On Thursday, I took a picture of this oddity in our garden.
A confused daffodil
Somehow this daffodil did not check its calendar to see that the date was January 12! Until this weekend, we have been having rather warm weather (climate change!) and both flora and fauna were getting very confused. This blooming was the most extreme example, but we have seen flowers around town starting to grow, too. They are in for a shock now that it has dropped below freezing!
Our little town has been experiencing parking chaos over the last 6 months because budget cuts meant nobody is around to give tickets. A couple of weeks ago, BBC decided to cover the story about what life is like without parking restrictions. They contacted the psychology department hoping that one of us could give some psychological insight into the situation, and I happened to be around to give the interview. I don’t know anything about the psychology of parking but psychologists know enough about human behavior to comment on what happens when there are no rules. Here is the full report. The Welsh version came out a week later. If you want to try your Welsh (or hear how spectacularly bad I am at Welsh), you can check it out at the 1:12:45 mark here.
In other news, we submitted the 3rd round of our adoption paperwork on 20 December 2011 which is about a year after we submitted the original set of paperwork. We hope it is the last round and that our baby will come in 2012. Happy new year to all!
I have always loved the fall, and here is another reason to love Aber in the fall!
Beautiful weather ahead!
Even though several exciting things are just starting again (new office building! new crop of students!), several things are ending, such as the time here of many of our friends. In the last month, we’ve had to say goodbye to T, E, N, and N. We will miss you! There are a few more goodbyes that we will have to say in the next few months, but I’m trying not to think of those at the moment!
Yesterday, I caught part of Barefoot Contessa on TV and decided that even an incompetent baker like myself could make what she was making onscreen: a blueberry crumb cake. After all, the prep time is only 8 minutes! Off to the store to buy ingredients! When I came home, we decided to take Siena for a walk and phoned up T&C to bring along their dog to join us. Half an hour (and one cow herding incident*) later we all met for a walk around The Arch. Going around the nearby forest, C recently spotted some berries bursting there, so we brought along some cartons to collect our pickings. I assumed we were picking blackberries because even though it is still quite early in the season for them, we have already seen a few eager blackberries in the hedges around our neighborhood. I was very surprised to find out that the berries we would be picking were actually wild blueberries, ones with purple juices! The first time I had plain blueberries in this country, I insisted that this fruit was not a blueberry but a grape. Blueberries in the US have a deep purple juice that can stain your teeth. Hence my confusion upon eating these impostors.
Cultivated freakishly large blueberry (looks like a grape) on left, wild laughingly small blueberry on right. Voters in a taste test (Dan and myself) liked the cultivated ones better.
The walk took us up and down hills and the berries ranged from teeny tiny to small. Soon enough, we were all stained purple from the berry juices and even the dogs were eating the blueberries off the branches. A couple hours later, we went home with our spoils, and I was happily baking in the kitchen Barefoot. 8 minutes prep time? I suppose if someone washed, cut, measured, sifted, and laid out all the ingredients, it would only take 8 minutes. It took me closer to 30 minutes to prep, but I guess that is why she is on TV and I am not. Despite my track record, this cake turned out rather tasty!
Yummy blueberry crumb cake... not one crumb left at the end!
I learned some very valuable lessons: 1) picking blueberries is hard work, 2) not all blueberries are created equal, and 3) once in a while, I can actually bake something yummy.
*the incident with the cow herding is as follows: 5 minutes into our drive, we encountered about 20 cows on the road ahead of us going further down the road. Their farmer was holding up the traffic while waiting for the stragglers to come out of the field. All of a sudden, we see a straggler cow head toward us. After some frantic arm-waving, the cow was convinced to go the other way but then ran back into the original field. Another farmer with a switch eventually emerged with the cow and then chased it down the road to join the others. Their destination field was a quarter mile down the road, so we watched the farmers running after the jogging cow. We laughed as the entire scene unfolded.
Last year we entered Siena in the Capel Bangor Show. That was just the warm up for the main event…the Aberystwyth and Ceredigion County Show. With some show experience under her collar, Siena was ready to take on the wider competition of the whole county. Fortunately, this year Siena was not alone. We talked our friends, C&T, into bringing their 10 month old beagle puppy, Tilly.
The first categories were for purebreds only. With two other “proper” colored viszlas there we decided to pass and cheer on Tilly in the puppy category. Whether it was beginner’s luck or the fact that Tilly is super cute, she walked off the field an award winner in her first ever show event. What were you winning at 10 months old?
The first event that Siena entered was in the Novelty category of Best Adult Handler. The following is a transcript of what happened:
Me (to IAC): Is it best to go first, last, or somewhere in the middle?
IAC: Go first
(Siena and I go on the field and line up first. We get called up to be inspected by the judge.)
Judge (noticing Siena sitting and me not doing anything): Hello, um, don’t you think she should be standing?
