Happy New Year

from my corner of Essex. Slocombe the cat and I are staying in tonight, while I wear off the jetlag of returning to the UK from the US.

My renewed passport

Like any other expat, I have a myriad of dates in my head and papers to keep and regulations to review. I mentioned previously that my first UK work permit is soon up for renewal. I need to get a new passport before renewing my work permit, else my work permit will then be limited by the passport expiration date in 2013.

To do for November: get a new passport (done)


As a UK resident, I was hoping to renew my US passport when I went home for the holidays or on one of my longer work trips to the US. However, the guidance says that one must renew a passport from one's residence, even if that is overseas. For me, that meant sending my documents to London, where they were then forwarded to the US.

I had been wondering about the new 'place of issue' in the passport. I was suspecting it would be Philly as a major passport processing hub and convenient for the shipment of documents from London. I guessed wrong, however:

How odd. I'll be curious to see if my pass now gets a second glance from US passport controls. My previous pass was issued in San Fran and prior to that, Philly.

Next up: Assembling the UK work permit paperwork for January.

Happy Halloween from Slocombe the Cat

From inside the expat suitcase - my US Goodwill frugal imports

On the recent US trip home, I mentioned about doing some shopping. First, for the expat food...

Here in the UK, we are not able to get so many options when it comes to Brownies or chocolate chip cookies. Even at the large Tesco supermarkets, there will usually only be one brownie mix (Betty Crocker, standard), and one type of chocolate chip for cookies in my corner of Essex.

If you've read me for a long while, you know that deserts are not my strong point; I don't really like sweets so I have a difficult time to put together something from scratch as I don't know how it's supposed to take at the end. I do know that my tolerance of sweet things is lower than most others, so something that I would enjoy at the end probably wouldn't generally be enjoyable to most. ;-)

New Friend Ian and I started a trend to take desert when we are invited to dinner. It's made even more special when the recipient finds out that the mix has been imported and is not available in the UK. As a result, we have the following from the supermarket:

I'm not much of a fan of eating our concoctions in the end, although I'll usually try them to have an idea of the taste. Therefore, I'm usually purchasing based on the photo on the box. Especially interesting to me are Betty's Supreme bars on the bottom right, sort of a combination of a chocolate chip cookie with a brownie.

On the top right are my Nature Valley Sweet and Salty Almond and Cashew bars. When I was in Dubai I tried these as I have never seen them before and found them to be quite pleasant. When I came back to the UK they were no where to be found. When I was last in the US I spotted them, however, and each time I bring back a few boxes. I find them useful to have in my backpack in the event that work unexpectedly goes late or I'm out and about.

And what caused all the weight in the suitcases?
--17 canning jars from Goodwill!
Those suckers are quite heavy. Last year, when I went to pickle my peppers, I was suprised by the lack of larger jars here in the UK. Then I figured out that the market is heavily geared toward smaller items like jams and chutneys. I had a few options such as importing them from France, but even used ones on ebay were pricey. Then I stumbled across the motherload at .49 and .99 US cents each, in America's heartland. Wrapped carefully in newspaper and clothing, every last one of them survived the journey. I also found lids at the Goodwill as well, but I'll need to get a few more of those next year. Now at least I'll have a good start for next year.

I also found this vintage American scale at Goodwill for a princely sum of 3.99. Slocombe insists on getting into most of my photos, here she is checking it out, along with some of the canning jars:


PS - to all the Germany bloggers enjoying the meetup in Cologne, hope it was a good trip.

From the United lounge in Chicago

After two weeks of work in the midwest, I'm on the way back. Fortunately, I'm flying business on the company's dime, so I get two free checked bags, up to 50 pounds each. My suitcases are not overly large, but they are stuffed to the gills, with one of them clocking in at 49.5 pounds and the other at 35.

While I'm winging my way back back over the ocean, you can ponder...
what did Heather buy to fill those suitcases?

Coming over, I was under 10 and 20 pounds on each, respectively, but a day of Sunday shopping caused this chaos.

A hint: my total spend was below 100 USD.

