Winter Is Here

Winter is definitely here now, even though the official date on the calendar hasn’t arrived yet. This morning we woke up to a frosty world outside. The grass had a layer of frost over it and the trees and bushes were iced up also. Here’s a photo of a bush at the edge of our yard. The spider web was frosted over. It looks kinda cool.



Now most of the frost has melted and the sun is shining. As the frost melted off of the fence out back earlier, there was steam rising up from it, like the fence was on fire. Nature is an amazing thing.

Another by-product of winter, and a sign to me that winter has checked in, is the effect on my hands. For the last couple of years, my sensitive little Georgia skin ;-) has been trying to get used to the colder weather here and I think that the cold has been winning the battle :-) But bit by bit, I’m acclimatizing to the much colder weather, but it is taking me a while :-)

I’m gonna share a photo here that shows what my hands are looking like today. I hit a definite point last night when the skin on one of my fingers split open while I was just sitting here watching television and it bled on my shirt. Eek!!! :-) My hands are so raw and sore right now. I have got to start on an intensive hand care treatment pronto.




As you can see, my hands look parched and a bit scary. I decided to put on one of my rings to save you all from the full brunt of my prickliness. LOL. My wannabee fashionista inside decided to spruce up the photo a bit to spare you. LOL.

My hands don’t usually look this way. I usually moisturize, but now I’m gonna have to ramp it up big time. Wish me luck… :-) Hello Winter!

Pizza, The Moon, and EVPs

I didn’t know what to do with myself when I woke up on Saturday morning and didn’t have to get dressed to go to the acupuncturist. I was accustomed to getting up out of bed and getting into town by my appointment time. There hadn’t been that many Saturday lie-ins for me or Brit Boy lately. So I woke up at 9am and sat up to look at the clock. I thought that I had overslept. Then a few seconds later it dawned on me that I was taking a break from acupuncture. So I flopped back down on my pillow. It is funny how something can become a habit so quickly in life. Brit Boy was already up and he was downstairs studying in his pajamas. He is racing towards a deadline with his work, so he got up earlier. I stretched out over the whole bed for a few minutes to luxuriate in having it all to myself. Don’t get me wrong. I love being married to Brit Boy and having a bed buddy, but it’s also fun to hog all of the bed for yourself sometimes. (smile) Although a bed alone on a cold winter’s night is not ideal. It is just fun sometimes to play with having a choice. (smile) And I wouldn’t trade my cute bed buddy husband for anything in the world.

After I got out of bed, we just hung out around home. I made some breakfast while Brit Boy studied. The weather has been rather windy and overcast here lately. So it was great when the sun came out at the end of the day. I was so excited that I decided to document it and save it for later.(smile) Here is a photo that I took of the lovely blue sky. I was leaning back on our bed as I took it. It was a beautiful end to the day.



We were running kind of low on groceries, so we splurged and had a pizza delivered. We did our bit to support the local economy of our village and ordered from a place on the High Street here. It’s a little independent shop and the pizza is quite good. We ordered their version of a Mediterranean pizza and it was really tasty. In the past we used to order from them quite often, but we have pulled back from that to save money and besides I love to cook. Of course I hate to wash the dishes, but that’s a story for another day. (laugh) Anyway, they used to know us so well that when we told them which address to deliver it to, they would finish our sentence for us. (laugh) This time though, they had to be actually told the full address, so I think we are definitely on a more frugal track now. (smile)

To finish off the night, I watched this show about paranormal phenomena. I have become a bit obsessed with shows like this lately. There are so many of them on TV nowadays. I joked to Brit Boy that I know I must be watching too many because one of the ladies whipped out a piece of equipment and I immediately said, “Oh, that’s her EVP.” (smile) An EVP for those who aren’t into this stuff is an electronic voice phenomena recorder. It is supposed to pick up the voices of ghosts. As I have written before, I love creepy movies and all things Vincent Price, so I guess that shows like this are fun for me to watch sometimes. It makes for a great night in.

After my shows ended, I went downstairs to take a look out our back window. We have a big window that shows our back yard/garden and there is a glass door next to that. So you can get a great view of things. I was soon joined by Brit Boy. I have this lifelong love affair with the moon and I have brought Brit Boy along for the ride. He enjoys looking at it with me too. The moon was full here on Friday night, but it was cloudy. So I went to see if anything was visible. Brit Boy and I were not disappointed. The moon was big and fat and luminous with a scattering of clouds shielding it at intervals. I love the full moon when there are no clouds, but I think that I love it more when there is just a hint of cloud to add some mystery.

Watching the moon always makes me think of my parents. Whenever I was outside following my daddy around the garden at the end of a summer’s day and the moon was just showing itself, I would love it. I would tell my daddy that I wanted to bite a piece out of the moon. He would humor me and say, “Yeah, I guess it does look like cheese.” And I was very fond of going outside to see it as I grew up and would sometimes drive further down into the countryside to get a clearer look and my mom would always come along for the ride. She never liked missing a ride. (smile) Those calm, sweet moments that I remember with my parents always carry me through when I am missing them. (smile)

Today, we had a grocery delivery just in time. We were getting rather low. We had one more coupon that we could use to get free delivery. So since the truck is always out our way, we figured that our groceries could catch a ride along with everyone else’s. (smile) I do like that about living here that you can get groceries delivered from most of the supermarkets even if you live a ways out of town. Maybe things have changed back home since I was there, but when I was back in my part of Georgia, we didn’t have this service. It is a great idea though. It saves time and gas.