Me: Yeah, she doesn’t really do that.
(After pulling up Siena’s back legs so she is standing and some chit chat)
Judge: Thank you, give me a triangle.
Me: A triangle? What’s that?
Judge (pointing): Walk in a triangle, out, over, and back to me.
Trying in vain to get Siena to stand
I then proceed to screw up even that. Needless to say, I did not come close to finishing in the top 6. Too bad there wasn’t a category for most clueless handler.
All was not lost after the inauspicious beginning for Siena managed to ribbon in Best Short Tail (3rd) and Best Veteran (4th) . The prized novelty category of “Dog the Judge Would Most Like to Take Home” pitted youth vs. experience, fur vs. feather, and boundless energy vs. boundless capacity for sleep. Siena and Tilly went head-to-head against each other and about 15 other dogs. After reviewing Tilly’s puppy wrinkles and Siena’s “you will love me now” face, the judge decided that these two dogs were the two she would most like to take home with her. Tilly walked away with the red ribbon (1st) and Siena the blue (2nd). They cleaned up.
Tilly and Siena called out for 1st and 2nd place
Three ribbons for Siena was a pretty good haul for her in the face of stiffer competition.
The Aber Show was more than just a dog show, it was the county’s agricultural show There were contests for best Welsh cakes, best wooden canes, and many, many categories for best sheep (like this one or this one).
Sheep lining up to be judged
There were also horse riding contests for riding side saddle and really young riders. All in all it was a great day spent with friends and looking at dogs, sheep, and horses.
Croeso yn ôl! We have been MIA for a while and very delinquent with our blog posts. The reason is in the title. As a quick recap, here is where we have been since the year started, for business, personal, or a bit of both.
In between these trips, we have had several visitors, new activities (i.e., tennis, puppy-sitting, Adele’s albums on repeat, an obsession with cooking lentils and zucchini, not necessarily together), friends coming and going, some changes in our jobs including a strike, and movement along the adoption process. In a nutshell, being behind on our blog is a direct result of being extremely busy!
Now that it is mid-June, things are finally starting to calm down… sort of. Dan was promoted to the Head of R&D recently (hooray!) and is settling into that job. Teaching and grading is now over and yesterday, I found out that I am receiving a teaching award as a result of my efforts. Siena is making room for some more ribbons in anticipation of the first big dog show of the season at the Aberystwyth Show this weekend. In adoption news, all of the additional paperwork that has been requested should be going off to Uzbekistan within the next week. The most important thing is that for the next few months, we are staying on the ground with no big trips planned, which means we can finally catch up on the housework and stop neglecting our friends and family. Yes, that means you!
This is not to say that we have not been enjoying ourselves; it has all been super-fun and exciting! We love the traveling, and these short-haul trips keep reminding us how lucky we are that we moved and continue to live here. We’ll do our best to catch up but suffice it to know that we are happy, healthy, and well. Here’s a picture + story to tie you over until the next post. A few weeks ago, we were watching a beagle puppy who is still quite small and sleeps in a little bed. Just to make sure everyone knew that Her Royal Highness, Princess Siena, still ruled on high, she decided that even this territory needed to be claimed.
Hope the puppy can breathe under there!
Dear residents of Aber,
In the past two and a half years of living here, you have made my experience abroad a genuine delight. I love your accents, enjoy the community spirit you maintain, and appreciate your friendly help when I have needed it. Thank you for making my transition to Wales such a pleasant experience. It therefore saddens me to have to point out to you a major flaw that is not only incomprehensible but embarrassing: your inability to cope with snow in the winter months. This winter is the third we are spending in your lovely town, and it is the third winter that we have seen it snow. Perhaps it is no longer a fluke. Perhaps we should anticipate snow every winter. As hardy midwesterners, we have been through our fair share of snowy winters. Where we come from, we don’t measure snow in “centimetres”; we measure it in feet. I am pleased to present an early Christmas present from us direct to you, an FAQ list about coping with the snow.
1) When is snow a crisis? Snow is a lovely occurrence of nature that reminds us of the circle of life. The dead and white of winter contrasts with the vibrant green spring. 2 inches of snow does not warrant comment, and it certainly does not warrant closing down schools. 4-5 inches of snow should not shut down an entire university. Talk to me when there is 2 feet of snow on the ground.
2) What should I wear in the snow? Snow can only occur under certain meteorological conditions. To simplify, it has to be both cold enough to snow and warm enough to snow. As with other weather conditions, your clothing should keep you comfortable. Unless you are extremely hot-blooded or have copious amounts of body hair, you should not be baring your midriff and wearing heels in the snow. Girl wearing only tights on your lower half, we saw you in the cafeteria on Friday and were shocked on multiple levels.
