UK mags with swag

i am missing UK magazines - they are just awesome.

smaller than their US counterparts, UK mags fit easier into your handbag.

plus, UK mags almost always have a free gift - hand lotion, nailpolish, lippy, chocolate, make-up brushes or a teeny-tiny makeup bag. the kids have their own magazines to boot, there's one for every single out there that a kid could be into: thomas the tank engine, barbie, disney princesses, bob the builder, sesame street, in the night garden, high school musical, et al. and the kid's free gifties are even better - jewelry, train sets, cars, backpacks, crayons, jewelry boxes.

i sometimes found myself buying the magazines just to get the sh-wag.

and sainsbury's had a deal sometimes where you could get 3 mags of your choice for 5#. awesome sauce.

fairy dish soap

especially missing the pink grapefruit mint scent.

how are the some many scents available in the UK? pink grapefruit was even in italy. here in the US, we have like 2, 3 different scents, tops. and one is always lemon, which smells so chemically engineered and frankly, reminds me more of vomit that clean dishes. sure, there is now green apple and lavender but they smell rank.

fairy dish soap in pink grapefruit mint, i really really miss you. please hop across the pond. or someone please be my mule and smuggle a few bottles home for me.

washer/dryer

missing the efficiency of our washing/dryer combo in the tyndalls park road flat - one machine, 2 jobs, less space, less water = awesome

and the lavender persil tablets used to clean our daily loads of laundry

scaffolding

apparently bristol is under constant reconstruction, hence the appearance of scaffolding all over the city. scaffolding went up on the flat we were renting yet we could not discern any type of work or upgrades being done to 29 tyndalls park road.

the scaffolding did put us on constant guard - especially in the AM, when workmen would be milling about our bathroom windows, doing "work". i also feared opening out one of the swivel windows and knocking one of said workmen toppling 4 stories to the parking lot below.

that did not happen.

happy april fool's!

red spanish grapes

from sainsbury's - #1.49 -so fresh, so sweet, so devoid of any pesticides and my kids devoured them like they were candy.

wilkins cider farm

in north somerset.

the location of wilkins cider farm initially scared the american in me because something that out of the way, usually leads to no good here in the states. it usually involves sadistic rednecks who don't just kill you but keep you in their hovels of horror. but i digress.

where was i?

oh, yes. wilkins cider farm. how i wish i could pop down for some fresh cider (sweet was my personal fav) and a pound or so of that awesomely sharp farm made fresh cheddar whilst watching the geese and cows.

primark

i miss your retail offerings: 1# legwarmers, resin rings for 2#, hair goodies for 1#, your range of girls clothing fit me well although i am an adult (i must admit that i am about the size of your average 6th grader), fantastic graphic tees from the guys department for 3#, 6 pack of sock for 2#, cute sequin clutches for 4.89# - i could go on and on and on.

but i am missing you so, primark bristol.

and there is no one like you here. not old navy. not target. not american eagle outfitters, although i love their jeans because they fit shorties like me. not even h & m.

oh, primark - will you ever come stateside?

you can stay at my place.

cola rola balls

were not my particular candy of choice but the hubster really liked their silvery metal balls of cola goodness. i just liked going to cabot circus 3rd floor to score him a bagful.

the clifton

had the best burger, in clifton. yum yum yummer.

oxfam

i miss perfusing your donated offerings and hoping to come upon some lost treasure - like a book, a sea salt scrub, a square squat vase or a smash hits annual from 1983 that my husband loves so much that i got him for christmas.

sniff, sniff.

missing elderberry presses. cannot even describe how deliciously luscious this fizzy drink is.

and i miss you

fairy dish soap.

the pink grapefruit-mint flava.

why do we not have the selection of scents that the UK has? are we not a leading world power? apparently not when it comes to dish soap, my friends.

family parking

to show that family is really a bigger consideration in the UK, most UK retail stores offer "family parking". spots designated for families that are right smack dab in front of the store entrances.

sheer bliss for a mother of twins.

nectar points from sainsburys

i am missing my local sainsbury's. the one on whiteladies road in clifton.

got an email informing me that my earned nectar points were now valid for use at several restaurants. i think i had almost 1200 when we left in january.

what will happen to those unused nectar rewards points? wonder if tim the till guy wonders what happened to me?

