What Happens In Blackpool... - Episode 6

...Is then posted on this blog.

So this past week I went to Blackpool with the family. It was Cherry's cousin's 30th birthday so they were having a big celebration. Pleasure Beach during the day, and a big party at night.

We arrived in the area by late afternoon and were staying with Cherry's parents' house in Poulton, a town that's just outside of Blackpool. The immature person inside of me laughed to myself every time I heard the word "Poulton." Haha, it sounds like poultry!

The whole family is really nice and I got along with them quite well. It's funny cause the grandmas and great grandmas are all into the party scene, so when it came time to go out on Saturday night for the party and clubbing afterward, they were all into it and filled with drinks to prove it lol. (I don't think they'd mind if I said that too.) Overall, they were very fun.

So let me tell you what I did on Friday night. You know the fireworks that we have every year in Vancouver? Symphony of Fire or something like that? Well, they have that here too. Actually, it's exactly like the one we have in Vancouver because apparently it's a traveling show. The four countries competing were Canada, Germany, UK and China. China won of course cause they're crazy good like that so we got to watch their winning performance at the finale on Friday. Yeah, they definitely deserved to win. It was GOOD. M thought they were too loud, but J really liked it. It was really quite cute.

As we were driving back to the house, we drove along the promenade which has all the illuminations. Every year Blackpool has this "festival" that features all these tableaus that you can drive or walk by. Some of them are really quite good! There was one with Postman Pat! And My Little Pony!

Side note: Matt, every time I think of Postman Pat, I think of that Mr. Bean episode where he puts that random baby in the Postman Pat machine with a like 60 quarters and leaves him there while he goes on the rides. lol Oh and also saying, "Postman Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat and his jolly grey hat" and you correcting me with "black and white cat."

...You know I hang out with kids too much when I'm as excited to see a picture of My Little Pony made up of lights.

Saturday: I went to Pleasure Beach! And I went on roller coasters! Yes, ME! The family bought me a ride pass so I couldn't exactly let it go to waste. I started out with the "Wild Mouse" ride which happens to be exactly like the mouse ride at Playland - dangerous, scary and a complete wonder it's still around (let alone made duplicates of in other countries!). Then I went off with Cherry's cousin and her friends for a good ol' roller coaster of a time. But first Grahame took me on "The Big One" because we were walking past it. He's all, "Oh let's just go on it while we're here" and I'm all, "Oh yeah, heh heh, sounds good." *Nervous laugh as I'm about to throw up*

This is it:


Yeah. I went on THAT. "See Hayley Die."

I'm not gonna lie, I was definitely cursing the entire time going up that first "hill." I could not believe I was on that thing! But once it was over, I realized just how fun it was and I decided to go on all the other roller coasters and crazy rides. By the end of the day, I no longer had that terrible nervous feeling in my gut but rather a pretty relaxed feeling of excitement. Geez louise, I totally conquered my fear of rides! Awesome? Oui! Oui! I think it's the fact that I went skydiving this past summer, which is way more dangerous. After that, I could do anything! ...Except eat gluten.

Unfortunately there was only enough time to go on five rides before we had to go and get ready. That's pretty much the end of my weekend too cause I babysat the kiddies in the evening and next morning while the adults dealt with their "fatigue."

Oh wait no! Sunday afternoon we had a Sunday Roast! Outside in the garden! How English is THAT?! It was actually the perfect afternoon outside - sunny, good food, surrounded by lots of chatty people, and strawberries. English strawberries are sooo good. And heck, they're still around! They're not quite as good as Richmond ones, but I suppose I'm just happy to be eating them "out of season." I was gonna take a picture of all of us eating outside, but I got a little caught up in the event. Instead, here's a video! ...But it's not of the lunch, cause that would be boring.

See Hayley Talk About Blackpool

Anyway, I'm uber uber tired from this weekend so I'm just going to go to bed now. Good night!

H-Po

I Can't Think Of Anything Witty To Put Here... - Episode 5

Hey Gang,

Well, it's been over a week since I updated and Matt's getting mad at me, so I think I'll update lol. No no, the thing is, I know that I'm going to write a ton of stuff every time I update, so I always avoid it because it takes up an hour of my time. As soon as I'm actually writing it though, I'm really enjoying it, so really, I'm just being super lame. Excuse me, "well" lame. That's me trying to assimilate to Brit lingo. I really don't get the whole "well" thing though. It just sounds like bad grammar to me, which it is since it's lingo, but still. Basically though, "well" is just a replacement for "very." So you can say, "You look well nice" and it means "you look very nice." I think.