3) There seems to be snow on my car. Does that mean I can’t use it? Amazingly, cars are capable of operating in all sorts of weather, including snow! Also amazingly, snow is neither immobile nor permanent! If there is snow on your car, get rid of it!
4) Okay, I have mentally prepared myself to drive in the snow. What tools do I need to make this possible? There are a couple of implements that are useful for getting your car out: an ice scraper (if you have one like ours, it comes with a brush; if not, then get a brush) and a snow shovel. I know we’re in a bad economy here, but these tools are only a few pounds each. The shovel should be used to clear out a path to your car, on your entire driveway, and any other pavement/concrete spaces around your house. Do it early because the longer you wait, the worse it gets. The ice scraper is the best tool to get snow and ice off your car. It is more effective than using your credit card, an aerosol de-icer spray (which is also bad for the environment), or boiling a kettle of water to pour on your car. Also, don’t use a food tray as a shovel; that must be hell on your back.
5) Using your recommended method of an “ice scraper”, I have managed to scrape a 10-inch wide hole in the snow on my windscreen (windshield). That should be good, right? No, you must do the whole car. And by whole car, I mean all the windows, the mirrors, and the metal surfaces. It is dangerous to only see out of a 10-inch hole. It is also dangerous not to brush off the snow from your hood (your bonnet), the top of your car, and your trunk (your boot). If you don’t brush off the snow, it can fly off while you’re driving and startle other drivers by throwing a bunch of snow onto their clean windshield that their lovely husband spent 10 minutes clearing.
6) How do I know it’s safe to drive out there? In theory, the county should have salted the roads in preparation for inclement weather and then plowed the snow off the streets continuously once the snow actually hit. That doesn’t mean that you should immediately park on all the cleared parts thereby making it inaccessible for the rest of us.
7) But I swear I saw the salt truck out there a few weeks ago when no snow was forecast. And I haven’t see any snowplows in my neighborhood. What happened? Yes, I saw that salt truck a few weeks ago, too, when there was only cold weather predicted, not snow. I can only guess that it was practicing for the real thing. And you haven’t seen any snowplows around your neighborhood probably because the one snowplow that the county owns is busy plowing the major roads and not realizing that people live in neighborhoods that also need plowing. I have no explanation for the county’s bizarre policies.
8 ) All this snow is stressing me out! What can I do??? Get over yourself or go hibernate.
Sincerely,
Your friendly snow-experienced midwesterners
It’s official. Summer is over. The students are, without a doubt, back. The days are getting shorter very quickly, and our burger BBQ was during the last (probably) nice weekend of the year. Oh, and it’s now October, so yes, fall has arrived and summer is gone.
Besides the burger BBQ (inspired by this article, we made 6 types of burgers), one of our last summer activities was taking advantage of the local flora. Blackberries are considered a weed here because they grow so rampantly, but they are a wonderful, delicious weed that also provide a nice snack on walks! We decided to pick some which resulted in my very first blackberry crumble. Coincidentally, this outing coincided nicely with our mobile phone contract renewal during which I upgraded to my current Blackberry. Here are a few pictures to commemorate the occasion.
Dan can reach high up for the blackberries that nobody else picks!
4 cups of blackberries ready to be consumed
The finished product, yummy!
In surveying our kitchen today, I was pretty impressed with the international nature of our kitchen. I’m not talking about just treats and processed food from various places, but actual ingredients that we can cook with. Among our vituals, we have andouille sausage and chipotle sausage from NOLA (courtesy of R and M), jerk sauce from Jamaica (courtesy of P), black sugar from Taiwan, fideuà from Spain, and we’re getting plusgras butter soon from France (courtesy of R). Being able to cook with ingredients from lots of places is a real joy. There aren’t really places to get these ingredients around here, so getting friends to bring them over the border and traveling with them ourselves is one of the few ways to get what we want. Despite our love of cooking food from all over the world, I do also try to buy local. I go to our local farmer’s market (1st and 3rd Saturday of each month) and the last time I shopped there, I cooked the best lamb I have ever had in my life. It was probably also the freshest lamb I’ve ever had; that lamb was likely live a few days before I ate it. Leeks, potatoes, and parsnips are a regular part of our meals. I’m working on adapting a beef stew recipe for the crockpot. Once I get all the kinks worked out, I’ll post it up. What are some ingredients in your kitchen that you usually cook with?
I saw a job opportunity today that made me giggle. In Cardigan, a
Cardigan's call for town crier
similar-sized town to Aber south of here, is hosting a Victorian night with authentic Christmas activities like caroling and tree lighting. To add to the authenticity of the event, they have put out a call to fill the position of town crier. Oh yes. If I put my mind to it, I could become a town crier. I can project my voice, and I have good diction. I am also willing to dress up in official costume. I even satisfy the “can speak Welsh and English” condition (more or less). In these difficult economic times, we should look for whatever opportunities to line our pockets!
