Apparently I’m Scottish

 

 

In my time in the UK, I’ve come across so many things that have delighted me, met wonderful people and – I have to admit – have been confused more than once.

I started doing things on my own in small steps. Walking to the grocery store was step one, which proved to be one of the easier tasks, since it’s on the same road I live on. But once inside, to pick up four or five items takes me a good twenty minutes – minimum.  For several reasons. I have decided to start a campaign to have companies espouse the need to label their items the same – worldwide – AND under the same name. In my efforts to clean ALL the things (see my previous blog post), I decided that I needed Vim, which I use in the kitchen and bathroom on a regular basis. I spent (if my iPod can be trusted), 17 minutes perusing the household items aisle (which is the middle aisle at our local Tesco’s) to discover that the company that makes Vim makes the product Cif – the same thing.

The first time I had to buy toilet paper, Andy put it on the list and I stared blankly at him.

“What’s toilet roll?” I asked.

“Toilet roll…you know, toilet roll!” he answered.

“Oh – toilet paper – right?” I clarified.

“Right, toilet roll!”, he answered patiently.

I found the aisle easily enough, and was slightly alarmed. Not only was there the regular variety of thickness, size of the roll and brand, but they were arranged by colour. I vaguely remember my mom, when I was a child, telling me the health risks associated with coloured toilet paper and how it was no longer sold in Canada. The last time I had seen coloured toilet paper was in the late Eighties, in my Grandmother’s house. Confused, in the way of impatient shoppers and slightly colour-blind from the lights (this is the story I’ve decided to go with), I quickly settled on yellow (actually, it was called Canary, I discovered when I got home) and moved on.

Returning home, Andy only had two things to say.

“Wow – luxury toilet roll! Wait – Michelle, it’s yellow!”

“It was on sale!” (Was the only answer I could think of. Coincidentally, it was).

Beyond brand confusion, and the fact that there are many items that aren’t sold in the UK that ARE in Canada, I have gotten somewhat used to navigating the stores. I still run into people. Literally. I also have started forming long lines behind me because I have summoned up the courage to try and start paying with change. In Canada, we have pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, Loonies and Toonies. Here, they have pennies, 2 pence, 5 pence, 10 pence, 20 pence, 50 pence, one pound and two pound coins. I have stuck out my hand, full of these foreign coins on more than one occasion to the frustrated cashier to have them easily pick out the change I need to pay for my items. I felt vindicated when I was at the post office – the kind gentleman who served me not only waited patiently, but cheered with me when I did it on my own. I had a sense of deja-vu, until I realized it was because I had reverted to 6 year-old Michelle who just learned how to make a dollar with a handful of change in Grade One while pretending to buy groceries. The groceries were plastic apples and bananas and “imaginary” eggs in someone’s kindly donated empty egg-carton. Who says we can’t go back to our childhood? I may take a nap, purely for nostalgia’s sake.

With the nature of Andy’s job, he occasionally has to make short trips away, and took his first one last week. The day he was due to return was my cleaning day. I got up, put some laundry on, cleaned the house and finished making my grocery list. It was more extensive than usual, so I took a few re-usable bags with me (they aren’t just for packing/moving anymore!) and a backpack and trekked downtown. I was feeling confident and completely able to do this on my own. I decided I needed a cart instead of my original basket. I also realized that I had no clue how much money I needed to insert to free up a cart. Apparently, asking how much I need for a cart was like asking what the bright thing in the sky was. The first woman laughed at me, the second was excessively sarcastic. It only took me another two and a half minutes to find the one pound coin. I guess I still need practice assimilating.

 An hour later (I had at LEAST ten items on my list, making my shopping trip longer than usual), I made the walk back up the hill home. Most days, this gentle incline could barely be called a hill – with a backpack full of canned pop, V8, juice, carrots, potatoes, and carrying a full bag on my arm – it was like ascending from basecamp to the summit of Everest. My decision to wear only a sweatshirt instead of a jacket was a wise one. I slowly put one foot in front of the other, beads of sweat slowly forming on my forehead and back, while people wearing toques, mittens, scarves and parkas walked by me thinking I was the crazy one for dressing in so little outerwear. The temperature was about 7 degrees.

The weather has been incredible. Walking outside with just a sweater on in the middle of January with neither boots nor mittens has been confusing. I had slowly been acclimatizing myself to the impending cold season in Canada before I left. My body was getting used to the colder temperatures, snow and freezing rain that comes with every winter in Ottawa. The day I left Ottawa it was -29 with the windchill. One particularly sunny day, Andy and I took a walk to do our shopping in a different part of Chelmsford. I reached for his hand.

“Andy, your hand is freezing.”

