iPod

I am posting from my iPod.

Loving Logandale!

The busy old life here in the USA has really got me running around like a chicken with it’s head chopped off! Speaking of headless chickens and chickens with heads, we have got seven of them growing rapidly in the utility room. In time, I would love to see that room turned into a pantry, which would make it a great place to put the chickens. Meanwhile, I am outside these days building a little chicken run onto which I would eventually like to see a proper coop added. IT is a fun project, and it answers a lot of my questions about my own ability to build a structure. While I am first to admit that is neither a heavy structure, nor a free standing one, as it leans against the shed, it is my first structure of any type, and it is coming along swimmingly!

My PC has been crashed due to Windows 7 suddenly deciding that in-spite me buying my netbook with it on, it was not a legal copy. So I have installed Linux in the form of Ubuntu, and am trying it out. So far it is fine, with few exceptions, and I am tempted to put it on the desktop computer for a dual boot system.

The house here in Nevada needs so much work that I hardly know where to go next. Just yesterday we had to fix a broken water line out in the garden near the vegetable patch. It was easy but it did take time that could have been spent doing other things, such as working on the chicken run.

Every day we keep so busy with things that either pop up, or that take priority, and yet there is an ever growing list of other things that need to be done. I do have the smarts though to force things in , such as the chicken run, or the compost bin, so that we are sure to be ready for the things that will be required later.

The compost bin got put up just over the first fence behind the house, in easy reach of the vegetable patch on that side, but also in easy reach of the kitchen from the inner yard. The next trick, of course, is to pile up food and let it rot in there, and put in the requisite amount of horse shit as provided by the horses! Between us people and the horses, we should be able to provide for plenty of compost for the spring garden. More on all of that though at http://www.theprosperingpeasant.com

I see that the last posting on this blog came before we flew to America. Has it really been so long? The trip from Britain went pretty well, even though we had a few moments that we were not sure we were going to make it. There was the delay on the first flight because someone kindly loaded their luggage, but not themselves, and there was the plan that landed just before we finally took off, and left debris of some sort on the runway, either from itself, or from the fire crews that had to attend to it. Then when we got to Paris, we were just not sure we were going to make the connecting flight. We did make it in the end, and that was in spite of security nightmares and everyone under the sun checking closely on our paperwork because of the VISAs we were traveling on. Of course, seeing Greenland from the air for the first time assured me that unless I brush up on my severe weather survival skills just to make a summer afternoon alive! Dying, but alive..!!

The trip over Canada was not inspiring, but once we came into America we were at least excited. I was especially excited when we got over Salt Lake City, and turned around south of the airport in order to come in for a landing. My wife was pretty excited at that part too, but because of the sight of houses out her window more than the thought of finally arriving!

Our first couple of weeks in America were spent in southern Idaho at a house that made out place in Portefields Road look pathetically small. When we finally came to southern Nevada, we warmed up again, and moved and settled into a house that is smaller in ways that the one in Idaho, but is also certainly a nicer and more modern layout. We are determined to make a life here, and to get involved with the community and the living from the land ethos, even though there is hardly a drop of water to do it from. Time will tell you how that goes!

Off to find something to do now, which could only be difficult if I get distracted by something else that needs doing while I am on my way to it!

A Week From Wednesday is Fly-Day, and So Much To Do..!!

There are so many things to do in the next week or so that the mind boggles!  Not the least of these will be a visit with my camera in hand to my beloved Worcester Cathedral for one last day of shooting. 

We have planned a trip the the chemists, a trip to Birmingham, a trip to the cemetery, and a trip to the grocery.  There are documents and papers to scan rather than carry, and there is a box of junk to sort out under the table.  There are batteries to charge, gas and electric meters to top up, and clothes to wash.  There is food that has to be eaten rather than keep ordering out too!  Kids need educating while they are away from school, and there is teenaged angst to deal with, as well as the occasional ‘poopy nappy.’ 

While all of this is going on, there are arrangements to make in order to get to Birmingham airport by 3:30 in the morning, there is the going away party and the clean-up after, and there is the question of the ‘extra’ bag of luggage that we may need for that last bit of extra stuff. 

