Safety First

The term ‘red tape’ is often taken to a whole new extreme over here, I’ve noticed. If there is a way to complicate a process, we do. Our classic example of the chip & pin system shows just one of many circumstances where the powers that be in the UK have decided that a certain way is the best and there is no arguing with them, no attempts to convince them that there might be another possibility, nope – that is how it is. Full stop. (Another phrase I should have added to the list of British phrases)

The amusing side of this to me, is that they also like to make fun of their self-imposed systems of order and regulations. It’s kinda tricky though; you still must follow the rules to the nth degree, you are just allowed to sarcastically mock them while doing so. This is allowed for the fact that you are not allowed to throw away garden trimmings (branches, grass clippings, etc) in your trash pick up, yet you can drive them down to the city dump yourself & dispose of as much as you’d like. There is no sneaking a sack full of grass into the bin, but you are more than allowed to complain about driving down to the tip and how horrible the city council is for making you do so.

My favorite thing that they mock are the health and safety regulations (and regulators). There is a whole department to oversee the well-being of citizens. I admit, they do issue ridiculous regulations. For instance:

An office must have a designated health & safety supervisor for every 50 employees; this person must be equipped with a reflective safety vest and have a designated safety plaque in their workspace.

All new employees to the company and any visitors on site for an extended period of time must be briefed on the fire exits, timing of fire alarms, locations of first aid stations, and any necessary infrastructure procedures.

Fire alarms are to be tested weekly (our office is every Tuesday at 10am – I still jump every week).

There is also some sort of regulation over the random fire drill. In the lovely DR Horton tower in Fort Worth, they were nice enough to announce the fire drill a week ahead of time so you could plan to be sick or take an early lunch to avoid the 18 floor walk downstairs. Not so much over here. I went through two fire drills in the first 6 weeks we were here. One of which in the pouring rain, the other only in a drizzle. Luckily, I guess, our office is only 3 floors so it’s never a long way down.

From what I can tell, however, they are equally as annoyed by all the regulations too. In a brief google search of health & safety regulations, you will find many articles of seeming normal everyday life that have been ‘banned’ by increased regulations.

This all became very personal in my office this week. We have large rolling filing cabinets to store all our files. It’s a good system – space saving. I’ve seen it in many office buildings I’ve been in over the years. Until this week. On Wednesday, someone was rolling the cabinets to get to a file that was on the interior of the shelves. I wasn’t there, but I can only guess (as the drawers are next to the kitchen area), they had a cup of tea in their hands and were carrying on a conversation while rolling the cabinets and perhaps not paying full attention to what they were doing. They somehow managed to pinch their finger in between two of the units then they screamed. And it just so happens that the designated health & safety supervisor for our floor was nearby, so they had to file an accident report. More red-tape and paperwork. In, what I hope is, a tongue-in-cheek move there are now 8 of the posters below hanging on the 10 filing cabinets. Ah, those Brits.

Phras - i - ology

We have completed three full months of our two years abroad and I think we’ll both agree that we may have spent a fair amount of that time confused by the English language. So we have come up a contest for our loyal blog readers. A game we like to call : What does this mean?

Here’s how you play. Email me (or post in blog comments) the translation of the following phrases that have been said to either to myself or Adam in the last three months. The person with the most correct, wins. Because I know you all, I feel I must also set out some rules.

1. Don’t cheat. This includes, but is not limited to: Googling, accessing your English-to-English dictionary, or asking a British friend, neighbor, or soon to be husband/son-in-law/grandson/brother-in-law/cousin/nephew/or any other way Matt maybe related to you in two weeks.
2. If there are multiple people tied for the most correct, the winner will be selected by the person who entered the contest first as determined by the Microsoft Outlook email timestamp or Blogger comment post time.
3. No purchase is required to enter the contest, though bribing the administrators is highly recommended.
4. The prize will be determined by the administrators of the contest. The prize has no cash value and will not be substituted for any of the three currencies I have in my wallet at the moment.
5. The contest ends at 12:00 midnight on September 16, 2011. Any entries received after this time will not be considered in the contest. The winner will be notified by email and subsequent blog post.
6. Any dispute to the rules or judgments needed regarding the contest will be handled by the What does this mean? co-commissioners, Daisy Marie Powell and Ginger Snap Powell. Please direct any and all questions to them.