More from the apple winery

As mentioned yesterday, we went to an apple winery here in the Midwest. It was a great weekend to visit as the harvest was at its peak. At this particular small farm, we were able to walk amongst the trees to see it:

We were a diverse cultural group, one Canadian, one German, me from the US and one work colleague from Asia. The Asia colleague was taking an extensive number of close up photos of the apples on the trees, as opposed to the rest of us who were taking more landscape shots of all of the trees like above. He explained, in his highly urbanized 'concrete jungle' country, he's never seen an apple growing on a tree before:

The weekend in America's Heartland

Being from the East Coast and having lived on the West Coast, I'm now supplementing that geographic knowledge with occasional work trips to the Midwest (home of benevolent company J's headquarters). There is a large group of us in town for two weeks for a work project, which required us to be here for a weekend. Many groups are doing many different things; some are heading to the shopping malls, others are taking flights to cities such as New York City, but our small group of colleagues decided to stay local.

Our 'local' colleague (a Canadian who is based here full-time) put together an itinerary for us that included an 'art walk', a local diner, and apple picking. However, we quickly discovered that 80 degree temps on a weekend here brought out the entire state for apple picking, so we went off the beaten path. We looked for 'local attractions' in the GPS and found a winery 30 minutes away and off we went. It was the best decision as it was small and absolutely delightful:

It was a tiny place that specializes in apples, but they also had pumpkins for sale, along with plenty of apples. As we don't really have pumpkins in the UK (even though Halloween seems to be imported more heavily each year), I was most pleased to be able to take this photo.

As it was a working winery, they offered 5 free tastes of their wares, then it was possible to buy there the various local items then. They had all sorts of apple wines, liquers and ciders as well as different varieties of non-alcoholic apple juices for tasting. All in all a most pleasant Saturday.

Yep, back in the US

Behind this road (where I'm on the sidewalk), there are two highways in the background. Then again, I should be grateful for sidewalks, as much of middle America doesn't have them.

I did get some odd looks this AM when I went out of the hotel at 07.15. I knew there were stores, restaurants and such around a mile away, so I waited until it was clearly light outside and off I went. On the entire trip (with sidewalks), 1.1 mile out and then 1.1 back, I passed one other person on the sidewalk, and he was on a bicycle but avoiding the busy roads.

Because it's America though, there are plenty of Halloween decorations already out as well as for sale. I am pleased to give you an advance preview of Slocombe's Halloween costume this year:
I imagine she'll be as unimpressed with this one as she was with last year's. Currently, she's enjoying her vacation at the House of Treats in the UK where she gets freshly roasted chicken every night, while missing me immensely, of course.

Still here

Since fall ('autumn' in UK terminology) has come, I've been slightly swamped with activities, each of which probably deserves its own blog post. Some short highlights from the past weeks:

• I was in the US for work


• I foraged for berries, and then had to decide what to do with 10 pounds of them


• I foraged for acorns, chestnuts and walnuts


• I had 2 more sets of crashpadder guests


• I acknowledged 2.5 years in the UK

Today at the English seaside

One of the things I was looking forward to when moving to the UK from Germany was the ability to be able to easily take a day trip to somewhere along the sea. My former corner of NRW Germany was very convenient for the mountains, but hours away from the seaside.

It was predicted to be 25 today, and will probably be the hottest weekend day until next spring/summer. So I went out early and had time to enjoy the early sun before the masses arrived:

Essex has plenty of beaches and coastline, with much of it reachable by train, which is what I did today. This photo is of Clacton-on-Sea, it's a mere 90 minutes on a direct train line from London's Liverpool Street station.

More Germany: the Turkish market

A few years ago, I spoke about supermarket shopping in Germany, and mentioned that as a vegetarian, I did a lot of shopping at the two Turkish markets in the tiny town of B. While I was there last week, I took a photo of the only one still existing in B:

Now is such a great time to shop in DE as all the local produce is available, such as tomatoes from DE (rather than Holland!).

Above is the fruit side, and here is the vegetable section:

It was very warm in my corner of Germany last week, it felt more like Spain, so the umbrellas were all up to protect the produce from the sun.

Back from a week in Germany

I had a chance to travel to Germany this week for work. It's been announced that Benevolent company J will be moving from the Tiny town of B, so I brought along my camera this week, to capture some images of where I spent so many years.

