the royal wedding

Check out my royal wedding post on the Domestic Goddess's blog here.

Life in the UK: Heaven or Hell?

Among the many happy things about living in England, along with getting a settlement visa, learning to drive, and passing a driving test, in the next few months I also have the great privilege of taking the British Citizenship Test, also known as the Life in the UK Test. Let me just tell you a little bit about this examination. There is a study guide that you can purchase in order to have an idea what questions to expect, the actual test is comprised of 24 questions and must be completed within 45 minutes, you must make an appointment to take it at least 7 days in advance at one of the official testing centers, it costs roughly £34 to take, and once you pass it you then may apply to stay in the country. The test is in English and is done on a computer, so if you don't speak English then sorry, you have to pass a language course to prove that you have learned English before you can take it. All that to say, once you pass the citizenship test you don't even become a citizen. No no no, that's like 5 more years and about as many thousand pounds down the line. And that's probably why so many people just come here illegally and live happily ever after. Anyway, here is a short blurb from the official testing website:

Becoming a British citizen or deciding to settle permanently in this country is an important event in your life. If you are applying for naturalisation as a British citizen or for indefinite leave to remain, you will need to show that you know about life in the UK.

I have underlined the most curious part of that phrase. It's curious because here is a brief sampling of questions on the test:

-How many parliamentary constituencies are there in the UK?

-In which year did women get the right to divorce their husbands?

-In which two places does the European parliament meet?

-What is the number of young people in the UK aged 19 and younger?

-What is the percentage of peoplein the UK who claim to be Muslim?

-How soon is the information from a public census available for public search?

-How many hours per week are children aged 13-16 allowed to work?

-Where is the Scouse dialect spoken?

-Where does Father Christmas come from?

That's right, you probably thought I put that one about Santa Claus in there as a joke, but it is, in fact, one of the 2,000 possible questions you might be asked to show that you know about life in the UK on the 2011 version of the test. What Santa Clause (who last I heard is not even real, what?) has to do with a person's immigration status is completely beyond my comprehension--maybe I don't know as much about life in the UK as I thought I did. Some people might argue that knowing the answers to the above questions would have absolutely no affect whatsoever on my ability to participate fully in this society, and I have to say that I would agree with those people 100%. It makes no sense.

So I've decided to design my very own test, it consists of a few requirements and a few questions. It's a much simpler streamlined version which I think the Queen and also the Home Office should consider using in place of the Citizenship one. Below are a few examples of things a person immigrating to the UK might need to know.

Requirements:

-Can you make and drink milky tea?

-If you are under 25 can you drive at over 75 mph on a one lane road? If you are over 75 can you drive at under 25 mph on a six lane road?

-Can you describe what a combine harvester looks like?


Questions:

-What beverage is consumed more per capita, ale or water? (Ale)

-How far over should 16 year old girls part their hair to one side? (1" above ear)

-What is the nationally recognized proper outfit to wear on a day out in town? (grey tracksuit)

-What type of shoes have laces, are commonly paired with the above outfit and are not associated with any sort of physical activty? (white trainers)

-When is the appropriate time of day to drink a cup of tea? (upon waking up, getting to work, mid-morning, late morning, lunch time, mid afternoon, late afternoon, upon arriving home from work and before bed, and any other time that you come inside from being outside)

-What is football? (Soccer)

-What topic is talked about more, the weather or politics? (the weather)

-If you're in a pub and you order a bowl of chips what are you going to get? (Fries)

-How long does it take your towel to dry after showering and hanging it on the back of the bathroom door? (5-8 days)

-How many different types of rainy days are there? (as many as you are capable of complaining about)

-Which British program is widely considered to cover the most important of life topics, EastEnders or Prime Ministers Questions? (EastEnders)


So there you have it. My version of the Life in the UK test much more appropriately reflects daily life in the UK and is actually based on relevant topics that are reasonably important to know. The official test is more like a boring game of trivial pursuit. For the record, I don't know any of the answers to the first set of questions, obviously. I've been living here for a year and a half without even knowing how many children or muslims there are in this country--insanity!! How have I survived? The only one I do know for sure is the Father Christmas one, which is definitely the North Pole... or is it...

Ye Olde Country Lanes

Welcome to the new Ye Olde series on the Laughing Songbird. I'm calling it a series because I plan on writing posts about many of the endearing and iconic elements that are associated with life in England. Don't get your hopes up too high though; while it is a series I can't promise any kind of regularity in the posts.