Now, on with the contest.

What does this mean?

1. Well, isn’t that just keen as mustard?
2. It’s good to have insulated walls in your house, incase you want to have a row. (hint: row rhymes with cow in this context)
3. That is so waffle.
4. Don’t mug me off.
5. You can have David help you, he’s just doing noddy work for me today.
6. That’s no cricket.
7. White goods included.
8. You’re a brick!
9. Give it welly.
10. The best of British to you on that one.
11. I thought I’d come check with you so we didn’t play Chinese Whispers all day.
12. Before this goes pear shaped, let’s chat.
13. (in written form-not said aloud) PTO
14. British Summer Time ends October 30th.
15. Your rubbish pick up is once a fortnight.
    

    
    

Good Luck!

Road Trip!

For our encore to Barcelona, we decided to take a road trip to the south east coast of the UK. Not the epic 2200 miles in 3 days (a la Abilene to Tuscon to the Grand Canyon to Abilene on a weekend from my college days) variety, but a bit more relaxed 400 mile round trip affair covering a three day holiday. We left Friday the 26th of August in one of the heaviest downpours we have seen in the UK. Despite the rain, the drive was reasonably simple. It’s right at 200 miles from our west coast town of Bristol to east coast town of Dover. Not a very wide country. The scenery along the M4 (the main highway between London and Bristol) is very rural with long rolling hills and sparsely populated hamlet’s mixed in with some large townships just off the highway until you reach the outskirts of London.

Just before we got to Heathrow International Airport, our route took us off the M4 and onto the M25 (think 635 in DFW) so we could bypass downtown London. However nearly as soon as we entered onto the M25 the skies opened up again and traffic slowed to a crawl. After nearly 25 minutes of rain and a distance of about five miles, our pace slowly began to pick up and we made it out of the London Metro area about 40 minutes later. After another half hour we pulled into Dover at around 9:30 PM and found our waterfront hotel awaiting us.

During my search for accommodations online I had found a Best Western in Dover that boasted waterfront views and a central location for right around £70 per night. The hotel’s location certainly didn’t disappoint and from the pier in front of the hotel we could clearly see Dover Castle towering atop the White Cliffs above us. After checking in we went up to our room only to discover that it must have been designed by Antoni Gaudi. Not a single wall in the room was straight and after a cursory look neither of us could find a 90-degree corner in the room. The floor felt as if we were walking amongst the waves traveling from crest to trough as we moved around the room and the ceiling was three different heights. Altogether a weird sensation that took on a certain charm when you consider the age of the building.

Seagulls awoke us early Saturday morning and we decided to get started with our tour of the surrounding area. Dover’s waterfront is guarded by a harbor of refuge which consists of two long piers (Admiralty pier which creates the westerly boarder and the Eastern Arm makes up the eastern boarder) and the Southern Breakwater which are all built of concrete blocks weighing in at 30 to 40 tons and lined with granite on the outside. Currently only the eastern end of the harbor is being utilized for cross channel shipping leaving the western half of the harbor open to public boating and swimming. As we strolled along the pier we were amazed to see dozens of locals out for a morning swim in the harbor in waters that couldn’t have been more than 50°.

Once we reached the end of our walk along the pier we started inland to find a path that would lead us to Dover Castle. We didn’t have to walk far until we found a winding road that took us up yet another steep hill (we never seem to walk downhill in this country) and brought us to the gates of Dover Castle. The grounds around the Castle are impressive.