First though, the trip out of Stansted (STN). I had heard that Airberlin is pulling out of Stansted and expanding at Gatwick. They have already cut down the Dusseldorf route from 3 times a day to 2, and now the only direct cities from STN are DUS, Stuttgart and Muenster Osnabruck. Back in the day when I first arrived, AB occupied 4 or 5 of these counters with a customer service team on-site and automated check-in machines.

Now, they've moved around the corner where they only have 2 counters that are only staffed when their infrequent flights are running and no automated machines or customer service. Of course, I can always switch to German Wings to Cologne, but Company J has a corporate deal with Airberlin; as well I prefer them anyway so I hope they do not disappear completely from STN as it's my closest airport to my corner of Essex.

In case you're wondering where else you can go from STN, here's a photo I took while waiting for the AB counter to open:

Unfortunately, there are no flights to the US, although they've broken into the Asia with budget airline Air Asia. However, from late October, Air Asia as well pulls out from STN and relocates to Gatwick.

Opening the pickled peppers

A while back, in October, I was awash with peppers and decided to jar them up. As the peppers are starting to appear on my plants this year, I'm reminded to eat them to clear out the jars. So how did it go?

Certainly looks ok...no major loss of colour:

Looks ok here too, smells ok:

On taste though, a little too heavy on the vinegar. So they preserved really well, better than Old El Paso version here in the UK that retails for 1.24 GBP a jar, but I need to use them in cooking, so on pizzas, in tomato sauces, etc. where the vinegar will burn off, rather than raw and in a salad. In the past weeks I've been through 4 jars already.

So last year was a learning year, this year will be better. :-)

From the garden this week

With guests coming next weekend, I'm trying to get organized.
Being 4 stories up from the ground, I'd love to know where these fellows originally came from...

And the way they eat my chilli pepper plants, if I could find someone who would eat them, I'd happily hand them over....

The American flag across the street

I mentioned a few posts back, about the construction across the street. I had to zoom today when i spotted the American flag bandana being sported today:

I wonder if he could ever imagine that an American would be taking his photo in this corner of Essex. ;-)

From the rooftop garden - tomatoes

I'm rather pleased with my tomatoes this year, perhaps because it was so hot here and not so rainy, they've done well. Today's high: 28 C/82 F!

from my rooftop garden - peas

The view from my window

Across the street, they've taken a vacant building and they've started to gut it and built it up by one story. This was my view from my kitchen window today, on the zoom setting:

In the US, I've yet to see a Sikh construction worker, but here in the UK they are plentiful. So much so that the UK has published regulations, http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/fod/oc/200-299/282_27.pdf regarding their exemption from wearing helmets on construction sites.

More from America - rules

While seeing a free 'summer concert in the park' Friday night event, I noticed the children enjoying the fountains in the hot and humid summer night. I later noticed the 'FOUNTAIN RULES':

It cautions against anyone with a communicable disease, or 4 wheeled recreational vehicles, or diaper changing.

A few interesting things to note:

-It's not a fountain that includes a pool, it's only shooting spurts of water from the concrete.

-It's a tiny park tucked inside an upscale shopping area. Any 4 wheeled recreational vehicles would not be welcome well before arriving here.

-Diaper changing in the water area defeats the idea of dryness.

I have not yet noticed any 'fountain signs' in Europe, so I have no comparison points to America.

Another reason to love Philadelphia airport

Free wifi!

You are located at:
Philadelphia International Airport
8500 Bartram Ave.Philadelphia, PA, 19153

They could use a few more outlets, however. Newark is much better about outlets, they're usually on the poles, with plenty available. With Philly you're usually camped out in random corners on the floor, or I see a few people tucked into them in the airport eateries.

So it's been a short visit back to the US for the 4th and a week of 90+ temps in Philly.

From the rooftop garden - strawberries!

Sorry for the delay, I've been back in the US for work, and then busy with work here.
While away, my strawberries were gearing up, so I came back just as the first ones were ready. Then, I had about 3 weeks straight of strawberries for breakfast, freshly picked off the balcony each day.

Here are some of the last ones (notice the green insect on the right one--organic!):

I have around one more week left of strawberries. I currently have three runners started, so the rest will soon follow suit.