Let's see, what other words have I learned? Um, well Grahame (the dad) keeps saying "tea" (or maybe it's "tee") whenever it's dinner. I don't think it's English lingo though, I think it's Scottish. He lived in Glasgow when he was going to university so he picked up all this random stuff that most people (unless you're Scottish!) don't understand, including me. Basically, I look to Cherry to translate at times. Apparently this is what happened with the last au pair since she was from Slovakia and still learning English. Man, I hope I come back with all these terms that no one will understand just for the heck of it.
Oh, "dreake!" I'm not sure if that's how you spell is, but it basically means dreary and you would use it when describing the weather. "You should put on a coat, it looks dreake out." I don't even know if that's how you spell it, but you get the idea.


See Hayley's List of Artists She's Been Listening To!

Duffy - Stepping Stone, Mercy, Warwick Avenue
Coldplay - Everything
James Morrison (not to be mistaken for Jim Morrison, who is well, dead) - You Make It Real
MIA - Paper Planes
Sugababes - Here Come The Girls
The Automatic - Steve McQueen
The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name
Adele - Everything
Will Young - Changes
McFly - Lies
The Kooks - Sway

These are the songs that continue to play quite often on BBC Radio 1, which is the station that I pretty much only ever listen to, mostly because I don't know of any other stations lol. Oh, well there's BBC Radio 2, which is basically the equivalent of QM/FM in Vancouver, but it's got some good oldies. The thing with these 2 radio stations though, is that it's quite repetitive! Over and over again, you hear the same news for 10 minutes or the same discussions, so I really need to start limiting myself to a couple hours a day to avoid this fiasco.

Well, after I posted my last entry, I went to Mary Arden's House just a couple hours later. Mary Arden is Shakespeare's mum and her house and farm that she grew up in is now quite the tourist destination, along with everything else in Stratford-upon-Avon. I went with Cherry and the kids so it's more of a place for kids, but it was really cool nonetheless.
Interesting fact: Up until the mid 70's, the house that's just next door to Mary Arden's was believed to be Mary Arden's house, so for years (like hundreds of years) people were visiting the house next door thinking it was Shakespeare's mum's house! It wasn't until some historians were looking through some old documents that they realized what was going on. Not bad eh? lol

It's actually been sunny quite a bit this past week, so I'm quite pleased. In fact, I'm well pleased. I haven't even worn my wellies this week! Which is kind of sad because I like wearing them but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Last Friday I finally got to go out and hang out with people my own age! Cherry knows a girl my age who helps out with Brownies, Louise, who said she'd take me out clubbing, so off we went to Leamington Spa for a night of clubbing. I ended up meeting about 12 people cause all of her friends were out and about that night. It was the night before everyone goes off to university, so they all wanted to see each other. Most of them are leaving anyway, there's still a few who start next week or in 2 weeks. (By the way, I met a girl who's going to Oxford for university. That's right, I now know a girl who's attending one of the greatest schools in the world.) But yeah, it was Student Night so we all just went from pub to pub and then to two clubs, Mink and Smack until we finally settled on Smack. Mink was more like a bar and it seemed a bit pretentious so we liked Smack better.

I always knew how Americans had the stereotype of us Canadians (and vice versa), but I never knew (or really thought about) that the Brits knew of our stereotypes too! When I was talking with some of Louise's friends, they were really into asking me if I say "eh" at the end of all my sentences. Yes eh. Of course I do eh. I'm also a lumberjack who lives in an igloo eh. Then they started saying how I have a cool accent. I have a cool accent?! I don't think so, I'm pretty sure English accents are the coolest ever!! Geez louise!! Oh and they also think I hug polar bears. It was so funny though, it got to the point where everyone was introducing me like this:

This is Hayley, she's Canadian. She hugs polar bears.

I later explained to them that I'd never seen a polar bear before, nor a beaver, the nation's rodent. And of course, I asked if their national animal was the pigeon. It was good times.