When we first entered the grounds we came upon a couple of guided tours that took us into the cliffs below the castle and learned about the history of the tunnels and the role they played in guarding England from invasion as well as serving as an operational center during WWII for evacuation efforts during Germany’s Blitz across western Europe in the opening stages of the war.

After our guided tours had ended we made our way around the grounds towards the castle itself. Outside the Castle walls a band of pirates in full regalia had set up shop and were providing entertainment for young and old alike with tales of adventure on the high seas and endless wealth to be made capturing merchant ships transporting tea around the world. Apparently, back in the day tea was more valuable than gold as a trade commodity and so most pirates were more interested in it than treasure.

We finally entered the castle around 11:30 and wandered through the maze of corridors that made up this 12th century fortress built by King Henry II. Climbing the circular stairs of one of the towers clasping to the hand rail that was added sometime several hundred years after it was first constructed I couldn’t help but imagine what it must have been like traversing those steps in chainmail and armor without the benefit of a proper handrail. To say that it would have been hazardous is a serious understatement. Atop the stairs we accessed the roof of the castle were we were afforded breathtaking views of the city of Dover directly to the west and the straights of Dover the south and east.

Having spent a little more than an hour invading King Henry’s keep we decided it was time to move on to our next objective of the day.

Lunch.

On our way out of the castle we came across this Trebuchet guarding the northern entrance of the castle. An impressive piece of siege warfare technology.

After walking back downhill (finally we get to go down!) we got in the car and made our way to Terlingham Vinyard in Folkstone just down the road from Dover for a tour and wine tasting. Since we hadn’t had anything to eat yet we decided to head into to Folkstone for lunch first. We drove through the town and came across The Little Switzerland caravan sight and cliff top restaurant promising the best views in town. As we turned down the lane and made our way through what was essentially an English KOA camp my hopes for a decent lunch began to dwindle. When we reached the end of the road however the views were magnificent and the lunch was decent.

We left little Switzerland and drove back toward Terlingham Vinyard where my first experience with English wines awaited. The vineyard lies amongst the rolling hills a few miles from the coast with impressive views of Folkstone below.

It’s a family run vineyard that has been producing mostly sparkling varieties since 2008-09 and is the smallest vineyard in the UK that boasts its own winery. Right at 3 acres in size they manage to produce nearly 15,000 bottles of wine per year, several of which are award winning wines. Our favorite was the White Cliffs 2010. I also quite enjoyed walking through the vines.

Once we finished our tour and tasting we made our way to our final stop of the day. The Battle of Britain Memorial overlooks the channel and commemorates those who fought the Luftwaffe for air supremacy over the channel and England itself. The site immediately brings to mind the Vietnam Memorial in DC with its polished granite face that reflects your appearance as you read the names of the fallen etched in stone as if you are among them in a solitary and solemn moment of remembrance. It is a touching monument to “The Few” who defended so many.

Upon our return to Dover we made our way to one of the local pubs for nice warm meal and local watching before we turned in for the night.

Sunday we got moving and found breakfast at a café in the main shopping district a short walk from our hotel. We are really getting into scones with cream and hot chocolate for breakfast. Interestingly though, in the west where we live the cream is very thick & rich (Devon Clotted Cream) in Dover both places were more of a whipped light cream.  For the record, clotted cream is better, but it didn't slow either of down from eating scones here. 

From there, we made our way just to the other side of Dover where we took a self guided tour of Crabble Corn Mill. The mill was built in 1812 and still operates creating specialty grains. The five story facility is kept in the same condition it would have been seen shortly before it closed down in the 1890’s. The tour was interesting and near the end one of the miller’s who was working on some of the equipment directed us past the rope barricades to show us how they maintained the mill stones. (I have a feeling they don’t get many visitors & he was excited just to have someone to talk to.)

