Living in London

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One thing we love about our new flat in Hampstead is the feeling of being up high – we have large windows, lots of light, and feel really elevated after the old ground floor flat in Kensington. We have our office in the largest room on the street-side of the flat, and are constantly entertained by outside activities. I have been working at home quite a bit this week as I wait for various service people to call (and wait, and wait, but that’s another post . . .). 

Here’s what I have seen in a six hour window on Thursday:

• A policeman on a horse walking down the centre of the street (heard this before I looked out)
• A man with a broom, a dustbin, a little push cart, and a orange safety vest, sweeping up leaves and debris. They don’t have the concept here of days when you cannot park on certain streets because the street-sweeping machine comes through – or – they they believe in full employment. Not sure which.
• A big scooping machine picking up loose debris from the front driveway of the house next door, which is being completely renovated. The workers haul this debris, one wheelbarrow at a time, from the back yard and the inside, through the house, out onto a low scaffolding, and then dump it into the driveway. 
• A porta-potty being delivered next door.
• So many vans, delivery trucks, and service vehicles on the street that it was gridlocked.  Unfortunately, none of these were delivering anything to us! I am glad we don’t park on the street – looked like some close calls were happening!
• A flat bed truck picking up debris from the second floor flat across the street, also being renovated. (see photo)  (That’s the third floor if you were in the U.S. because the English they start at “ground” not “1.” )  These workers’ method of carting out the debris is via a big bucket they lower by a rope down from the scaffolding. This scaffolding is also how they get into the property in the morning, and how they exit at night. In the U.S. scaffolding would indicate that something is being done to the external of the building, but here, it’s apparently just to support the renovation work being done inside. The debris they lower down is all in office-rubbish-basket-sized plastic bags. These bags are removed from the bucket that was lowered and lined up on the sidewalk, or in the street until the flatbed comes to pick it up.

All this observing makes me glad that I don’t have to do hard manual labour for a living. Some of these guys make a lot less money than I do and they don’t get to live on the first floor in a nice flat in Hampstead.

-LmG

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We are settling into our new digs — leaving the buzz and tourists in Kensington for the northwest borough of Camden, in a neighborhood called Hampstead.  All we know so far is that our tube stop is the deepest in the entire underground system (300 steps up if you don’t take the elevator), and that our new park is called Hampstead Heath.  We are looking forward to exploring our little village-feel high street, and to listening to the wind blow through the trees in our new serene neighborhood.

We are also waiting for the movers eventually fit our sofa through the front door (they are coming back Tuesday). During the move last week, one mover said, “Everything’s bigger in America isn’t it?  Even the moving boxes.”  And I had to admit, as I unpacked 20 wine glasses, that we completely overdo most things in America. In any case, I am glad to be in England, even without a sofa!

We will get photos up soon, so stay tuned!

With my job taking me all over the United Kingdom, Linda and I have grown accustomed to very busy weeks. However, this week is one for the record books.

I travel to Edinburgh, Scotland on Monday, Manchester, England on Tuesday and Berkeley, California on Wednesday — where I will attend an Haas alumni retreat through Saturday.

While I am gone, Linda will be packing our personal belongings in our old flat and moving us to a new flat in Hampstead. Here is the crazy, day-by-day schedule:

Day	Heather	Linda
Monday	Leave at 5:00 AM for flight to Edinburgh Lead staff meeting all day 4:00 PM train from Edinburgh to Manchester	Full day of work Deliver keynote speech to UK Woman's Action Network in the afternoon
Tuesday	Interviewing candidates using the sky boxes at the Manchester United Football Stadium	Full day of work Pick up rental car
Wednesday	Leave at 7:00 AM for Heathrow. 9:50 AM flight to San Francisco	Full day of work 6:00 PM: Inventory new flat in Hampstead and pick up keys
Thursday	Hair cut and shopping in San Francisco	Receive shipping container with US furniture and belongings at new flat in Hampstead
Friday	Haas Alumni Network retreat in Berkeley	Pack belongings at old flat in Kensington and move to new flat in Hampstead
Saturday	Haas Alumni Network retreat in Berkeley 6:50 PM flight for Heathrow	Unpack in new flat
Sunday	Arrive at London Heathrow at 1:00 PM. Unpack our new flat in Hampstead	Pick up Heather at airport and continue unpacking

Now you know why the frequency of our posts can be so sporadic!

We are starting a new category today for words that seem to be common here in the UK but strike our American ears as unusal.

Today's word is nugatory. According to Answers.com it means

1. Of little or no importance; trifling.
2. Having no force; invalid.

Example, from The Observer:

Burke says the time scales are so long as to render nuclear's contribution to climate change by 2020 nugatory. 'If you started today, you would not have a reactor going for 10 years.

Listen to nugatory pronounced here. Of course, the British put the emphasis on the first syllable, rather than the third, as indicated by this pronounciation.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of cheese:

Men race a speeding cheese to the bottom of Cooper's Hill during the annual Cheese Roll in Brockworth, England. The first one down gets to keep the frommage, a seven-pound Double Gloucester. Many contestants suffer bruises, sprains and even broken limbs.

Full details of the event are available at the Cheese Rolling Festival web site.

So, what is the difference between England, Great Britain, the British Isles and the United Kingdom? Sam Hughes over at Sam's Archive has put together a great little Venn Diagram that helps illustrate the difference between the countries and regions that make up the British Isles.

You member Venn Diagrams don't you? They were those confusing circles in high school that had something or other in each circle that was somehow related to the other circle?