Oh by the way, they don't i.d. in bars or clubs and I sure as heck don't look like I'm even 18, so that's a bit odd. The only time I got i.d.'d was by accident as the bartender mistook us for some other kids. So if I were a fairly mature looking 13 year old, I could totally just go right into a bar. Then again, kids are allowed in pubs all the time. In fact, there's often playgrounds for the kids just so the parents can have a drink. Crazy eh? (Eh!)

So yes, overall my night was tons of fun. Very tiring though, since clubs don't close until 4am in England. How crazy is that?! You gotta have a heck of a lot of stamina! I didn't, cause I'm Canadian and I hug polar bears in my spare time, so I went home around 3am, which was fine by me.

After Friday night, I had a relatively uneventful remainder of the weekend and week.

Oh! I met up with Aurore again and we went to Rugby for some Thai food. Holy macaroni, was it gooood. Although it's not like I'm really deprived of Asian cooking, we have it all the time in this house. I had salmon (Canadian smoked salmon that I bought from Steveston) last night, and tonight we had curry. Then there's the Chinese restaurant right across the street so all I need to do is open up a Japanese restaurant and I'm set.

Tomorrow I'm off to Blackpool! I guess I'd compare it to Vegas, except not nearly as glamorous. It's very bright though apparently. Grahame described it as "nasty cheap and tacky" so I guess I'll go with that. We're going to Pleasure Beach though, which is basically Playland so it should be fun, just as long as I avoid the ridiculously scary roller coasters. I'll try to put up photos of Blackpool when I get back on Monday!

Some of you have been wondering how my gluten-free diet has been going and I can honestly say that it's been going spectacularly. First off, if you're going to be gluten-intolerant, it's good to be gluten-intolerant in the UK cause there's so many others like me too. Thus, there's tons of alternatives. It's just so common here that there's shelves of food that actually taste good and aren't feeble attempts at cereal or bread. Okay, the bread is kinda bad and I have to toast it every time I eat it, but I can live with that. The cookies are good though. Oh and another great part about being gluten-intolerant in the UK is that almost all food has allergy alerts on the labels, which doesn't just include nuts, but also gluten! Unfortunately, I now realize just how much food has gluten in it. Things you never thought would have gluten in it does. That's cause it's total filler for most products. Gross.

Okay well I'm off to sleep now. Got a big weekend ahead of me!

Ciao mein!

Hayley

P.S. I'm still attempting to bring "ciao mein" to the U.K. and later Europe. So far, it's not been successful. Lame!!

Fortnight yo. - Episode 4

That's right, I said "fortnight," a word I didn't even know the meaning to until (conveniently) two days before my trip to England, a place where it tends to be used quite often. "I'll see you in a fortnight," "the rubbish is picked up every fortnight," etc.
Anyway, I thought the title was appropriate seeing as tomorrow I will have officially been here for two weeks. Not bad eh? It seems like longer already though. It's strange to think about how I'd be heading home by now, like after my last trip to England. But no, I'm just gonna keep on being here...exciting I know!

Send me letters!
Hayley Petersen
Braunston House
24 High Street
Stockton, Southam
Warwickshire
CV47 8JZ
U.K.

I'm slightly homesick and would like letters please! I'll send you one back!

Okay okay, moving on. So let's see, on Friday I went to Leamington Spa again to go shopping. My plan was to go to Stratford-Upon-Avon (...jealous?) and explore the wonderful land of Shakespeare but the GPS (TomTom!) said it'd take me an hour and a half to drive there and I didn't feel like driving that long. It turns out the good old SatNav was wrong in that it only takes 40 minutes, but how was I to know? Oh well, I got some shopping done and it was swell. Mostly. I got all antsy again when it came to parking in the narrow-streeted town so I parked about a mile away from the shops. And seeing as I don't know the town AT ALL, I obviously got lost coming back to my car. I was seriously walking around and around for about 45 minutes trying to find my car. What's worse is that I brought my SatNav (Brit word for GPS, man, everything is different here lol) which only got me more lost in finding the street that my car was parked on. Laaaame. It was quite the experience, I must say, and one that I will likely do over and over and over again. Good times.