From Crabble Corn Mill we made our way to the Dover Cliffs. Since the park entrance is only a few miles outside the city, Amanda had planned for us to spend the rest of the day there exploring the cliffs. After finding a place to park we swung through the visitor center to get our bearings and made our way to the trails. The main trail departs from the car park and ends two miles away at the South Foreland Lighthouse which has guided tours throughout the day. Since Amanda is fascinated by lighthouse’s that is the route we chose.

After hiking about half a mile the weather began to look rather ominous so we decided to head back to the visitor center for lunch while we let the storms pass. After another cup of hot chocolate and a shared Kentish Rarebit (toasted bread topped with English mustard and melted cheddar cheese) the rain had stopped and we made our way down the trail again. On a side note, Amanda is very proud that she ‘sniffed out the rain’ before we got wet. She says we’re starting to get the hang of this country. I think we may have just gotten lucky.

Like everywhere else in the UK, the land above the White Cliffs is remarkably hilly. The path is only two miles long yet it took us more than an hour to reach the lighthouse, we however were not hiking with any great speed either. The tour of the lighthouse wasn’t as interesting to me as it was Amanda but I certainly could appreciate the view.

We took our time as we walked back to the car looking for the perfect picture of the cliffs and we finally found a shot we think works.

Sunday night, we had dinner at an Italian restaurant a few hundred yards from the hotel where I had one of the best salmon dishes ever. If you ever find yourself in Dover I highly recommend il Rustico Ristorante. The staff was a little overwhelmed due to being understaffed. Only two waiters handling the entire restaurant, but our food was amazing. On our walk back to the hotel we tried to get a picture of Dover Castle at night but the battery on our camera had died earlier in the day and my phone just doesn’t take very good pictures as witnessed below.

Monday was the summer bank holiday and we spent the day traveling from Dover to Canterbury and then back to Bristol. On the way to Canterbury, Amanda found another small vineyard that offered a tour and tasting lead by one of the co-owners. We arrived at the three acre Barnsole Vineyard and found the owner plying his trade in the fields. He started his tour by telling us a little about how he and his brother operate the vineyard and why the decided to take up winemaking at retirement. Apparently, they aren’t very good at golf. At the end of the tour which took us from vine to fermentation to bottling to aging and finally distribution we got to taste the fruits of their labor. Our favorite wine from Barnsole was the 2009 Dry Medium which won a Bronze medal for UK wine of the year. Funny enough, a bottle mysteriously found its way into our car as well (after Amanda paid for it).

With bottle in hand, we left Barnsole and made our way to Canterbury. Famously remembered for the unfortunate execution of Thomas Becket and Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” Canterbury appears as the quintessential English town. The shopping district of the city is completely devoid of vehicular traffic which is probably a good thing considering the narrow streets manage to feel crowded regardless. Before making our way to the Cathedral where Thomas Becket was slain, we ventured down a few cozy side streets until we found lunch at bakery tucked into the historic buildings that line the walkways.

Having finished lunch we made our way to the Cathedral. It has been in place since 597AD when Pope Gregory the Great sent St Augustine to establish a seat in Canterbury. Over the centuries the Cathedral has been rebuilt, expanded and repaired numerous times to the point where it appears as a hodgepodge of architectural design throughout. Within the Cathedral are several tombs of former Archbishops and Royalty alike including the Tomb of Henry IV and his second wife Joan of Navarre.

From Canterbury Cathedral it’s a short walk to the ruins of a Norman Castle started by William the Conquer around 1070. All that remains of the castle is the outer shell but it is possible to climb the circular stair in one of the towers. Never a very prominent castle due to larger facilities built at Dover it was primarily used as a prison by the 1300’s and was condemned as a ruin by the 17th century. Even though there is not much left to see it does provide a glimpse into the construction techniques of the time.  Even more odd to us was the fact that they built a 1970's apartment building not 20 yards from the 1070's Castle.

For a short excursion (and an exceedingly long blog post) Dover was a great trip. The attrations were interesting and well worth a few days visit.