And there are addresses and address books to update, websites to update, banks to notify, and don’t tell the loan sharks… 

In the mean time, I have built a plan for a new website, and am now ready to adapt the same plans to an old one.  http://www.kelseyphoto.com will be getting a much needed overhaul BEFORE we fly out, and I have laid some of the foundations for http://www.theprosperingpeasant.com so I can get straight to work on it as soon as we land in America!  The two websites will hopefully provide more than a hobby and distraction for me, but an income as well.  That is going to the the hard part, of course, but if I market it right, who knows?  Now for the hard part, content! 

I wonder though, if leaving England will be like Leaving Portefields Road was?  Will it be a moment without emotion, or will something latch onto my heart so strong that it hurts?  Probably the Cathedral, the history, the countryside…  I know that when they search my belongings and check my bags, and when customs clears my boxes of things I have shipped, I will carry more inside me than all of that. 

9 days and counting

Kelsey Bacon

Worcester, England

I’d Love To Say…

…What a wonderful trip to London it was!  Kiry was very good on the train there and back, and the purpose of the trip was fully accomplished, which was to register Kiry as a US Citizen born abroad, and to get her SSN and US Passport.  While I would love to say also that we went around to places like Notting Hill and Buckingham Palace, or anything like that, but we didn’t.  It was nice to walk out of Paddington Station and across to the Embassy and then back again a different route all from what I know in my head of London though!  Love the city! 

We are down to two weeks before we go, and the excitement is starting to build around here!  Katrina is getting eager to get out of the country, and Dylan is ready to get started on his new life!  Jordan is hoping that the doctors will clear him for flight on the 29th with the rest of us, and if we are lucky, he will be.  Kiry really doesn’t know what is going to happen, but she has adjusted well to what has happened so far. 

As for me, I have not yet absorbed the idea that we are really going back yet.  I look forward to Nevada, and to making a home there.  There is so much to do!  The house is going to need a lot of work in order to make it as efficient as possible and to make it so that rather then just providing a shelter, it also provides food, and other needs for us.  I would like very much to live green, but I also want to live practically and in a mode of self-reliance.

At this point we have one more step out of the way, and one thing less to worry about.  Now the passport needs to get here on time!  That, and Jordan make the flight, and we are all set and on our way!  Strangely, it feels a lot like it did when we did not know how the Embassy would rule on our sponsorship forms! 

Nappy Credits

“If you change Kiry’s nappy, I will close up,” she said, just before bedtime. 

“If you change her nappy, I will close up.  I have changed her several times today, including two very poopy ones, and there was that one in the middle of the night last night,” I replied hastily. 

“Okay, if you close up, I’ll change her nappy!” 

It looks like I have earned some Nappy Credits.  All I had to do was a few bad ones, and one in the middle of the night, and I got to get out of one not so bad one before bed this evening.  Hey, hey!  Not bad eh?  I wonder if I am still in missus’ good books though after prying my way out of that one? 

Damp Tile Scent

Being at my mother-in-law’s flat is certainly refreshing and pleasant for so many reasons.  One is the neighbourhood!  The first Sunday I was here I walked from Sainsbury’s to the flat via the alley, a very short walk to the local supermarket, and noticed that there were loads of people out in their front gardens mowing and caring for the grass and flowers.  It was nirvana compared to Tolladine, and felt a bit like I had walked into the life of Ward and June Cleaver.  The kids soon reminded me that this was not the 1950’s, and that they are not representative of Wally and the Beaver!  Getting to know England the way I have, I am cynically positive that this is more like the Stepford Wives than Leave It To Beaver, but that aside, it was a scene I have never seen played out in Tolladine, where the neighbours are more like Sanford and Son meets Fawlty Towers.

Coming into the Flat I feel better than I did at the old house because it is cleaner and very finished.  Mom is always ready in case Her Highness the Queen happens to stop in for a spot of tea.  Well, at least mom won’t be as ashamed of her home as I would have been if the local Council Officer stopped in! 

We never planned on stopping in for very long, so there was no justification in putting money into the place, especially as it is a rental and the money lost could never be recouped.  But under the rental agreements in this country, if we wanted the place to look nice, we have to invest in its decoration from wall coverings to carpets, to light fittings and the garden (yard).  The council only rents the structure in its most basic form; walls, shabby floors, and a roof with electrical fittings and heat.  There is a kitchen and basic toilette, but even a shower is up to the renter.  The one we fitted in the house was torn out after we left!  We decided long ago that it was not worth wasting money in such an arrangement on making the house nice, and as a consequence we lost out on having a home. 