Sunday. On Sunday I met my fellow au pair friend Aurore for the first time. (By the way, I can't pronounce her name, so I just try to avoid it at all costs which is kind of embarassing and will one day come back to bite me in the bum. For now though, it's working.) She's the girl from France that I may have mentioned before. My nanny agency has a nanny forum where all the girls post things like where they live and stuff to try and find other people in the area. Conveniently, Aurore is just in the town next to me, Southam, and she's here for about 6 months. So we got together and walked down to the pub along the canal, The Big Lias, for some cider. First off, I don't know what a "lias" is and second, we had cider not beer because of my lame gluten intolerance. Not that I like beer, I just don't like limitations!

LiasLi"as\ (l[imac]"as), n. [Cf. F. lias, fr. liais sort of limestone, OF. also liois; perh. of Celtic origin, cf. Armor. liach, leach, a stone, Gael. leac, W. llech. Cf. Cromlech.] (Geol.) The lowest of the three divisions of the Jurassic period; a name given in England and Europe to a series of marine limestones underlying the O["o]lite. See the Chart of Geology.

Um, okay. I guess that makes sense since underneath the sign was a picture of a dinosaur, or ogopogo or something...yeah.

The meeting went well and so now we've decided to meet up again next Sunday and try the Rice & Spice Chinese food that's across the street from me. I think we're also supposed to go out clubbing on Friday with my other new friend, Louise and her friends. Should be good times.

This is the view from outside the pub. There's a canal that runs along it and you can rent a boat for the day and go up and down the canal. I plan on doing that when I go to Stratford sometime.

You know, I was just thinking the other day that this house is over a hundred years old. Do you know what that means? It means that there could be ghosts. Yeah. Bet you didn't think about that, did you? Well I did, and now I'm a bit creeped out. But then I thought about it again and figured that ALL the houses around here are over a hundred years old, so there's no way a ghost would waste his time trying to haunt just ONE family. No, he'd probably just go after the whole freaking town. Besides, I haven't heard any creepy noises or doors banging for no reason, so I think I'm okay. Just watch, now I've "unleashed" them just by talking about them. Just you wait and see.

What else have I been up to? Oh I know! I joined a pottery class that takes place every Tuesday night at Warwickshire College. Since I was always the theatre geek in high school, I never got a chance to take one of Miyazaki's awesome art classes, so now is my chance.
Here are two things I did not think about though: 1. This class would most likely appeal to middle aged women and the odd middle aged man who just want to take the beginners' class out of interest. They would also like to just concentrate on their work for the duration of the class and therefore not talk. I too am very concentrated on my work and therefore cannot be bothered to talk to the people next to me but rather decide what kind of earthenware I'd like to use. This has stopped me from making friends, the very point of me taking a class. 2. After making each bowl or plate or whatever it is is done, I will eventually have to bring it home. This is a problem since my home is in Canada and I can't exactly take, well, ANY of it home with me! So now I will be forced to leave all of my art here in England and donate it to the local hospice, or whatever place that will have a beginner-made vase. Oh dear, indeed. Ooo, unless I feel like going Greek and hosting a plate crashing party. Too bad I'm not Greek though...or able to host a party...or have the guts to purposely break plates.
Next time I'm taking a Spanish class.

I'd just like to say that it is now sunny. I am probably going to change into some lighter clothes, go pick up the kids from school, and then have it rain on me. Just saying...

See Hayley's New Words!

1. Jobs/Jobos (pronounced "yobs") - stupid teenagers
2. Pram - stroller
3. Dummy - pacifier
4. Nappie - diaper
5. SatNav - GPS
I can't remember the rest.

Oh my goodness, I forgot to say that I went to Brownies last night! Cherry is one of the leaders (not Brown Owl, her name is Cookie...long story) there and she said I could help out if I wanted to. Heck yes I do! I LOVED Brownies! And can I just say that Brownies is so much cooler now (and it was already cool before). Okay, I know I was in Brownies 12 years ago so a lot has changed, but still, I wish I was 7 again. Their outfits are cooler (I had to wear a DRESS), they have cooler badges and a really cool booklet for earning badges. The girls in the group are really cool too (I like saying "cool" a lot), so I'm hoping to help out every Wednesday night if it works out. It's also good since I'll one day be teaching kids that age, rather than toddlers, so the more practise the merrier.

Now It's Time for Hayley's Weather Report!