I begin today with Ye Olde Country Lanes, for I have a hate hate relationship with them. I have had several unsympathetic responses to some of my earlier posts about the horrors of driving in this country, so here I would like to provide photographic evidence of the perils that exist in real life on English roads on a daily basis.

Consider the photo below. At first glance it appears to be a lovely peaceful little road where there are bound to be serene spots to pull over and enjoy a picnic by a gurgling brook. While that assumption is 100% true, it is also a paved road of death. When approaching blind corners like these it is recommended that you go into the lowest gear possible and inch around the corner at no more than 1/2 mile per hour as you may very well encounter a tractor, an intoxicated farmer in a land rover, a little old lady who cannot physically stop or reverse her car, or worst of all; a foreign driver who doesn't realize cars might be coming in the opposite direction and therefore are driving at 70 mph admiring the scenery. If you have an accident on country lanes such as these it is automatically 50% your fault. No one can be bothered to figure out what really happened, it's simply split down the middle to save time. Best not to get in accidents.

Here you can see my arch nemesis, the dreaded tractor trailer combo. This beast does not reverse, even if another tractor trailer combo is coming in the opposite direction. In fact, that never happens because before they go out they send up smoke signals to alert other tractor drivers to stay off the road for the next 6.5 hours while they drive 2 miles up to the north fields. I heard somewhere that the last time two tractors met both drivers got out and walked away from them just like that, leaving time and rust to deal with the situation. No kidding. So it really stinks when you come upon one because you will be reversing for miles until you reach a lay-by. A lay-by is a passing point, scroll down to see one in real life.

You can pretty much see from this picture how much of the road my little tin can of a car takes up on its own. In the left of the picture is a lay-by. In fact, it is the same lay-by in which I stalled repeatedly in the days before my driving test. To read that story click here.
Below is another hedge lined country road. When they come along with giant beastly tanks to cut the hedges back you have to be careful because it is common to puncture your tires on thorns that have been cut from the hedges and left on the road. If that happens, send a smoke signal as some of these roads aren't driven down for days at a time.

Here is another one of my least favorite combos--the tractor with the thingy that cuts stuff on the back. The thingy that cuts stuff on the back has sharp prongs that stick out and are excellent car scratching mechanisms--you are pretty much guaranteed having to get a new paint job if you pass one of these puppies. As you can see from this picture, we came up to the tractor at an ideal time because it was able to pull into a lay-by and let us pass. And it was extra lucky because there was a gateway on our side of the road so we were able to pass and not have to get a new paint job. I live for magical situations like this.
Here is yet another hideous combo--the tractor with a trailer to carry an optional additional trailer. These are long and slow and are prone to not being able to make it around sharp corners. When that happens you better hope you have a packed lunch with you.
And here is one last photo illustrating the narrowness of these roads. I am super upset because I didn't get a picture of a tractor pulling a trailer loaded with hay bales. Those things are the size of two story houses and sway like a sail boat at sea during a mighty gale. I never got a picture of them because usually when I encounter them I have to reverse home and change my pants--there's no opportunity for picture taking.
**Disclaimer** All of these photos were taken by me while Sam was driving. I don't shoot and drive. Also, these were all taken on one 4 mile trip from our house to Sam's parents'.

so I passed my driving test...

I haven't been making a big deal about this (in blog form) in the past few months because, quite frankly, I couldn't be bothered. It was always such a dumb thing to have to think about. Here is a timeline, however, of my recent UK driving important events (it would be fair to also call these events "incidents"):

March 25-First driving lesson with my instructor who told me that I was obviously an experienced driver but would more than likely fail my driving test.

March 31-Second driving lesson with my instructor, this time in his car, which I stalled immediately upon pulling out of the parking lot and almost crashed into a truck in a roundabout. On this occasion I was close to tears/murder.

April 16-Rescheduled a lesson with my instructor because my mom was visiting and I would have rather eaten horse crap anyway. He told me on this occasion that he did not recommend cancelling any other lessons as I only had 9 weeks until my exam and that he highly doubted one lesson a week would suffice anyway.

April 20-Took and passed the written portion of the driving test and got 50 out of 50 questions correct. Began wondering what the B.F.D. was.

April 21-Had another lesson with my instructor in which I rubbed in his face that I passed the theory test with flying colo[u]rs and was feeling confident. He taught me how to parallel park and then I fired him. He said he was very concerned about my ability to pass as I didn't "demonstrate all of the manerisms the examiners look for." I told him to kiss my bottom basically, but in a nice way.