i still use my tesco extra bags here with a wistful sigh.

tesco extra

made this amazing baguette that had a sprinkling of sea salt and black pepper. never had anything like it and i am totally jonesing for one right now.

and it was really really good with a splash of olive oil.

movies adverts in b'tol

did not scream at you from the side of the road or from the sides of buildings. in fact, for the entire time we lived in bristol, i had no idea what movies were currently shilling at the cabot circus theatre.

driving was my time and my brain could rest and just focus on the task at hand: not killing any bristolians with my american driving skillz.

the day after we returned from b'tol, i discovered 6 movies that were coming out in the next 2 weeks' time. and each one had it's own giant, behemoth billboard screaming watch me! no, me! watch me NOW!

sensory overload.

missing

the civility of driving in the UK.

i quite liked driving on the left. and roundabouts are my absolute fav. poo-poo stop signs - you make traffic.

half

miss hearing folks say "half six" for six thirty. i've taken to saying it here but los angelenos just don't get that i am talking about time.

open your minds people, open your minds!

ummmmmmmmmmmmmm, jelly doughnut

missing the raspberry jelly filled sugar doughnut from sainsbury's 34p or roughly 60 US cents. buy 2 get 3rd free. made fresh every morning and sold out by lunch.

flash bathroom cleaner

have never ever encountered a bathroom cleaner like the one from flash. simply amazing. spray it on shower mold and mildrew and hours later, return to a nice clean shower. rinse it away and voila! clean clean clean.
plus it smells of clean laundry, not some franken-created industrial cleaning smell.

yorkshire puddings

i am missing your buttery flakiness, yorkshire pudding. a delectable accompaniment to gravy and sunday roasts. and no, a croissant will not suffice.

missing sunday roasts

again. why do we not have this illustrious tradition here in the US? everyone's tummies would be all the happier

rosy lips

acting as a mule, i smuggled back a literal buttload of rosy lips lippy by vaseline because it's THAT good of a product that i figured everyone with 2 X chromosomes would love a little pot.

sadly, gave one to my friend teri AKA TJ the one who coined the term "awesome sauce" and she asked me why i brought her back a travel size tin of vaseline. twice.

sigh.

fire alarm

there had been some work on 27 tyndall's park with scaffolding, workmen and such. repairing what, i can't be sure.

anyways, all this work seems to have touched off the electrical that serves the building fire alarm. or at least that's my explanation to the twins.

it's 5:30 in the am and cold cold cold. the fire alarm goes off and i mean goes OFF - the thing is in the hall and absolutely deafening. after being shot groggily from our bed, i tell joe to get the kids, their coats (hey, it's cold out) and some shoes while i ineptly try to cover said fire alarm with pillow. because it's freaking out the twins and gemma looks as if she's about to cry.

we hustle coats and shoes onto both kids, grab car keys, passports then head out the door and downstairs to wait with all the other residents of 27 tyndalls. i realize that slippers and robes are popular items here in b'tol because everyone is wearing them to the fire alarm get together in the parking lot. i am wearing flip flops and the kids have trainers on. and we have coats. well, the kids mainly. we look like such the americans.

disaster averted. apparently some sort of electrical issue as the fire alarm resets itself and goes silent. although at this point our collective hearing is a bit overwhelmed so we still "hear" the alarm even though there is no more alarm. everyone heads inside to get back to sleep, get ready for work, eat brekkie.

except the twins, who are now too terrified to sleep and have a million questions. i also think this is the moment that propels gemma to get up in the middle of each night and make her way to our bed.

i should sue.

technical difficulties

i've run into some technical difficulties and our internet was down for almost an entire week.

insane, i tell you. whatever did i do BEFORE the internet?

well, i wasn't blogging that's for sure. and i didn't even know that the "e" in email stood for electronic. very sad indeed.

i am back online as they say and i have a few days of missed things in bristol to catch up on:

wednesday: nando's chicken, yes, still
thursday: ciders. a mix of sweet and dry, please
friday: fresh grapes from spain avaiable at sainsbury's
saturday: the abundance of indian food, even in the shops
sunday: sunday roasts

muckross house

so after visiting what was left of muckross abbey, we decided to head over the legendary muckross house and gardens.

they offer tours of the house and said gardens but when you have not one but two 4 year olds, you most likely will miss the last tour of the day. so sadly, i don't have much to tell you, oh wonderful reader, about the muckross house.