In the east we will be seeing some showers with slight chances of rain. To the west, light showers. All of central England will experience unpredictable rain. Oh and London, you can probably most certainly see some light to heavy slight showers with occasional falls of cats and dogs.

While we're in the topic of London, why does everything think I'm in London. Did you know that London is not the only city in England? I know right! Who woulda thought?! But really, I can't tell you how many people have asked me "How's London?" I don't know, I don't live there! It's strange too because I never once said I was going to live in London, I always always said Central England, by Stratford-Upon-Avon. I suppose that's like saying, "Oh hey, how's Toronto?" Cause obviously that's the only city in Canada. Uh yea, I'm from Vancouver. Thanks.

Okay cool beans. I think I want to have a nap now so I'm off.

Ciao mein,

H-Po

Hayley Makes It Through The Week - Episode 3

Barely.
No, it really wasn't that bad, just a few "bumps" (or should I say "dents"?) in the road.

I'll start off with the bad news first. Well, somehow I managed to get really really ridiculously sick on Wednesday and half of Thursday. M was feeling a bit sick the day before, but I didn't think anything of it since she was actually pretty normal. Either way, that night I ended up with a nasty cold (or whatever it was) that lasted all day Wednesday and keeping me stuck in bed sleeping. It was terrible! What a way to start off your first week in England! It's pretty much all gone now, and if it's just a "traveler's tummy" like they say, then hopefully I won't be getting it back any time soon!
Okay bad news numero dos: I got into a bit of a car accident. Sad, I know, but it's true. I blame this on my still being slightly jetlagged...
Jetlag - 2, Hayley - 0
...and the the fact that I was still quite sick and quite out of it yesterday. It wasn't that bad of an accident though, really it wasn't. (Aunties, Bachan and Grandma: I'm fine, really, I am. Don't call mum and ask her if I'm okay cause I really am fine! lol) I was driving through Dunchurch, which is just before Rugby, and it was a narrow street with parked cars on both sides and fast ones coming from the opposite direction. I didn't notice how close I was to the parked cars so as I was going around the slight curve, I side-swipped it. Both cars are fine, so it's all good. I'm just a little shaken that's all. Okay, I'm completely shaken up after freaking out and crying like crazy (not to mention calling up mum and dad the minute I got home) but it's okay now. It really wasn't that bad in the long run. But you can sure as heck bet that I was a ridiculously cautious driver today! Geez louise, I was checking my mirrors constantly and going so ridiculously slow that even trucks (or "lorries") were passing me, which is kind of sad when you think about it, but I really don't care at this point!

"Why is Hayley driving today?!"
It was my day off (I have Friday to Sundays off) and I wanted to make the most of it so I went to Kenilworth Castle. Finally! A castle! History! The very reason I'm here!
Kenilworth Castle, located in Kenilworth of course, is about a 25 minute drive from Stockton. It's mostly in ruins but it's in fantastic ruins. You know, I think sometimes I prefer the ruins more than I do the castles in mint condition. It's like they've been lived in so much more. Then again, I'm probably going to be saying that I like mint condition castles more than ruins next week after I visit Warwick Castle so...
Kenilworth has officially been the first tourist attraction that I've visited since I got here. And hey, I'm now a member of English Heritage. For just 32 quid, I get free access into over 300 sites. Not bad. Unfortunately that doesn't cover most of the sites in London, but it sure as heck covers pretty much everything else! Nice.
Oh did I mention that was also my first expense on my very first credit card? Yeah, that's kind of awesome, I know. So when someone asks me, "Hey Hayley, what was the first thing you bought with your very first credit card?" I'll be all like, "Dude, I totally bought a membership to English Heritage. Beat that." Except I don't say "dude," and when someone's asking me that 40 years from now, I probably won't still be saying "totally."
Either way, I'm proud. (Parents, you'll be getting the bill in the mail at the end of the month. I kid. I kid. Actually you will, but I'll be paying so...)
I don't have too much to say about Kenilworth because it's really the kind of thing that you have to experience. I'd tell you the history, but you can wikipedia that. I'd tell you how it looks, but I'll be posting pictures on my facebook shortly. In the mean time, here's another video of me at Kenilworth:

See Hayley At Kenilworth

Yes, the rain. The weather here is absolutely unpredictable. I don't even understand how the Brits bother to employ any form of weather channel or forecast because whatever it is, it's wrong. They should never ever say that it's going to be sunny but rather just face the fact that in England, it RAINS. And it rains. And it rains. At least in Richmond you have some sort of an idea, but no, not here! I specifically checked last night to see what the weather would be like for today and it said it would be partially sunny, low chance of precipitation. When I walked out of my room with just a cardigan and my Rocketdog shoes on, Cherry suggested I take a raincoat just in case. She obviously knew what she was talking about because it absolutely poured buckets (as you may have noticed in the video) and I was drenched to the bone. This was also the one time that I did not wear my wellies.
Lesson learned.
So remember folks, no matter what the season, what the forecast says, no matter what, just wear your wellies and your rain jacket. And maybe some gloves and an umbrella because the rain gets you quite cold.
Just remember, the forecasts are all...

(Real screen capture taken from weather.co.uk)

Anyway...

I drove through Rugby yesterday, only briefly before you know, side-swipping someone but it was quite interesting because I drove past the school that actually created the sport of, you guessed it...rugby! Nowadays, that school charges 30 000 quid for a student's tuition. Yowza. There's no way I'd ever be going there! Nonetheless, it was cool to just casually drive by a site that invited something millions of people around the world follow today and say you've been there.
The town of Rugby looked quite nice though, so I intend to go back. Mostly because I saw a lot of young people out and about, so maybe I can go hang out there sometime and see what's happening.

Okay okay, one last thing before I end this ridiculously long post. I enrolled in a pottery class! Not gonna lie, I'm pretty excited. I never got to do any sort of art in high school since I was always a theatre girl, so now's my chance. Plus I'll probably get to meet some cool people in that class as well. My first class starts on Tuesday. Wish me luck!

Maybe I should post more frequently so that I don't have these crazy long posts eh? Hmm, we'll see.

Facebook Status:
Hayley is: congratulating herself on making it through her first week in England.

Ciao mein!

H-Po

See Hayley Travel - Episode 2

Hey Guys,

So this whole blog thing is finally working out for me after I had to dump my first one (it's completely heartbroken...hardeeharhar). All I'm gonna say is thank goodness for Google.
The last few days have been quite productive, I must say. Sunday, well, I just hung around and enjoyed my day off, so really it's just Monday that was productive. Anyway, Monday was great because I finally started my "job" of taking care of the kids. But of course, it was orientation week so I basically have just gotten a feel for what the kids' days look like. I must say, it's pretty busy! They both have nursery school and Tilda just started preschool on top of that. She's loving it so far, which is awesome because she was a bit nervous about it.
You wanna know what else has made yesterday productive? Well I'll tell you. I learned to drive on the other side of the road. Heck yes! You can watch this random video of me here:

See Hayley Drive

Gosh, sometimes I can be soooo cool.

Let's see, what else have I done? Oh I know, I went shopping today. "Yeah big deal Hayley." Come on, I've barely spent any money since I've been here. Actually, I calculated it, and I've spent a total of (insert pounds sterling symbol here) 40 so far! Not bad. Both kids had nursery school this morning so I drove myself down to Southam and explored the town a bit...actually I explored it three times. Did I mention the towns are really small? Well they are. It's awesome though, cause on Sunday night when I decided I needed some fresh air, I went for a walk around Stockton and managed to walk around the town about 3 times as well in 45 minutes. Mind you, I was stopping a lot and taking pictures, so I could have done it in, say, 20 minutes. Southam's bigger actually, so I'll just say I managed to walk around the main centre area of the town 3 times. And guess what I found? That's right, thrift shops. I believe I found 3 hospices in total. One of them was brilliant too cause it had some pretty awesome dresses which of course I bought 2 of. After all, I'll need it for when I go clubbing this Thursday night.
Productive item #5 (I think, I sorta lost count): I made friends. Yes, I Hayley Petersen, have made friends. Randomly. Okay they're still technically acquaintances, but there's still hope! One girl I met through the nanny agency forum. She's just in the next town so we'll be getting together on Sunday. The other girl and her friends know Cherry (the mum) through volunteering.
I think that's it for my productiveness scoop. I still have yet to buy my headset so I can talk to you guys on Skype, as well as buy a purse for Thursday night. The chaos. Maybe I should just focus on taking care of the kids.
Actually, I don't really want to be talking about them on the internet since, well, that's just not good so even though it may seem like I don't care for my au pairing job and am really not interested in the kids, it's really not that. I just don't feel comfortable posting things about the family like that. But by the way, I really like the family. I'll just leave it at that. (I do miss all the families at home though!)
Parentals, Aunties and Uncles: The gluten-free thing is working fine for me. On Saturday we went to the local ASDA (I believe it's the same company as Wal-Mart) and there was a whole section of gluten-free foods. Some of the snacks are pretty good too! The bread, not quite so much, but it works.

