticed that British fridge freezers were minute in comparison to their American counterparts. Oh well, they do the job very well indeed and made the kitchen more like a kitchen. A friend of Eddie’s Mum supplied us with a microwave oven.
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| Small it may be but it is effective! |
Of course, no living room would be complete without a TV. We bought ours and along with it ordered British Telecom’s version of TiVo. We now have a 24” colour TV with a great piece of equipment that lets you watch TV on demand and record shows with just the press of a button. So simple yet so bloody effective! We had what seemed like a long wait for this “TiVo” like piece of equipment to come, such was the demand, but it came, along with our internet connection and our landline for the phone we bought. It really is surprising how reliant you become on the internet without realizing it. The day we were connected to the outside world was a good day!
The day we were connected to the outside world came five days after Eddie’s 44th birthday. Unable to get the day off from work as still in training, we both decided that it would be unfair not to do something. So we went to the pub! It was a pleasant evening and friends on both sides of the Atlantic sent birthday wishes, so that was nice.
Snow arrived in Congleton on the 16th of this month. Congleton had what New Englanders would have described as a dusting. However it is noticeable that the British don’t cope too well with snowy driving conditions. Even Eddie feels like a seasoned New Englander now! The trip home from work that day took Eddie an extra hour; such was the drama of snow.
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| A Snowy Day in Congleton Town . . . |
Our first Christmas in Congleton has been a quiet, peaceful affair. We were able to visit Eddie’s sister Bridget and her husband Gareth on Christmas Eve to give the presents to their boys Arthur and Robin. It was a fun time seeing the boys. Getting to know them was one of the primary reasons for moving back to the UK. These pictures will show you it was worth it.
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| Ed's sister Bridget with her baby boy! |
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| Gareth and Arthur |
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| Uncle Ed with Robin |
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| Aunty Linda with Arthur |
On Christmas Day we had Eddie’s Mum over for Christmas Day Dinner. Everybody enjoyed themselves and the meal was delicious! Special thanks must go out to Jamie Oliver – his recipes for stuffing and sprouts were winners and certainly had us feeling good about ourselves in a Charlie Sheen kind of way! “Winning” in the kitchen!
Christmas is a special time for people all over the world for many different reasons. Here in England being at the top of the charts on Christmas Day is a big deal. A song can be number one at Christmas for many different reasons. It can be because the band is just plain good (The Beatles’ “Hello Goodbye” was number one in 1967) or it’s a fun, novelty record (Benny Hill in 1971 with his classic “Ernie The Fastest Milkman in the West”) or because the song touches the heart strings. That was the case this year with The Army Wives’ Choir song “Wherever You Are” hitting the top spot. We used to talk about this uniquely British phenomenon on our radio show “The Nightclub featuring The Late English Breakfast” back in the day on Valley Free Radio. Eddie will be giving his take on the subject in his next Music blog soon – be sure to have a look. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s www.thelateenglishbreakfast.blogspot.com
Our money has been needed for essentials these past few weeks so we’ve gone without giving presents to each other. As much as we would have liked to bought each other things, it’s given us the opportunity to experience a more spiritually enlightened Christmas this time. We spent Christmas Eve afternoon calling friends back home in the States. The joy we got from hearing friends’ voices was a great gift for us.
In order to truly appreciate Christmas, it does you good to go to Church. We’ve gone to Easthampton Congregational the past couple of years and this year we decided to go to Church again. We went to St. Mary’s Church in Astbury, a little village just outside Congleton for Midnight Mass. This Church is over 500 years old and is very beautiful. It has a long history – Oliver Cromwell once parked his horses there - and there are plenty of family buried or have their final resting place there. Neither of us has been to a Midnight Mass before and we both enjoyed the experience. Linda noted that “O Little Town of Bethlehem” was sung to a tune she hadn’t heard before. Eddie thought “welcome to my Christmas world!”
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| St.Mary's Church Astbury |
We really both think it’s done us the world of good to be spared the pressure of thinking what to buy each other, however, there is such a thing called “the sales” . . . .! We both get paid before the weekend is out so we plan to have a lovely day out on Saturday. A new haircut for us both is the pipeline as well. We’ll be sure to set the vision box to record Manchester United before we go – can’t miss the game! It’s been equally great to follow the Patriots courtesy of BBC Radio Five Live Sports Extra but to be able to finally see ANY game from the NFL on TV has been fantastic!
Well, we’re caught up now . . . New Year’s Eve is nearly upon us. We hope all our friends across the pond and here in England have a safe New Year. 2011 has been an eventful year. Please, in honour of Hill Street Blues “be careful out there” and enjoy your New Year and please keep in touch with us. We will through this blog and our Facebook page but it really does make our heart smile when we hear from our friends.
Serenity for 2012 Eddie and Linda