Mom’s house feels much more like a home in so many ways, but nothing more compels this feeling than when I walk into the bathroom first thing in the morning, when all the scents of usage are gone and the tiles are left to fill the air with their odour, and the slight damp that might be resting on them.  It takes me back to one of the two scents that always lingered in my great-grandmother’s bathroom on Leighton Drive in Ventura, California.  Of the two scents, the dominant one was always Irish Springs Soap, which great-grandma used faithfully for as many years as I could remember.  The other matches almost exactly to this tile smell in the bathroom here. 

I am not expert enough to tell you for sure that the smell is damp tiles.  It is not important really what it is, but rather, THAT it is.  The scent takes me back to a place of innocence and youth for me, and identifies itself very much as a home for me.  Strange then that I find something like this to warm my senses to the place I knew before, and the place I am going to now. 

Home is where you make it, and where we go now, we will make it our home and we will chose our favourite things that emanate scents that will remain in the minds of our children as home. 

Settled In For A (Short) While

We are settled into my mother-in-law’s flat for a short while till the date of the flight to America.  Jordan is going to have to travel separately, which is not an easy prospect for us, but it is an inevitable one if we are going to make use of the VISAs we worked hard and paid a lot for.  Worst case scenario is that we have to apply for him all over again, however, hopefully we can get his extended somehow and that will be the end of it.  He should only need a month or so more before he is safe to travel, but it is once again in the hands of the Embassy.  Rats!  Just when I thought the hard part was done for! 

Mom’s place is quite a bit nicer than our house on Portefields was, and it is a lot easier to clean up and keep clean!  We are settled in for a short while, but even as the days roll on, it just seems so far away still!  What to do with these last few weeks?  Things keep filling the days, but watching a pot really does make it feel as though it will never boil! 

Kirynie has been hard pressed to feel settled at all right now.  She is doing better now that everything is not moving in transition, but she is relying on her dummy more, and hanging on my leg so that I cannot get anything done.  I think it is coming time to employ the boys on some babysitting!  Everything has been so confusing for little Miss!  And it is going to go all Kafooey on her again as soon as we get to the end of September!  Strangely, she seems to understand that we are going to fly up in the sky!  I can’t wait to see what she thinks of this!

As for the boys, Jordan is of course in a bit of a longer limbo than Dylan is facing, and they are being as lazy and as hard done my as ever!  Neither one wants to do school work, but Jordan is actually working on it more willingly.  Dylan is the most hard done by, as if moving to a new house and a new country is not enough, he wants to have the best of everything here in the flat, and he wants to do the least to help out.  He is by far the most selfish and the most difficult to get to understand anything, such as why he has to use his own blanket when he sits on the settee rather than assuming the nicest in the house and leaving his for someone else to use. 

Katrina is eager to go, and so am I.  I would like to get moved on and settled in and looking for incomes!  I am also eager to get to work on some things that I have been planning on such as a blog I have all laid out and ready to work on.  I am so eager to finally get this life on pause rolling and no longer, and never ever to be on pause again!  23 Days to go!

One Tough Week

AS you know from my last post, we have got the VISA’s..!!  But then we took off last Friday to get Jordan an MRI on Doctor’s orders, and they found what turned out to be a pretty huge patch of blood on his brain which required immediate surgery!  Ugh!  Can you imagine, “honey, how was your day at work?  We have to rush Jordan up to Birmingham for brain surgery!” 

Jordan was put on priority lists each day, and finally operated on Tuesday afternoon.  A person could be bothered by the delays if not for the fact they were caused by things like babies having emergency surgery to remove brain tumours and the like.  Well, there you go then.  Now it id Friday again and Jordan is finally home.  They want to scan him again on the 24th of September, but he cannot fly with us on the 29th as the results are not even for a week.  The tickets are non-refundable, so I think we will have to look at what options we have there, but we expect he will have to have his VISA extended somehow, and travel out at a later date.  Bummer. 