“I know. Give me yours. I’m convinced there is something seriously wrong with you. You have the warmest hands when we’re outside, yet you’re always freezing inside,” was his answer.

The flat is kept at a very reasonable 18 degrees. Not too hot, not too cold, but I have never believed in wearing socks. Stop moving, and your blood doesn’t circulate the same way. So I get cold indoors, and when I start walking outside, I’m warm and toasty. It’s a simple science.

One night, when walking from the train to home, the temperature hovered around zero. I walked along, warm, and marveling at how mild it was. Andy walked beside me, teeth chattering, fingers frozen and wasting no time in getting home. I guess some of us just aren’t cut out for the cold.

And Andy isn’t the only person who gets cold. Friday was drizzly and a little cooler, and I decided to walk down to the corner store. While making my purchase (I was the only one not wearing a coat), the shopkeeper was eyeing me suspiciously while I was talking to someone in line. He engaged me in conversation, and asked outright, “what part of Scotland are you from?”

“Scotland?” I asked, confused.

“Yeah, you were talking about the weather outside, and the only people here who dress like that and find this bearable are the Scottish,” he reasoned.

I narrowed my eyes and looked at him closely. I was wearing a sweater with “Canada” emblazoned on the front, and he had heard me speak for almost five minutes.

“I’m from Canada,” I said plainly, emphasizing the word Canada for added effect.

“Ah, you sounded Scottish,” was his answer.

To be perfectly honest, I’d rather be mistaken for being Scottish than American. I have, in a fashion, gotten used to being here, and forget I sound different from others around me. But quite frequently, I have people ask me where I’m from, “in America”. Andy always gives the offender a very sympathetic look for asking me such a question (knowing that I am about to embark on an epic diatribe), as I describe why it’s as offensive for me to be called American as it is for an Englishman to be mistaken as Irish. There is nothing wrong with either nationality, but I’m Canadian.

Feeling especially silly this afternoon, Andy and I were talking about ridiculous songs, so in tribute to my country, I played him Stompin’ Tom’s “Goodbye Rubberhead”.

“What the hell is this?” he said between spurts of laughter.

“It’s Stompin’ Tom! He’s such an icon of Canada, that maple syrup runs through his veins!” I announced.

I have been asked by friends and my own mother if I’ll adopt a British accent. Although I’ve picked up several words I wouldn’t have used before coming over to the UK, I don’t think I’ll ever sound English. I miss (occasionally) the snow, the wide roads, seeing a snowmobile at the gas pumps when filling up my car and seeing a hockey game on when I go to a pub. One thing I know for certain is that I am neither American OR Scottish. How aboot that, eh?

 

 

 

How is it REALLY going?

 

It’s been awhile since I’ve made a blog post, and I have several drafts that are neatly tucked away for when inspiration strikes and I can finally finish them. They are like the books I keep by the side of my bed – all have been started, and I have the best of intentions when it comes to finishing them, but like a toddler, I’m very easily distracted by shiny things. Now that Christmas is over and I’ve toasted in another new year, I’m ready to settle down and get back to writing regularly again. Unless I’m hopelessly struck by a case of writer’s block…or something else temporarily distracts me.

 

I posted about love and distraction and all the things happening in my life last time I seriously sat down at my laptop and hammered out an entry for my “blag” (if you don’t get that reference, I highly suggest wasting 15 hours or so flipping through the comics on the xkcd.com website).  Cynical Michelle took a sabbatical (not sure if/when she will return…sorry, Mark) and lovesick, annoying Michelle took the reins and started making mix CDs and crying over fabric softener commercials. True story.

 

So many people looked at me knowingly and wistfully and told me to enjoy this phase of the new relationship because it was only a matter of time before leaving the toilet seat up or flatulence would no longer be cute anymore, and really start to annoy me. (Cue Cynical Michelle). We have all heard the term “Honeymoon Stage” and I researched it before writing this post. I won’t bore you with the details, but I dutifully turned to Wikipedia for an answer : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeymoon. According to the person who wrote this article, these feelings fueled by oxytocin should start to wane in about a month. This is good news, since I really DO want to finish my stack of books and get on with my list of “Thirty Things to do Before I Turn Thirty”.

 

After finally packing and getting organized for my move to England, I made the trip over here about two weeks ago and even managed to unpack my bags the day after landing. There will be a follow-up post to this, as my tales of how I decided what to bring and how I managed to sort it all out and pack it are kind of…well…epic. A few days after moving in, I did what every conscientious and slightly neurotic woman would do. I cleaned. The entire apartment. The first day Andy went to London, I fairly cackled with glee at having him out from underfoot and being able to finally scrub every surface in the flat. I started my cleaning session the way I start everything – by turning up the music and wasting about an hour on the internet before getting the courage energy to tackle a living space that has been cleaned solely by a man.