I arrived in the UK in early 2009, so this is the third year for some of my plants. Strawberries build up in the first year, peak in the second and then start to wane in the third. So the runner plants will get planted in as starters for next year's crop.

The countdown continues...

This week is a small milestone. The UK, like Germany, allows for permanent residency after 5 years of residence. Different from Germany, however, the UK in addition allows for a path to dual citizenship after a few additional activities.

Even though I had Germany permanent residency, it did not count for anything in the UK, so the clock started over again for me in 2009.

5 years x 365 days = 1825 days

This week I dropped into triple digits, so below the 1000 day mark.

The next milestone will be the half-way point of 5 years, in August 2011.

Life in Germany: the Department of Order

A short article about Germany's Ordnungsbehörde, or Department of Order. If you're planning to move to Germany, it's worth a quick read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/magazine/you-are-here-germanys-anti-chaos-crusaders.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

I personally never met them, but a few work colleagues in Cologne (both German and not), have mentioned experiences with them, mainly those crossing the street (empty or not) against the light, and for bicyclists going through red lights rather than following the rules of stopping with the cars.

An impressive UK border agent

If you read this blog regularly, you know that I don't have the highest of opinions on the folks controlling the UK borders, in particular, because I'm irritated with playing 20 questions with them when I have a legitimate work permit that is valid into 2012.

Although I'm as equally annoyed when they play 20 questions with you tourists and I'm usually in the queue behind you, although their questioning of how you are getting from London to Shakespeare's house, and the waiting while you get out the Rick Steve's book all marked up with post-its can be endearing (or would be if I wasn't so jet-lagged).

Yesterday, I went through the usual at Heathrow:
what kind of work do you do?
how long have you been doing that?
what is the company?
where is the company?
etc.

Then, a brand new one:
Are you planning to stay for residency and perhaps citizenship?

Why yes, that is the plan. And my tired heart soared, as no one usually thinks that one can have both, or maybe people expect that Americans go home, but no one ever asks that question. In particular, no one has ever asked me that at the border, so it made my dream a little more tangible, that I didn't have to present it or explain it, that someone can see the path, that it seems feasible.

As he stamped my passport he then explained:
In that case, you'll want to take care, they will want to review all of these entry stamps, and we must stamp in the page next to or behind your permit. It those pages start to become too full and the stamps not legible, you'll probably want to get a new passport to avoid any hassles later on with your application.

Not a concern as I need to get a new passport anyway late this year, but I was impressed that he proactively presented the tip.

Back in the UK

After 2.5 weeks (mainly work related), I am back in the UK. Our plane was 4 hours late to take off due to storms in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Jet lag gives me a wonderful opportunity to appreciate the time prior to sunrise here. In the UK our winter days are very short, but our summers are very long.

Sunrise today: 04.57
Sunset: 20.50

Slocombe's fan club

The garden is a flurry of activity these days and I'm selling plants via multiple channels. All the way in the back of the photo, in front of the frosted wall, is Slocombe the cat, on the chair. On the other side of the wall is my lovely and sweet Italian neighbor, A.

Essex has been having hot summer weather, so I've been leaving the front terrace door open. The back is a little more dangerous, as it's larger and there are some 'escape routes' so SC only goes on the back on the lead.

Today, as I was watering the plants, I noticed that something caught her eye and she went immediately into attack mode--bottom to the ground, and focused while she crept over to the frosted glass wall and then was chin to the ground in front of it. As she is an inside cat except for the balkon, her mighty huntress routine can be rather amusing....although that being said, she takes care of any fly or mosquito that gets trapped in the flat quite handily.

I figured out by being near it, that A's British boyfriend was on the other side of the wall on the balkon, reading a book. This was very exciting to SC, to sit next to the wall and watch him, like she's stalking a giant mouse.

He must have pointed her out to A, because then I heard, 'Awww...the kit-ty!', and SC realized she was the center of attention and immediately took off to back inside her flat. A and her 'loud Italian-ness' are a little bit scary to SC, although it is all meant with love...

Later today as I was coming home, I ran into A.

A: I saw your kit-ty!

H: Oh, sorry about that, I hope she did not bother you?