May 6-Picked up my bro-in-law from the train station and drove him home. He said I didn't make him nervous, which is apparently a big deal for some reason. I felt my confidence rising even more.

June 3-Paid my future children's inheritance when I picked up the car from the shop where it had an inspection which took 6 days becaue the catalytic converter had to be replaced. Drove to my in-laws for a bbq and met a car as I was going up hill on a one lane road. Stalled 6 times and couldn't get the car out of the mud. Screamed as more cars pulled up behind me and I still couldn't get out. Finally thought to reverse down the hill and then go forward, proceeded to my in laws, told Sam it was his fault and then drank a six pack.

June 12-Sam came into town with me to practice my manouvers. Confidence low, frustration high. The big day was quickly approaching...

June 14-THE BIG DAY. Couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, went to the toilet 78 times in 4 hours and then it was finally time to head to the testing center. Met the examiner, he was nice, I did fine except for reversing around a corner which I did very badly, wondered what manerisms I was forgetting to display, and then I PASSED. Easily. Oh happy day! So relieved and feel like it was really the only reasonable option anyway.

Through all of this I have made some observations about the whole learning to drive system here and have some suggestiont to make to Mr. Drivers License Guy:

Reversing around a corner is dangerous, why not just go around the block? Why would you even teach this as an option to new drivers?

Instead of spending hours teaching new drivers to parallel park, reverse into a parking space and reverse around a corner, why not teach them practical things like how to go through a McDonalds drive through, or how to know when you really are about to run out of gas and not to depend solely on the empty light.

Instead of learning how to engage your dipped rear fog lights and how to properly adjust your head rest, teach them to recognize the correct size of coffe cups that will fit in their cup holders. Will a Starbucks Venti fit or will you have to settle for a Grande? This is HIGHLY IMPORTANT. One wrong move and there's coffee everywhere which is much more dangerous than forgetting to check your left hand mirror as you're exiting a roundabout to see if some cyclist is dumb enough to try and pass you.

The correct answer to "How would you top up your battery acid?" and "Where would you put brake fluid?" is acually "Ask my husband" not "With distilled water" and "In the dang brake fluid tank."

It has been proven that it's much safer to drink a large non fat caramel macchiato with whip while driving than to risk not getting enough caffeine in the morning. Making a phone call while driving is, in fact, imperative if that phone call is to remind your husband to stop by the store before it closes because you're out of wine.

Most importantly, they should not mess with people's minds by telling them they don't stand a chance of passing just because they are trying to make more money. I hope that I pass my instructor one day soon so I can engage my full beams and "dazzle" him. I might also show him another one of my favorite manerisms, which is commonly refered to as "the middle finger."

Instructors and examiners have a lot they could learn from me if only they weren't so stuck up. It all seems so obvious doesn't it? But I'm telling you, they just don't get me!

Driving Lessons Part I (of what I hope is a series with not very many parts)

The day I turned 16 was the greatest day of my youth. I went to the DPS to get my license on the morning of my birthday and ever since have thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of being able to drive. Until I moved to England. The first few months of my life here were wrought with traumatizing near death experiences as I learned to drive a manual for the first time on the other side of the car on the other side of the road. And because we live where we do, this often occured on tiny one lane roads surrounded by hedges and blind turns where I suddenly found myself nose to nose with a tractor and had to back up up hill for 3 miles until there was a place wide enough to pass. Needless to say, I often broke down (in the mental sense) and Sam had to take over as I cried and shouted obsenities to no one in particular and cursed my bad luck for falling in love with an adorable English boy.

Because of some strange law in this country, a foreigner is able to drive on their previous license from their mother land for 12 months. By the time those 12 months are up you are expected to have taken and passed a theory test, hazard perception test and a practical test. If you fail to take these tests, or fail the tests themselves, you are demoted to the status of a 17 year old (15 to those of you in the States) which is the age at which you may obtain your provisional license. All that to say, I am now in the process of learning how to drive. I never expected, at the age of 26, to be taking my very first driving lessons with an instructor. And if I don't pass all of this nonsense I will be on a provisional license and wont be able to drive by myself for 6 months. Hahaha. All I can really do is laugh about this because it's too terrible to bear otherwise.