1971

I have a new favorite year.

1971

Under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, bank holidays are proclaimed each year by the legal device of a royal proclamation. A bank holiday is a public holiday in the United Kingdom. Banks are closed, most everyone is off work. Royal proclamation is also used to move bank holidays that would otherwise fall on a weekend. In this way, public holidays are not 'lost' in years when they coincide with weekends. These deferred bank holiday days are termed a 'bank holiday in lieu' of the typical anniversary date. In the legislation they are known as 'substitute days'.

In essence, the Queen creates 8 3-day weekends throughout the year.

This weekend is one.

Woo Hoo!

Existence Testing

Done. No exceptions noted.





(This one's for my PwC peeps. If you find yourself confused, ask an auditor to explain.)

Balloons & our first visitor!

I’m trying not to entitle every post heading with an ending exclamation point, but there have been so many exciting things this past week that it’s hard to contain myself. For the sake of some of my co-workers back in Texas, I did hold to only one. You know who you are.

A rundown of the week timing partly for you, mostly for me; so I can remember the chaos. I had a week’s worth of vacation (or holiday time as it will hence forth be known as) that I had to use by September 30th. Adam starts classes on September 19th, so I really needed to use it up by then. So, I decided just to take a full week off for our pre-puppy trip (or puppymoon as Cara from Petrelocation called it) and the girls arrival. A week ago Friday, I went to work as usual, then Adam picked me up from the office & we headed straight for the airport. 4 wonderful days in Barcelona. See the (as he described it) mega post below. We got back to Bristol late Tuesday afternoon/early evening.

When we’d originally booked the trip a month or so ago, the girls were supposed to arrive Wednesday afternoon, however the flight schedule changed and they couldn’t leave DFW until Wednesday which put them in the UK Thursday. It actually worked out really well because it gave us all day Wednesday to run errands & get ready for them to be here. You know, little things like buy dog food & bowls, figure out where to put their crates, assemble the dog gate. They made it safely to us about 7:30pm Thursday evening. You’ll even be proud of me, I did not let them sleep in our bed; they had to go in their crates the first night. I was so exhausted from not sleeping Wednesday night because of worry and pacing in the house most of the day Thursday that I knew it was best for all the parties involved that I get a good night’s sleep (read: mostly Adam).

Friday we went park exploring during the day. We weren’t sure how far Ginger would make it, so we split it up into several smaller walks, but she did really well. We’ll start trying to lengthen them out some as we go. We’d planned to go out to the Bristol Balloon Fiesta for the evening balloon launch at 6pm. About 3 or so we loaded up the car to head out. A moment for a detour in my train of thought. I will never, ever, ever purchase another vehicle with cloth seats again. Dog hair wipes off leather, it does not off cloth. Poor Adam and the vacuum cleaner had about an hour long date after the 45 minutes the girls were in the car.

We’re on our way to the Fiesta in our Fiesta (got to get a joke in about the car ) & it starts pouring. My mother has always claimed that the British have a sixth sense on rain. Like they know just when to bring in their laundry off the line or how to wait an extra 15 minutes before walking home so they avoid the shower. She says she doesn’t ever think she’ll figure out how they do it. I’m with her. You can even ask them & they just claim their lucky. I’m not buying it – they know something that they’re not willing to share. So, the Americans without the internal radar system turned around and went home.

Saturday morning we stayed at home & I caught up on paperwork and bills. Okay, I’m going to tangent again (isn’t it nice that I warn you?). We have gotten no less than seven bills from British Gas (our electric & gas provider). We got one, then a correction – it was £1.17 less than the first and had a later due date, I accepted. We got another correction back to the original price, but an even later due date. Then we got a form requesting us to do our own meter reading and send info back to them. I did that & we received another bill. I can’t remember the amount for it, but the due date was later still. Then we got two bills on the same day one which read across the top “Final Bill” and one “First Estimated Bill”, they were for the same amount (and two different due dates). Then last week we got another one that says it’s our “First Actual Corrected Bill”. It’s not due until August 31st, but I went ahead & paid it just to see if they’d quit sending us bills that confuse me. I’m pretty sure that they have now spent more on postage & printing costs than they got from my payment.