 

Now before I continue, I have to preface this with giving Andy credit. For a man, he’s tidy. Everything is pretty much put away, he stays on top of the dishes and he knows how to iron. Last time I visited, I didn’t pay close attention to how clean everything was. We were busy, out of the flat quite a bit, and I was on vacation! Before the cleaning day I’m referencing above, I noticed the corners in the bathroom were creating armies of hair/dust bunnies.

 

“Andy – look at the floor!”

 

“What? I Hoovered it!”

 

“When?”

 

At this point Andy paused and asked me, “When did my parents stay with me?”

 

“Um…November.”

 

Keeping in mind that this is a conversation we had a week ago, and it is now January, we couldn’t keep a straight face. After watching me tidy up, he knew no answer would be the right one, and I *think* I rolled my eyes. I shouldn’t have been surprised. This is the same person that thinks making the bed means pulling the comforter up over the pillows. Done. I didn’t have the heart to tell him when he was at my Mom’s house that his bed making skills would be considered “sub-par” in my her eyes.

 

So I spent an entire day last week scrubbing, sweeping, vacuuming, wiping, scraping, washing and shuddering. I’m happy to report it’s been clean and organized ever since. Sitting on the sofa that night, Andy commented on how clean everything was and reaching for the remote on the bookshelf, he paused, mid-sentence, “…wait – did you dust the books too?” The next day while pulling out the pan and grill we used to make burgers, he asked me if I had discovered and cleaned THAT too. He’s still finding places and things around the apartment and good-naturedly, he chuckles at my enthusiasm to “Clean ALL the things”. Actually, if we’re being honest, I think he laughs AT me directly and secretly wonders how to cope with my OCD tendencies.

 

I suppose this is all a part of discovering how the two of us will operate in a small space together. Given the fact that he spends at least half his week working from home, we interact often. We’ve both been asked if he gets any work done while I’m around. We’ve come up with a couple of interesting solutions. I have gotten into the habit of taking a walk every day, which pretty much guarantees I’ll be out of his hair for a good hour. I am beginning to suspect that Andy is leaving things out to keep me busy tidying and putting things in their place. He admitted that it’s incredibly easy to push my buttons because I never let one thing go. Leaving a glass on the table, a pair of pants on the bedroom floor, or messing up the comforter provides him with endless entertainment I’m sure. I’m still waiting to see a youtube video, aptly titled “How to keep an OCD woman occupied and yourself entertained”.  I usually make lunch too – “Michelle, you heated up that soup SO well!” is something I’m getting used to hearing. If I’m starting to get chatty, he has two methods of getting me to shut up. He either dangles the word “reddit” like a biscuit for a dog, or soundly ignores me under the pretext of being incredibly busy. Meh – it works.

 

Sometimes, however, the simplest things are the things that make us laugh the most or truly enjoy each other’s company. While I’ve been doing the bulk of the cooking, I always have a willing and ready set of hands (even if it’s only to pour me a glass of wine…or two) and we have an Excel sheet in Dropbox with different meals to try, or ones we have tried and enjoy. Andy has had to keep an especially close eye on me when we go grocery shopping. First of all – no one told me the carts in England pivot on all four wheels. This made me ache to try and do some synchronized cart moves, with me, poised like a figure skater about to do a camel spin, groceries and all neatly arranged in the trolley. The stores are also much more crowded – for anyone who has seen “Night at the Roxbury”, I seem to say every three seconds “Sorry”, or “Excuse me”. Given the volume of my voice, my accent, and my surprise at constantly finding new and interesting things (or not finding what I was looking for at all) and my lack of an internal “stop” as it were, in announcing how strange things are over here amid the general population of Chelmsford – I’m sure I’m an embarrassment.  He has to remind me not to run into everyone and that I’m incredibly set in my ways.

 

I think – no, I know – that both of us have done some comparing to other relationships and how this one stacks up. I can’t speak for the man, but I know it’s a completely different dynamic for me. For the time being we’ve assumed more stereotypical gender roles, but I can live with that. He taunts me relentlessly about how often I clean, but I think he appreciates it. There’s a lot of respect, if you don’t count when he talks about his superior Scrabble skills. Just for the record, I’ve come close to beating him on more than one occasion, and he will never tell you that every other game we play I beat him. Soundly. (Except Halo, but he’s bad at it too, so I think we both prefer not to talk about it). We laugh a lot. Mostly at me. We share a lot of serious things and silly things. We coexist rather peacefully.

 

To answer all of you at once – how is it REALLY going? Well. Very well.