I'll be honest with you, I'm not too worried about the theory test. Having 11 years of driving experience, and 7 months of experience driving here, I pretty much get what you're supposed to do. If a granny is crossing the road you slow down and/or stop. You go the speed limit. You check your mirrors. Duh. It's just the bizarre wording here that scares me. I need to know the difference between zebra, pelican, toucan and puffin crossings--what's the deal with all these references to exotic wildlife in a country where the most exciting native animal is the hedgehog? There are about 1 billion signs to memorize, but again, no big deal, I can do that. It's the actual driving test that I'm worried about. I can't yet say that I'm an expert with a stick shift--but put me in an automatic and I can multitask like no other. I drive about an hour and a half each day to work and back, but I still get nervous at some busier roundabouts and my hill starts could more appropriately be called hill stalls. It's not that bad actually, I'm giving myself a hard time here, but it really is nerve wracking and more than a little shameful that I am once again among the ranks of high school students even though I have never been in an accident or caught speeding in my life.

So it begins tomorrow. My first driving lesson is at 12:30 during my lunch break... wish me luck.

Cockney Rhyming

A couple of weeks ago I promised a post on Cockney Rhyme. Here it is. Basically rhyming slang is where a word is replaced with a rhyming word so frog and toad=road and apples and pears=stairs. No one knows where rhyming slang originally began because variations of it exist in most languages. Rhyming slang is known as Cockney rhyme here in the United Kingdom since it is usually associated with Cockney speech from the East End of London and is believed to date back to the 1840s. Apparently you are a Cockney if you are born within earshot of the Bow Bells, however, the church of Mary-le-Bow was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 so there you go.

As I don't live in London I don't hear an awful lot, but when ever I don't understand what people are talking about I assume they are putting this Cockney Rhyme to use. Some common rhymes:

Ham and cheesey = Easy
Chevy Chase = Face
Uncle Ned = Head
Saucepan Lid = Kid
Chicken and Rice = Nice
Almond Rocks = Socks
Man on the Moon = Spoon
Cain and Able = Table
Bat and Wicket = Ticket
Trouble and Strife = Wife
Donkey's Ears = Years

So you might hear exchanges such as:

-"How was your driving test?" "Ham and cheesey."
-"Where are you going?" "Home to the trouble and strife."
-"Chicken and rice almond rocks" --just kidding, never heard that one before, but it would be funny.

My favorite one by far is Scooby Doo = Clue. Sam uses this one a lot. I ask him a question like "What are you making me for dinner tonight?" and he says, "I haven't got a Scooby."

There you go, Cockney Rhyme in a straw hut kiss and tell.


IN OTHER NEWS:
I have an exciting interview with one of my favorite artists to post in the next few days, so stay tuned for that along with an exclusive tutorial that will rock your world.

Animal-Lovers and Anti-Hunting Activists Avert Your Eyes Please (you have been warned)

It has been established that I live in a strange place the country.  While I love it and have accepted it, there are still things that happen that are alarming.  Take last Saturday night for example:

Sam and I were at the in-laws having a meal and a game of Trivial Pursuit, I'd had a couple glasses of wine, it was the weekend, everything was grand.  I was in a comfortable place, with people I trust laughing and being merry.  Then I had to go to the bathroom.  The downstairs bathroom is through the utility room which is through the kitchen, and I always close the door to the utility room to keep the heat in.  I used to always turn on the light because I'm a huge baby, but when I've had a drink and I'm feeling brave I leave it off and scoot through to the bathroom.  This was where I made a very grave  mistake on Saturday.  I came out of the bathroom when I was finished, and was reaching for the door latch when I grabbed something strange.  Something unusual.  This:

Which was when I started and stumbled forward with my face buried into a "coat" which was actually this:

As I fumbled for the light switch, and when I finally turned it on found myself eye to eye with this:

Which was when my knees buckled and I stifled a scream of terror.  

I'm from Texas y'all, I have accepted that people hunt, it doesn't even bother me that much anymore.  And since being here I have seen my fair share of pheasants hanging out in people's utility rooms/kitchens/front porches.  It was just the last thing I expected to put my face on on Saturday.  Needless to say, Sam and his parents laughed at me.  

Common English Words Defined

This post is inspired by some nasty emails I have received lately, in response to some of my emails, which have been auto "corrected" by my UK version of Outlook. Hence such changes have occurred against my will: labor-->labour, neighbor-->neighbour, color-->colour. Basically, I have some family and friends who have accused me of becoming Englishized and being a poser, or one of those obnoxious American people who try to become Europeans (the audacity), and I hereby say IT'S NOT MY FAULT. I am also here to say that I get made fun of on both sides of the pond. There are a surprising number of words that are not the same--I am trying to speak their language here but sometimes I forget.