i can tell you though that the horse and carriage drivers that offer rides through the gardens were on strike. so no picturesque ride through the muckross gardens to appease aforementioned 4 year olds.

and what was this strike over you ask? health benefits? a raise in pay? better working conditions?

no, no and no.

the strike was over these new fangled contraptions that the horses were now required to wear under their um, rumps, let's just say. this fabric and metal bag fitted under the horse to catch whatever droppings well, might drop. thus saving muckross visitors from getting muck all over their shoes, a fine souvenir to bring home from your journey, i might add.

so the drivers, in all fairness to the horses mind you, were protesting the horse having to wear of such a bag out and about every day.

yeah.

british thing of the day that i am missing

as if i don't have enough to do on a daily basis, i am now going to try to post one british thing per day that i am missing. since i missed the weekend, here are a few more:

- family parking spaces at the mall and grocery store (monday)
- cumberland sausages (sunday)
- yorkshire pudding (saturday)

and just in case i don't get on tomorrow, for tuesday i am missing nando's chicken.

driving across the pond

driving across the pond is so different than driving in the states. obvious difference being that the driver's side is on the right rather than the left therefore one drives on the left.

also, and this lucky for me personally being my first time driving abroad: UK drivers are not road rage maniacs. in fact everyone seems to drive as a community; roads aren't always primo, traffic can be horrendous but hey, we're all in this together, so let's at the very least make everyone's driving experience today a good one. and this itself is AWESOME. no one rides your car's rear end for miles. everyone is fairly patient. no one cuts you off. everyone lets you merge. no one thinks they are entitled to make it through a light blocking oncoming traffic. it's just much more . . . civil.

example: though i learned to drive fairly well in the UK, i could not park for s#!%. don't know why, because it's not my regular car or perhaps the parking spaces are smaller than their US counterparts but nonetheless, parking proved difficult for me. at the sainsbury parking structure it took me 6 attempts to get the nissan note into my chosen parking space. even my 4 year old twins asked me why parking was taking me so long. and since lanes are narrow narrow, i was holding up traffic coming AND going. awesome.

after finally manouerving the car into the free space, i expected an angry mob of cars to drive past me with middle fingers shoved up against windows, profanties shouted through open or even closed windows by irate, red-faced drivers as well as the inevitable driver who likes to give you the long honk that says "you are a terrible driver and have thus ruined my day making me late. you suck".

nope. nada. zip. zilch. zero. not one single honk during the entire 6 tries.

every waiting driver/car drove past with me mouthing 1000 apologies and what i got in return was smiles and "no worries mate. cheers!" me: absolutely flabbergasted. because back in the states, every single one of those drivers who i held up with my awful parking skillz would have stopped, rolled down their window and given me a profanity laden tirade until they felt that i had sufficiently "paid" for wasting their precious time. then i would have been given the finger as they sped up and i ate dust. oh, you americans can learn something from this!

signage is also awesome on the UK motorways. enormous signs with even more humongous lettering letting you know a more calm traffic configuration lies ahead, that there are lanes merging from your left, that the motorway is shrinking to 2 lanes instead of 3, so sorry that, that your exit is coming up in 3 hatch marks, and that the rest stop ahead has a costa coffee.
their signage is so fantastic, i now wish i had the foresight to have documented some of the awesome, HUGE motorway signs i saw for your edification.

also, apolozies will abound when there are road improvements being made. i mean it really. the sign will actually say "sorry for the inconvenience". in the states, drivers are lucky to even be informed that there is some sort of road work going on ahead, delaying the drive in to work, school or wherever. usually, we're just in the dark on such matters, cursing all traffic ahead of us.

i left bristol (or b'tol as i have come to refer my adopted city. a name purloined from the M4 turnoff) with a clean driving record: no tickets, no pedestrian, biker or pet deaths, no popped left side tires, no left side of the car scrapes and no angry mob of bristolians cursing my awful driving skillz.

muckross abbey is flooded

no, muckross is not a condition or affliction but an abbey, house and gardens in killarney, ireland.

before our visit to ireland, the southern region was just hammered with massive rainfall. many rivers, streams and whatnot flooding over, submerging a good deal of the irish countryside in a watery crypt. despite my fears of dying a watery death, we decided to proceed south to check out muckross anyways.

