Merry in Mildenhall

“If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.”

      I found this quote by Doug Larson to be not only comical, but also very true. I apologize in advance to anyone who is an English teacher and may be reading this post, but sometimes the English language just doesn’t make sense! After living in the United Kingdom for three weeks I have learned that our language is probably one of the most complex and bizarre languages spoken in the entire world. Here I am living in a country that speaks the exact same language that I have spoken for the better part of 23 years, yet at times I cannot understand what they are saying. For example, Sam and I went to dinner at Thai restaurant where he ordered “lemonade” expecting to get a deliciously sweet beverage containing the taste of freshly squeezed lemons. Instead he received 7-up, which is a carbonated non-lemon tasting beverage. Man we are having a blast learning the little quarks of the local British culture.

     I don’t have any pictures to go with this blog, so Hercule’s would like to insert more pictures from his day in London. I will leave the picture captions to him. 

Here I am outside of Buckingham Palace, I heard the "Royal" Dog had gone to see the big guy in the sky, well I think I would leave my parents to take his place if these would be my new digs.

I don't know why your so fascinated by this tall thing, cant you see this man is walking over here, that is so cool.

Don't worry dad, I got this walking thing down, I will take the lead and show you where to go

      In my last blog I spoke of the cutest little English Cottage built in the 1600’s that we had put a holding deposit on to rent. The Air Force has to conduct a “life safety” check before they will allow you to move into any property. Basically, they just make sure nothing is going to be a safety hazard while you are there. They went out to our Kennedy Cottage and found a small crack in one of the windows, our letting agent alerted the landlord who said that she would fix it. However, since this cottage was built in the 1600s only certain people can fix the windows and it is quite pricey. During this time the landlord had another offer come in for the cottage, with a non-American family who didn’t need life safety, so the landlord decided not to fix the window and go with the other tenant. Technically, since we had put down our pounds deposit, the property should’ve never been shown to anyone else during that period. Needless to say we lost the property and our letting agent was very upset that the landlord never returned her calls and we never had a chance to counter offer. However, if there is anything I have learned from being a military wife for nine months it is that NOTHING IS EVER EASY, so it is what it is, we were both very disappointed, but we had no choice, it was time to start back at square one. 

Okay, clearly my parent's don't know how to hold a dog, I am kind of just hangin here, not cool.

Much better mom! See I can pose for a picture

Looking for my Uncle Ben, they kept saying, "Big Ben" but I never saw him

Pretty sure my dad was trying to get me executed

       Since Sam had to do things at the squad this week, it was up to me to make all the phone calls to the letting agents again. Unlike in the states, where you can have one Realtor who shows you every house that is available in your budget/meets other criteria, here they can only show you houses that are listed with their company, which means lots of phone calls and lots of repeating your story. We saw about five or six more properties between Wednesday and Saturday. Luckily we found a cute cottage on Saturday that we both really like. It is a one story, 3 bedroom cottage, with a loft that Sam has already claimed as his “man cave”. It is not the same as our original property at Hengrave, but it has more of a garden (yard) for Hercules and the property is still very charming with updated appliances (always a plus)! The best part is that the cottage has two full bathrooms, so we don’t have to share one with our guests! We put down a holding deposit for the property on Saturday, hopefully everything works out and we are able to move in next week, I can’t wait to decorate it!

This picture thing is getting old, it all looks black and white to me.

This guy has never seen a black dog before, note his pointing, and his lady friend could care less. Guess they need to import more dogs to China.

I can't swim! I hate water! Help me! I don't trust these people!

People are everywhere!

      This weekend was the first full weekend that Sam and I were in Mildenhall, just the two of us, and it turned out to be a really busy and fun time! Friday night we headed over to our sponsor’s house for a bbq with about twelve other people from the squadron and their significant others. It was a blast meeting some new people and seeing some familiar faces of people we had met once or twice, plus the hamburgers and mini apple pies were delicious! Sam’s parents flew into London on Saturday for their two week visit with Rachel, we were planning to head there to spend the day with them, but since we lost the Hengrave property we had houses to view on Saturday. Sam was pretty bummed, though I told him he could go to London and I would handle things here, he decided it was best to stay in Mildenhall for the day, which it is a good thing we did because we found our house!  

*Side note- it was totally a God thing, because we were ready to sign paper work on another house Friday but we had to fill out an application, had that application not been there we may never have found this property and we wouldn’t have been as happy in the long run*

      Saturday night we went to dinner at a Thai restaurant in Mildenhall, which was delicious, my first Pad Thai experience, and then we met up with some of the other new comers and people from the squad at Benson Blake’s, which is a burger restaurant (pub) that is located in the town of Bury St. Edmund's, they had a live band and I enjoyed chatting it up and getting to know some of the spouses of Sam’s fellow squad members. On Sunday morning we both slept through our alarms to get up and visit the chapel on base, but thankfully there is the internet where we both listened to a sermon from the church I grew up in (and the pastor who married us), thanks for a great message from Ephesian’s Ryan! We had a lazy Sunday afternoon (my favorite kind) and then headed over to a couple’s house for dinner. It was a great night of food and fellowship, it was kind of them to invite us over and we had a great time getting to know the Reardon’s on a personal level outside of a big group! I also got to facetime with my sister and brother-in-law Sunday night and talked to my mom on the phone, it is always great connecting with family!

Um mom, you are in the wrong colored phone booth, I am colored blind, but even I know this.

My Aunt Rachel is a bit strange, but I like her, unfortunately she wont be doing a happy dance once she see's how much hair I leave behind :/

I love my mom and they love the word "piccadilly" the scary lady voice on the tube always says "piccadilly line". Also, I wonder if this tastes like Pineapple whip? I will never know because I am not allowed to eat anything fun.

Nice try mom, but it doesn't look like I am floating in the air, but at least your in a red phone booth.

  

    This upcoming weekend the in-laws will be visiting with Rachel and Josh, so that should be a fun weekend, we are looking forward to seeing them and exploring Cambridge and Ely. Then the next weekend I will be heading back to the states for Stephanie’s wedding! Oh my, where has October gone?!

Thanks for reading, Cheers!

Amanda