Meanwhile, I have emptied a house of everything it contained.  I had a load of help from my sister-in-law, and cannot possibly thank her enough for it!  We cleared all of it by working till around three in the morning, then getting up and started again around eight each day, and going again with very little time off for six days in a row.  I started each day tired and ended each even more tired till I was finally so exhausted I could hardly move.  Well, there are a few things left in the house, and a few things left to do, so one more day ought to clear it, if we can get someone with a car to help out.  This would all have been very little if we had a car of our own! 

All in all, this has been one of the hardest weeks to get through in a long time for all of us. 

Now we live at my mother-in-law’s house, and we are still planning to fly on the 29th, albeit without Jordan so he can fully recover first.  We have to see what the Embassy can do to help us extend his VISA.  Trouble is that we have spent so much time and money setting this up and it would be such a waste to not get the stamps in place in the passports in order to complete the immigration! 

For the month ahead, we have a few things to sort out, and we have a time to rest and get ready for the next step in life.  This should be fun! 

“Good To Go!”

On Monday the 9th Kiry, the boys, and I left the house with bags and a large amount of paperwork to get Subway sandwiches and meet Katrina in the city centre.  We caught a train from Worcester Forgate station to London Paddington.  The journey took two and a half hours, and with three kids in tow, it was as much fun as could be expected for two parents who have been going through the VISA process for the past 17 months, and who have poured over paperwork trying to make sure that we got absolutely everything correct to the very best of our ability. 

When we arrived at Paddington Station, the walk to the hotel we had booked was only 2/10ths of a mile out the front door, and to the left on Norfolk Square.  There are many hotels in Norfolk Square, and I can only imagine how similar they may be.  The Hotel Belvedere was not opulent in any way, but what the building lacked in amenities, they staff made up for in courtesy and helpfulness. 

After a brief settling in, we set out on an expedition to see what the walk to the US Embassy was like in route and time to travel.  Of course it required a few unplanned stops, including a Baskin Robins for some Ice Cream. 

As it turned out, the walk was a fairly easy one through Sussex Gardens, down Edgeware Road, past the Odeon and then Marble Arch, and down the East end of Hyde Park till we were at the US Embassy. 

We were stunned along the way when we passed the car dealerships that sell Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, and Harley Davidson right along side each other.  We were also then surprised at the last approach to the Embassy buy just how many Bentley’s we saw parked on the streets, especially after having just seen one for sale used for £154,000. 

After we meandered back to the room, we all played cards till it was time to fall asleep.

Morning brought breakfast, and a walk to the Embassy again, and of course rain.  By the time we were close to the Embassy we decided that we needed to get better covering on Kirynie.  The rain cover for her pushchair has long been missing, so a couple of cheap umbrella’s would have to suffice.  I got one for Kiry, and one for me, as we were the ones who were going to be waiting outside for the duration of the appointment.  We were at the queue in front of the Embassy by 8:30, and when it was time to leave them, I asked the Information Officer, who was being quite friendly and nice about her job as she sorted people into the final queue, where I could go to stay dry.  She pointed up the road in view and said “There’s a Starbucks just up Audley Street on the left.” 

“Of course,” I replied, and several people behind Katrina laughed. 

So Kiry and I went to Starbuck’s and got our wits about us while I very slowly sipped a hot chocolate. Then we made our way to Selfridge’s, which in the Mayfair district is loaded with Jewellery and Godiva on the ground floor.  Technology was in the basement, and before long, so were we.  Now this is where Kiry gets to have some bragging rights because she watched about 10 – 15 minutes of the original Toy Story on a TV costing £32,995.00 (US $51,882.66 at yesterday’s exchange rate.)  At that price, Toy Story has only looked as good when it was on the cinema screen!

I watched a movie that I could not identify on the screen across from Kiry, in which some huge wave wiped out a large portion of the Earth, and the USS John F. Kennedy (aircraft carrier) flipped over on Danny Glover.  The sound was completely quiet, so I could only imagine Danny saying “I’m getting too old for this shit.”  The John Cusack drove a Bentley out the cargo door of an airplane as it crashed onto a glacier in China, as you do.  (An IMDB search reveals that the film I was watching was 2012.)  We walked on and the next thing to catch my attention was a car door with bullet holes all over it and the glass.  So I spoke to Ben, who sells armoured cars and security gear.  I wonder what they would do for the guys who deliver the £33,000.00 TV’s?  We had a good chat for a while, and Ben and Osam were both nice enough as we chatted about a good many things.  Then I decided I had better go check on our progress, and headed back towards the Embassy. 