Now it's time for
THINGS HAYLEY IS EXCITED FOR!!

Thing I am excited for number one: Finally getting to vote in the upcoming Canadian Federal Election. Fingers crossed, I can make a day of it and take the train down to London to vote in person at the embassy rather than just mail it (cause that's just not that fun.)
Thing I am excited for number two: Meeting the new people!
Thing I am excited for number three: Celebrating Thanksgiving with Ambz, Nan and possibly Mick! In Manchester!
Thing I am excited for number four: Going to Blackpool in two weekends!
Thing I am excited for number five: Seeing Amber and Mick when we all get together and travel!

Okay well, it's getting late and I have to wake up early tomorrow.

If any of you haven't seen my recent Stockton photos, email me and I'll happily give you the link to it!

Ciao Mein!!

Hayley

Welcome to Stockton

Hey Guys,

So apparently my internet is blocking me from 1. accessing my freewebs website and 2. publishing posts on my new blog site, blogspot.com, soooo here's my first post through blogspot.

Now, let's just get on with it, shall we?
I arrived in Heathrow a little after one in the afternoon and was able to quickly go through customs and find my luggage, and most importantly, Grahame, the dad of the Wilkinsons. He had come to pick me up and drive me to their new home, about 1.5-2 hours away. (I was pretty much sleeping the whole time so I'm not really sure how long it took.)
After a bit of fuss, Matilda and Jethro (the children) soon took a liking to me and now Tilda (as she likes to be called) frequently goes looking for me to play and see my photos on the computer. Jethro is a funny fellow. He can't talk but he understands what you say to him. He's also pretty easy to understand too. Both Grahame and Cherry are very nice too and have made me feel at home here at Braunston House. (So apparently all the houses have names to them. This sounds like my kind of place seeing as I name pretty much everything I own...Toby the Toshiba laptop, Spike the Cactus, the late Helen the poinsetta...
The house is very cool too. Built about a hundred years ago, it's made of brick and is filled with little fireplaces here and there. It's got the typical English feel to it, and I love it. My bedroom is also quite nice too! It used to be a guesthouse but they converted it so that it's now part of the house. Mum, you'd like the bathroom, it's very much like the one you guys just renovated.
If there's one thing I've noticed about English homes though, is this, they have got a heck of a lot of doors! They're everywhere. I know, that's kind of a lame observation, but I mean, they don't just have doorways, there's full-on doors! Just saying...

Today (Saturday) has been my first full day here in England and so far it's been pretty cool. We went out today to the shops in Leamington Spa and I bought cute black and white wellies for the rain that will probably last forever. It's a good thing I'm from Vancouver because this weather really is dreary. The good part is that at least it has it's moments of sunshine. And besides, it's not cold out, just wet. Which reminds me, I really need to buy some sweaters seeing as I could only fit 3 into my suitcase, and one of them is only for the gym!
For lunch we went to Zizzi, where I had my gluten-free meal. Gluten-free in an Italian resaturant is a bit difficult, but manageable. (For those of you who don't already know, I'm just found out that I'm gluten intolerant. Yay.) By the late afternoon, I realized I wasn't invincible against jetlag and found myself fast asleep for an hour and a half.
Jetlag - 1, Hayley - 0

It's funny to think about the buildings in England and how long they've been here. Take Leamington Spa, for instance. It's called a Spa because in Roman times it was used as a spa town from the springs it produced. In Roman times! Then there's other buildings that are built during Georgian times and so on and so on. I think I've seen one modern building and that's because it's a college. Holy macaroni am I ever going to love this place!

Ciao mein for now!

H-Po