I promise, I really am getting to the point of the title of my post.

In Fort Worth, PwC has a client who also has manufacturing facilities and some operations in Europe, one location being about an hour south of Bristol. Because of these operations, the PwC Fort Worth office requests the PwC Bristol office to do part of the audit over here & send the information back to them. This summer, the manager and partner from PwC Fort Worth are also doing a tour of some of the European locations, meeting the clients & the PwC folks that they have been emailing and calling for the last couple of years. Even in the super technology world we live in, it’s nice to put a face with a name! I was pretty excited when the manager emailed me & said she’d be in Bristol over the weekend. Not only did we work together occasionally, Robyn is a friend, a confidant & a sounding board for me in the office, and I was thrilled to get to show off my new city to her. Plus now we can officially say we’ve had a visitor!

Robyn called Saturday afternoon to let us know she’d landed and we made plans to pick her up at the hotel and go try the balloon fiesta again. We did just that. After a few minutes of both me & Adam thinking the other one had checked the directions on how to get out there, we realized that we were going to give Robyn the scenic tour of Bristol. Mental Note: next time we have visitors, plan better. We made it out there and managed to find a spot to stand where we could see the inflation and launching process. There were so many more people there than I expected. I felt safe knowing that the weather sixth sense had told all these people it was okay to be outside tonight.

We watched as 87 hot air balloons were inflated and lifted off all within about an hour of each other. It was one of the neatest things I’ve seen. I can’t imagine the logistics of coordinating that many balloons in a tight space all trying to go up at once. We tried guessing the shape and size as the fabric came to life. Most were pretty tame, but occasionally they’d be a square balloon (how does that even work??) or one shaped like a dragon. It was really neat seeing them taking off. The only downside we realized on the walk back to the car…up a hill again – I now have a witness to the extent of hills in this city…was that we couldn’t really see them flying once they were up because of our vantage point. I think our plan for next year’s fiesta is to sit on top of a hill somewhere to watch them in the air. I’m glad we get to be here to see it twice so we can experience both sides of the event.











Anyone want to make reservations at the Powell Inn for next year’s Fiesta? August 9-12, 2012. Mark your calendar now!

Puppies!

I have had a massive countdown. A countdown until our family is together again. If you've seen facebook lately, you might have noticed the minute by minute reporting which occurred regarding their arrival.

August 10 at 11:09pm:
Amanda: The girls are over Kentucky heading towards Amsterdam & I'm heading to bed before the refresh button on the flight tracker wears out. They should be here by 2pm Texas Time tomorrow.

August 11 at 2:13pm:
Adam: Dogs are in the country. Just need to clear immigration & drive out to see us (we hired a driver -- We're not letting Ginger take the wheel on the wrong side of the road). Just 5 more hours...Amanda may already be sitting by the front door.

August 11 at 6:43pm:
Amanda: Girls have cleared immigration. I'm officially pacing in the house.

August 11 at 9:43pm:
Pictures of their arrival

We feel complete again. Daisy has successfully planted herself behind me in the office chair which gives me just enough to sit on without being on the floor. Ginger has taken to her new water bowl - ears and all. We've taken several short walks around the neighborhood to discover new smells. We've learned we don't like blackberries or at least the bushes they come on.

It's been great having them with us again. I'd forgotten how much I love to hear the jingle of their collars in the morning & how they get so excited when I walk anywhere near their food (how did they figure out where I keep it so quickly??). I may have also forgotten how much they shed - mental note, vacuuming goes up one notch on the weekly chores priority list.

Next up: teaching them to bark British.