What is a conker? A conker is the seed of a horse chestnut tree-they are hard brown nuts surrounded by a prickly casing. Actually they look almost identical to a buckeye. An old playground game here is for kids to thread a strong string thru the middle of the conker and hit an opponents conker. When one's conker is destroyed, the game is over. Kaitlyn's class had an experiment to see what you could do to conkers to make a killer conker. Between these and the acorns, we have a very crunchy walk to school.
Now onto the crane flies...the kids here call them daddy long legs, we know them more as mosquito catchers. They are more annoying than anything. When we walk to and from school thru the green they fly around you in swarms. Forget leaving the windows or doors open in the evening because then you spend 20 minutes trying to catch the dozen that have made it indoors. At least when winter sets in I will only have spiders to deal with and hopefully the bug poison cousin Leif led me to will make the house impenetrable.
Sep 15, 2006
Sep 2, 2006
Flying Chicken
Last night Jason and I got to spruce up in our fancy dress and go to a Summer Ball. The venue was at a winery about 10 miles our village. I know what you are thinking, 'a winery in England?' I'd say the wine was on par with English food, nothing to write home about. So why am I writing?
Although England is a binge nation and people get quite out of hand drunk, A LOT, drinking and driving is not the problem that it is in the US. When people here know that they will be out drinking, they take a cab. So-in keeping with this, a random Amgen employee living in the village next to ours contacted Jason and asked if we wanted to share a cab to the ball. We ended up driving there in the 'company car' and sharing a cab home.
Things started off well enough...met a few people had a glass of champagne. Then we all went into the next room for dinner. It was labeled a BBQ buffet. With full plates, we returned to the table and started on the house wine. Oh-the food. It was an over cooked beef pattie, chicken breast, some salad and roasted potatoes. Have you ever seen a Brit eat with a fork and knife? They have this fancy rhythm once they get going and use the knife to scoop food onto the back of the fork and then eat. I thought I was doing pretty well-getting the hang of it all, trying to fit in when disaster struck. The meat was a bit overcooked and as I went to cut into my flavorless chicken breast, it flew across the table. AHHH! I was mortified.
I quickly grabbed the offending piece of meat and placed it on my plate before too many people noticed. Unfortunately it landed in front not my plate but the woman next to me. She graciously passed it off as her own. Needless to say, I didn't finish my chicken.
We got home late-around 1 and slept late. Actually we both felt quite ill most of the day and blamed it on bad wine rather than the amount. We have a wedding to go to next weekend and the same place-I think we will skip the wine.
Although England is a binge nation and people get quite out of hand drunk, A LOT, drinking and driving is not the problem that it is in the US. When people here know that they will be out drinking, they take a cab. So-in keeping with this, a random Amgen employee living in the village next to ours contacted Jason and asked if we wanted to share a cab to the ball. We ended up driving there in the 'company car' and sharing a cab home.
Things started off well enough...met a few people had a glass of champagne. Then we all went into the next room for dinner. It was labeled a BBQ buffet. With full plates, we returned to the table and started on the house wine. Oh-the food. It was an over cooked beef pattie, chicken breast, some salad and roasted potatoes. Have you ever seen a Brit eat with a fork and knife? They have this fancy rhythm once they get going and use the knife to scoop food onto the back of the fork and then eat. I thought I was doing pretty well-getting the hang of it all, trying to fit in when disaster struck. The meat was a bit overcooked and as I went to cut into my flavorless chicken breast, it flew across the table. AHHH! I was mortified.
I quickly grabbed the offending piece of meat and placed it on my plate before too many people noticed. Unfortunately it landed in front not my plate but the woman next to me. She graciously passed it off as her own. Needless to say, I didn't finish my chicken.
We got home late-around 1 and slept late. Actually we both felt quite ill most of the day and blamed it on bad wine rather than the amount. We have a wedding to go to next weekend and the same place-I think we will skip the wine.
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