Now the day is coming to an end and I am going to go and watch my other favorite kind of TV show…mysteries. They make a lot of mystery type shows here in England that I love to watch. I love the whole whodunit thing and also they are usually filmed in some lovely villages across the country. The program started a few minutes ago and I have been typing this during the commercials, but now I am going to give it my proper attention. Later, I may take a look outside to see if there are any other interesting things twinkling in the sky tonight. And hopefully my bed buddy will come too.

The Weekend and Scary Fun

This past weekend was beautifully normal and quiet, which was good. It is great to get a breather sometimes. On Saturday, I went into town to have my last acupuncture appointment for a while. My back has been steadily improving, so I am going to stop the appointments for now. I am feeling pretty great. Also we need to cut back on things financially, especially since we are trying to rebound from our addiction to concerts. (laugh) I am doing fine though, so it’s all good.

I realized that it was nearly a year to the day that I first started on my journey with acupuncture. The first day that I walked in there, I was hardly walking at all. Brit Boy and I had a car accident at the end of 2006 and I was increasingly walking slower and slower, with lots of pain. I sought out traditional treatments also, but it took me a while to get in to see someone sadly, so things sort of deteriorated quickly. Thankfully I finally got in to see a physical therapist and I saw a chiropractor for a while. I was in the middle of my waiting around to be seen by someone and just happened to be peering into the window of the acupuncture shop. Karen approached me and I must say, I am grateful that she did. I shuffled into her shop a year ago, with not much hope that I would ever be myself again, and on this past Saturday, I walked out of there with a stronger back, a stronger spirit, a stronger body, and a new friend. I will definitely be dropping by there every time I am in town. As an expat you learn that you have to pull in every opportunity for friendship with open arms. (smile) I told her that I will drop by and pick up some advice from her on taking care of myself, so she will still see my face around there.

Karen didn’t do the actual placing of the needles, because Ta did that, but Karen offered a valuable piece of the healing too. She offered me the kind words that I craved when I was having such bouts of loneliness here, coupled with physical pain, and the only person I knew here was my Brit Boy. We shared stories of what life is like when you are trying to make a life in a new country. And sometimes, she was just a knowledgeable friend who helped me forget my worries. When I left her shop on Saturday, I hugged her. It felt so natural and she hugged me back. It wasn’t a shop owner and a patron hugging, it was simply two friends being friends. (smile)

After I left Karen’s acupuncture shop and found Brit Boy, we did our errands. They were having an Italian Market this weekend. A few months ago, they had a French Market where I sampled the French prawnies, but this time I didn’t get anything. The weather was a lot better for this market in comparison to the French one. During the French Market, it was freezing cold, but during the market on Saturday the weather was okay. I love these markets though, because they bring a bit of the tastes of continental Europe to our neck of the woods and it brings nice variety.

As we traveled home from town later, we came the back way home and it takes us through some of the most beautiful Wiltshire countryside. We could see that there was a storm brewing and it seemed to be following us home to our little village. I looked off into the distance, across the valley and I saw a huge black cloud hanging over town. It was an awesome sight to see the rain coming down back where we had come from, miles away, and we were riding along in partial sunshine. It was one of those beautiful nature moments that I love. The minute that we walked into our house, the rain did eventually find us too. (smile)

One of my favorite things to do on a rainy weekend afternoon, is to watch old movies. I grew up watching these and they still always satisfy. I love modern movies too, but there is just something about a movie from times gone by. Brit Boy was on the computer, so I had movie time to myself. I watched “High Society” with Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, and Bing Crosby. It was great. Grace Kelly had a fabulous wardrobe in that film…classic. Then I watched “The Last Time I Saw Paris” with Van Johnson, Elizabeth Taylor, and Donna Reed. I loved the fashions in this one too and it was set in Paris, so it definitely satisfied. Elizabeth Taylor was ravishing in this movie. She was at her absolute beauty peak in this movie. She looked beautiful in every outfit, but my favorite was her in this beautiful jet black gown. Her hair was cut short into a pixie cut at this point in the movie and she wore these beautiful diamond earrings. The sparkle of the earrings next to her jet black hair, all together with her gown, just made for a striking image. After all of the talk of fashion, I have to say, the movie was actually a very emotional one, with problems of drinking, marital problems, and jealousy. I really enjoyed both movies. It made for a wonderful afternoon.

On Sunday, I watched “The Bat” which was a great spooky movie starring Vincent Price. He was one of my favorites. I absolutely love spooky movies, so he is “the man” of horror for me and I’m sure many others. (smile) This movie was very campy, but I love a good helping of campiness every once in a while. It makes me think that it was probably a great movie to see during the era of drive-in movies. Love that Vincent Price! (smile) Some of my best Friday night movie nights are all owed to him.