It was about North Row where I was called out to by Katrina, and then told that she had the paperwork butchered right in front of her, and after watching it gasping and bleeding on the counter, she then went to pay the fees for the interviews, about $1,200.00, and had her debit card rejected due to what apparently is a policy of HSBC, an otherwise decent bank, to refuse anything charged at the US Embassy.  With special permission she was able to take £900 from the cash machine, then met me, and broke down in tears. 

I told her not to worry as we had totally expected to fail this and have to send in paperwork again later anyhow.  She buckled up and charged back into the Embassy.

I saw a lady putting up her umbrella with a bit of exasperation at the rain as it started to spit down again, and made some comment about it, then found myself talking to her for about 30 – 45 minutes.  As it turns out, she used to import art from Russia before her obviously early retirement, and enjoys her time in Central London now as a divorcé, who is sending a daughter to drama school in New York. 

After the daughter came out and a brief explanation of passing circumstances, I sat next to the statue of Dwight David Eisenhower and enjoyed some time with Kiry.  Before long, Katrina and Jordan and Dylan came out smiling smiles that just got bigger as they approached, so I knew.

I told them that the Godiva chocolates I had bought were for a FAILebration (a play on a type of chocolates sold in the UK called “Celebration” which is essentially a variety box of Cadbury’s), but that they’d have to due for a celebration instead. 

We walked back to Paddington and waited for nearly two hours for the next direct to Worcester Shrub Hill.  When we got home, the phone got busy, and the announcements began. 

It is worth a mention that I have got to thank my grandmother, who has helped us immensely over the past 17 months, and even more when she pulled out all stops in the last week to be sure we had loads of documentation we needed, which included her jumping in her car and driving from southern Idaho to southern Nevada and back over a weekend!  If not for her efforts, we would have absolutely had a FAILebration ceremony outside of the US Embassy yesterday!  I love you grandma, and owe you big time! 

Working For A Living

I am working for a living.  That does not mean I am punching a clock while wishing I could punch some guy’s face for clocking in more hours of my life trying to make him money than I get to spend with my family.  On the contrary, I am doing something at home that is a lot of work, and I am doing it for a living, or a life, rather.  The packing is just beginning for me, and I am getting mine sorted first because I expect it to be the easiest part of this move.  I like the things I own, some in particular, but I am not too attached to things since I prepared to move to England and had to rid myself of so much then.  Hours and hours of life are spent in earning money that soon vanishes away on things that in the end are not worth the time spent earning the money to buy them.  So, thankfully, all of the things I own that I want to take with me will fit into two tea chests, and anything that doesn’t gets to fit into a dustbin.  Leaving a country is like dying, and so far, this is the second  time I have seen myself die.  Those who clean up after my eventual demise would do just as well to do the inevitable and pile my stuff into the bin and forget it. 

Despite this view on my personal belongings, making the decisions gets harder as things are whittled down.  After all, the more I throw out, the closer I get to those things that I place a higher value on.  Of course photographic equipment went in first.  There needs to be space for computer gear because the documents I think I will need are stored on drives and not being carried in paper copies.  But what mementos?  What things will signify my life in the UK for the last 8 years?  What will I display on a shelf somewhere to show to others that I was here?  What thing can signify that amount of time?  Alas, only I can sit on that shelf.

They say when you visit a place of natural beauty you should take only photographs and leave only footprints.  But the other side is that the place both takes from you, and leaves something with you.  England has taken time, has taken some of what made me that much more naive, it has taken my breath away, and it has choked me.  It has left me with a wider view of the world, a greater knowledge and understanding, and it has left me with a more open mind to many things.  England has made me a cynic, and an optimist.  In England I have took the hand of a Prince, and I have walked among the graves of Kings.  I have stood atop the walls that defended a nation that would rise to a power never before seen in the world, whose Empire still covers more land on earth than any other in history.  And as the sun never sets on the British Empire, the sun of England should never set in me. 

So what thing among my things should represent that? 

I’ll whittle with the care of Michelangelo, to reveal from the vessel the form within.   

From Worcester,

Kelsey Bacon