Laundry and petrol

Well, the libraries here are certainly not noted for silence. The librarians are chatting away and there is also some kind of city hall/services thing here. Loads of parents with little kiddies with very strong lungs today! Ah…a big crash…one of them just took a rather harsh tumble. Hmmm, and I was under the impression the kids over here were better behaved.

My university induction began yesterday. It was just the new students for the Tourism & Hospitality School, which numbered about 80. Great group of people, from all over the world…Trinidad, Jordan, Singapore, France, Germany, South Africa, Lebanon, India, China, and on…. I skipped a day trip to York today in order to finally take care of some on-line business and get the laundry done. Laundry here is a bit of a process. First of all, the dryers simply don’t work. I haven’t quite figured out the point of having one. Everything must be hung out, which means it can’t be raining, or about to rain, although most people here seem to be of the opinion that if the clothes get rained on, you simply leave them out to dry again.

Ran out of time, so here I am a day later…and some of my clothes still aren’t dry. Have to bring them in at night if they aren’t dry so the night air doesn’t get them musty smelling. I’ve finally consented to hang my knickers on the line (how embarressing…i haven’t yet met some of the neighbors but there are my bloomers for all of them to see!). Needs must though, as things seem to take 2-3 days to dry indoors.

Ok, enough of the laundry. Finally made it up and out early enough to get to the local branch of the surgery, as they call it, to register with a GP. Filled out a form, but will not yet officially be registered until I have an initial appointment with the nurse. They were full up today and it’s not possible to make appointments ahead of time, so I will have to call at 8am on the day I want to go and hope they have something available. Still waiting on my bank documents to come in the mail as well. Can’t apply with the university job shop until I have that info. Ah, the joys of a slower paced society.

Paulette had a lovely dinner party friday night and invited the new neighbors next door. Very nice couple…proper Yorkshire folks. I opened the door for the fella and he came in saying: “Ah, are ya alright luv?” and I thought why is this man asking if I’m alright, but I guess that’s their way of saying “Hi, how are you?” I’m properly enjoying the accent around here. A lot of ‘me’ and ‘were’…..”Me bruver” (the th in words like brother seems to end up a v sound and an f sound in other words) and “It were real nice.” Fun stuff.

Paulette and I went out to ASDA (originally formed my some dairy farmers…Associated Dairy….now owned by Wal-mart) last night to get petrol as it seems to be running out. I haven’t read up on the news, so not entirely sure why; there was some talk of local farmers blocking the way of the tankers due to the rising cost of gas as well as talk of the New Orleans disaster having an effect. We had to queue up in a line of half a dozen cars waiting our turn and many of the pumps were out of service. Interesting…