the road to muckross abbey was met with water all the way to road level with just the tops of the trees visible under i don't know how many feet of water. we parked the car on what we hoped was dry land or at least dry land until we could return to said rental car.

with much trepidation (at least on my part), we approached the abbey, which was now closed for the season (see previous post regarding how things close for the "season" over here), which seemed to be surrounded by what seemed to an unusually large amount of water that was constantly lapping up onto the shore and taking with it little pebbles back into it's depths.

showing no fear whatsoever (ah, the youth) the peanuts climbed on the abbey's ruins and watched various dogs scope the now flooded area out as well as leave "messages" for other passing pooches. all i could worry about was when the tide was coming in and would it engulf us all. see? my watery death thing is kinda constant, especially in an area that is just, in my opinion, swimming in ALOT of water.
luckily, we also wanted to check out the muckross house, so our watery visit to the abbey was quite short (phew).

note: we returned to the semi-submeged parking lot and the rental car was fine. as we drove off to the safety of muckross house, i couldn't help but think, geez babe, could you just drive a little bit faster? i mean if i were my husband, i would have hightailed it out of there a tad faster as you can never predict what water is going to do. better to be safe and dry than wet and sorry.

just sayin'.

also missing

so there are a few more products i am missing from our stint over in b'tol:
- flash bathroom cleaner - smells like fresh laundry & does an unbelievable job on shower muck
- fairy dish soap - in the pink grapefruit & mint combination. prompts the question: why do all the dish soaps in the US smell so awful when the dish soaps abroad (UK, italy & france) smell so amazingly awesome?
- molton brown lipsheers - especially the snapdragon color. bonnie knows what i mean
- vaseline rosy lips - awesome lippy with just the right amount of pink plus supa dupa moisturizing. waaaaaaaaaaaaay better than the rosebud stuff from sephora
- hotel chocolate - really need i say more?
- leg warmers
- arm warmers
- small portions of foodstuffs, like cucumbers and mayonnaise because, really do i need an irrationally large tub of mayo?

the peanuts do torc waterfall, ireland

torc waterfall

curly wurly update

those delicious braided caramel and chocolate bars of goodness, AKA curly wurly, are now available stateside.

apparently in my absence, the kraft corporation (KFT for those of you versed in the stock market), known the world over for it's fine cheese products, acquired the cadbury chocolate (CBY).

on the upside, more cadbury products will be available for the american masses to consume, giving hershery's a real run for it's money. cadbury offerings, including my beloved curly wurly bar which has been spotted in the san francisco area as well as nearby santa monica.

yum.

the cliffs of moher

one winding, confusing, foggy 2 hour drive later, we arrive at the cliffs of moher. it's only about 3:30pm and we are already losing what small shaft of sunlight we were rationed for the day.

we hustle everyone out of the car and into coats, gloves and hats and make a mad dash for th cliffs.

apparently, both the cliffs of moher gift shoppe and cafe have decided to let the sun dictate the hours of business and since the sun is shuttin' it down, both venues are following suit. so the hot chocolate i envisioned myself holding while walking and admiring the cliffs will not come to fruitition. there will be no warm hands either on this particular visit to the cliffs.

the cliffs are breathtaking. they rise up out of the atlantic out of nowhere. astounishing. amazing. absolute gorgeousness. mother nature rocks.

a word about b & bs

so apparently, if you have an extra room in your house in ireland, the business to go into is b & b's. which for the uninitiated, are bed and breakfasts.

by the number of bed and breakfast accommodations we spied on any and all outings in ireland, every house seems to have a sign out front, declaring it a b & b. and i mean, every house on the block. perhaps the o'leary, mulligan and gallagher kids all went off to university this year and now their parents are renting those kids' rooms to tourists on their way to visit the cliffs of moher.

dillion's pub, somewhere on the way to the cliffs of moher

so having abandoned bunratty castle in record time, we are now on to our next destination: the stunning cliffs of moher. not the comedian either.

but there are tummies grumblin', which means it's time for lunch. and we, of course are in the middle of nowhere and have no idea where or what would be a good stop for food.

we come across this little town with 2 pubs, a convenience store and a parking lot.

the first pub has a menu completely in gaelic so we move on to the next place, across the (tiny) street, called dillon's.