A list of commonly used English words that differ from American in alphabetical order (more or less):

Advert--commercial
Biro--ball point pen
Bobby--police officer
Brekkie--breakfast
Estate car--station wagon
Git--scumbag
Grotty--dirty
High Street--shopping area
Hoover--vacuum
Jacket potato--baked potato
Jumper--pullover sweater
Kitchen roll--paper towels
Loo roll--toilet paper
manky-rough, dirty, nasty
minger--someone who is unattractive
Nutter--insane person
One the Piss--drinking heavily
Orientate--orient
Pikey--Irish traveler, aka Gypsie
Ping--email
Plait--braid
Plonker--fool, silly person
Press up--push up
Push chair--forward facing baby carriage
Sellotape--tape
Skint--broke
Snog--kiss
Toff--member of the upper class
Uni--college
Wing mirrors--side mirrors
Wobbly-freak out, have a hissy fit
Wonky--not straight
Yob--young troublemaker

So you see, there are a lot of differnces. Please don't have a wobbly if you get a ping from me with wonky words in it because I'm still trying to orientate myself, and this is not the same English as I learnt at uni, I'm not a plonker innit.

Stay tuned for tomorrows/next weeks post: Cockney Rhyme and Other English Anomalies...

Poo

There's nothing worse than stepping in dog poo.  Except for stepping in cow poo.  Apparently the same rules do not apply to picking up after your cows as they do to picking up after your dog.  But they definitely should.

Speaking of cow poo, when I was at the local college interviewing for a job (that I was not chosen for), I met a history teacher who is a massive fan of the US of A, and who has a rather impressive collection of memorabilia.  Including some "genuine cow patties from Texas."  I don't want to know how he got those through customs.  Or why.  But actually I do want to know why, because there is cow crap everywhere around here.  Hence the first paragraph of this post.

I live in the country ya'll.  

Materialistic Me

Although I appreciate raindrops on roses and brown paper packages tied up with string, they are not actually a few of my favorite things. My favorite things change often, hey I'm a woman. Since it looks like I wont be doing any shopping anytime in the near future (no job=no disposable income) I will celebrate a few of my favorites now, and perhaps they can become favorites for someone else too.

Cheap Mondays from Urban Outfitters. I'd sleep in these.

Positively Radiant moisturizer by Aveeno with SPF 15.

The Helmer by Ikea, one of the best storage solutions out there in my opinion.

Colorful wool socks knitted by my Auntie M., similar to these--I could use like 100 more pairs (hint hint mom).

Wellies:) A must in England.

**disclaimer: these are things that I actually own, except for the socks and Wellies which are similar. I would never promote something I did not truly love. These products have the Bethany guarantee, which doesn't actually mean much in the real world.

Update: Sam just read this and said "I'm not on there."  He also asked if these are things that I want for birthday presents (it's coming up guys, November 16), which just goes to show you that he hasn't noticed that I already have everything I love and desire.  Except for an old yellow Mini with rust spots that doesn't go over 40 mph.  And is automatic.  Or a border collie puppy, but first we'd have to have kids so they can take care of it, but that's totally out of the question.  

Last 5's

Last 5 Books I've Read:

1. The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis deBernieres

2. The Righteous Men by Sam Bournse

3. The Prometheus Deception by Robert Ludlum

4. The Last Time I Saw My Mother by Arlene J Chai

5. The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb 

Last 5 Meals I've Eaten:

1. Chicken tikka masala

2. A southwest risotto (see, I love the stuff)

3. A pork roast with roasted veggies

4. Macaroni made with Gouda cheese and bacon

5. Pizza and Salad

Last 5 Blogs I've Looked at:

1. The Lettered Cottage

2. Black White Yellow

3. Our Nesting Ground

4. Angry Chicken

5.  Barack's Teleprompter's Blog

Last 5 Un-Funny Things:

1. The freezer we got for free defrosting

2. Still not having a job

3. Seeing embarrassing pictures of myself dancing on Facebook (they're mildly funny really)

4. Spilling sour cream all over everything in the fridge

5. Changing a disastrous explosive diaper (I have two more days of nannying)

Last 5 Halloween Costumes:

1. Lucifer (As in Satan, not the cat on Cinderella. And also the sexy female version not so much the scary real thing.)

2. A cat (Not as in Lucifer, the cat from Cinderella, but just an ordinary feline)

3. A gothic ballerina

4. A news agent (News Team ASSEMBLE!!!)

5. A cat (Same as number 2.  It's like the easiest costume.  All you need is ears on a headband.)