dillon's is absolutely jumping for a saturday afternoon. the pub across the street looks very sad and lonely by comparison. i think the entirely-in-gaelic menu probably can account for some of that. we have had relatively good luck with pub food so we decide that dillon's pub is the pub for us. plus the dillon's pub menu is in english. a definite plus.

we discover that dillon's pub is so lively today because they are hosting a wake. i hope my wake is a joyous and fun filled as this recently deceased folk's. despite the filled to the brimness that is dillon's pub, the staff is so accomodating and a group of men clear their table so we can sit and eat. this would never happen in LA. i tried to share a table to with a thinning haired guy at starbuck's recently who said that he needed the entire table for some, ahem, meeting and despite there being 1 extra chair, said that sharing was out of the question. so i cursed his meeting and hoped that success would continue to elude him. but that's another story for another day. we're in ireland!

pub menus tend to be on the small side as far as range of eats offerings and we see the dillon's is no different. but today they have a roast special, fish and chips and a soup du jour. all of which sound perfect for this cold irish day. i get the amazing fish and chips while joe opts for the roast special which consists of 4 large slices of beef, mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, some cooked carrots, gravy and bread. all of our food arrives pipingly hot and is just about the most delish meal we've had. the kids have chicken fingers (of course) with chips (those are french fries to you and me) with mini-sausages, which are disdainfully tossed aside by my children but lucky for us because they are damn good.

bellies afull with irish pub goodness, we waddle back to the parking lot across the street to continue our road trip to the cliffs of moher.

bunratty castle is . . . a castle

so picking up right where i left off, ireland.

ireland is beyond green. they don't call it the emerald isle for nothin'. the green and the fog seem to go on forever.

so it's now saturday. we're in ireland. with 2 four year olds who could care less about castles, abbeys, guinness or the absolute greenness of ireland. so we decide to head out to a castle. we spotted bunratty castle on the drive from the airport and it's literally 2 miles from our hotel. perfect. so off we go.

we, unfortunately, forget that dignan is claustrophobic and that gemma does not like to walk flat surfaces, hills, stairs or anything these days. we get a quick scope of the place but gemma refuses to let either of us go on the castle tour. i think she may be just tired from the strenuous one hour flight over from b'tol but hearing that girl whine and cry does not a vacation make. so bunratty castle, despite it's glorious irish history, is a bust for the strassers. except for the bunratty castle gift shop, which my children seem to love because it's filled to the hilt with every irish tchotchke one can imagine. and they want one, if not 2 of everything in there. of course.

one score from the bunratty castle gift shoppe, would be the guinness caramel filled dark chocolate bar, because i haven't waxed poetic about chocolate enough lately. hershey bar thin, this boasts 0.2% genuine guinness goodness in every bar. not to mention caramel and dark chocolate. delish but a little skimpy on the caramel and not much, if any, beer taste at all. we were hoping to knock the little ones out as we plan to drive to the cliffs of moher, which are about 2 hours away by car. so no luck on that. probably enough sugar content in the pieces we gave them to cancel out any alcohol effects the chocolate may have had. which means they are tired and wired - an awesome combination for a road trip if i ever heard one.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

since we were in paris right before heading home for california, we didn't get the chance to wish everyone a happy 2010!

2010 sounds so futuristic, even back here in the states. i hope i am right in thinking it's 2010 and it's not really 2007 or something mundane like that.

missing b'tol

and cumberland sausages, sainsbury's dark chocolate bars, sunday roasts, crisp clean air, chicken tikka masala, farm fresh cider, farm fresh cheese and red seedless grapes from spain. and now that i am driving here again, i really do like driving on the left and roundabouts. plus drivers here are awful. as in manners, that is.

no curly wurlys you ask? didn't you love those, shellaine? why yes, i did. so much in fact, i brought back 10 of those babies and are rationing them out on a weekly basis. so i am not missing those.

yet.

so

um, we're home. yup, we're back stateside these days.

but guess what? the blogness continues! because i did not get to blog about everything in real time, i am going to be blogging about everything that happened with the foresight of hindsight. or something to that effect.

i promise to try to keep it entertaining. and today, i downloaded all the pics off our camera, so you have that to look forward to even if you don't want to read my commentary on everything, there will be pretty pictures to look at.

ooooh. aaaah.