A: OH no! My boyfriend loves cats! He was happy to see her!

So sweet. Maybe I need to unblock the exits on the front balkon, so she can pop over for a visit at some point.

Schadenfreude

Definition here.

Let's use it in an example:

Heather experienced schadenfreunde when this glorious UK summer weather was cut short by an impromptu rain shower, as it forced her neighbors to take their stereo and their cigarettes inside, as our rooftop terraces are uncovered.

After three hours of listening to their trance music at a volume that could be heard inside her flat, with all doors and windows shut, and earplugs in addition, this unexpected rain was most delightful!

Granted they are students and it is a Saturday afternoon, so their behaviour, while chavish, is not out of line. As they are young people, they will bounce back from this misfortune and hopefully re-group in a bar down the street.

For the travel nerds amongst us - long journeys

Benevolent company J recently launched a new internal travel system here in the UK. I have IT colleagues who were involved in it; apparently this is a huge cost savings as it's very expensive for a 'person-issued' ticket as opposed to a self-administered booking. In addition, the application has all sorts of bells and whistles built in to enforce various policies. However, it seems to lack a bit on the 'common sense' side of things, but perhaps that it not programmable. ;-)
It is smart enough to tell me that 'you have chosen a fare that is more than 100 GBP than the next closest fare and within 3 hours, enter your mandatory comments in the box which will be reviewed by management'. I need to remember to stifle any sarcasm before I start typing as it starts to come out like, 'Will miss the meeting start time of 9 AM by several hours due to the 13 hour overnight connection in Los Angeles' and 'Will negate cost savings due to extra hotel night due to connecting flight leaving one day later.' Behold my options for the London to Chicago route (sorry, you need to click on the jpg to expand it.)

Remember that a London-Chicago direct flight will come in slightly under 9 hours...so it's fascinating that I can fly over Chicago and go all the way to California with Air New Zealand, and even better, with a 13 hour overnight layover at LAX. It's a similar story for Stockholm and Istanbul, except that those journeys are first going in the opposite direction of where I need to go. The third is magnificent, as I've never been to Asia, this could be my golden opportunity to fly Cathay, plus the added bonus of an overnight in a German airport, in addition to a second German airport in the same trip!

Apparently they used the same logic for domestic routes as well. I will wrap up my trip in Milwaukee, and then I will head home to Philly for a few days. There are a few direct options, USAir and Frontier come to mind, for this short 2 hour flight. It's much more interesting to instead take 10 hours however...
because to travel to Philly on Hungarian Malev Airlines via Canada would probably make for a good story.

UK politics and immigration

Even though the economy is supposedly picking up, immigration remains a hot topic as the UK continues to try and lock down the borders and implement hurdles for those of us entering legally. I've been achieving my old pc data as it is ready for retirement at 8 years old. Here was a photo from before, with yours truly in the foreground:
Local elections are upcoming on May 5, 2011. My corner of Essex is a hotly contested battleground as the numbers in the last election were very close. As well, we're a densely populated region of many flats, so one assumes a transient population. Therefore the parties are out in full force, to try and lock down a win. Every week, I get papers under the door, telling me who I should vote for, and why the other party has failed me. These folks are out prior to 9 AM on Sundays, during the week and at all other hours. Unfortunately, as a non-UK citizen, their papers are mainly a waste as I have no vote here.

UK Passport control at Eurostar Paris

Someone asked me about work in Europe and is it exciting to travel to so many countries. No, quite frankly I find it irritating, especially so now that I live in the UK. As mentioned previously, it's a hassle to travel back into the UK on a non-European passport. Last week, I needed to go to a business meeting in Paris. I left on Wed night and returned Thurs night. Upon leaving the UK, you go through French passport controls while still in the Eurostar terminal in St Pancras, in London. Sidenote: I love travelling on Eurostar to the continent rather that having to go via the airport, but it's only really viable from my corner of Essex when:

• going to a direct Eurostar destination of Brussels or Paris rather than an indirect one like Cologne, otherwise to fly is faster.


• when the company is paying for business travel as it's awfully expensive.

So coming back, one clears UK immigration on the French side at the Gare du Nord Eurostar terminal in Paris. After you get through the ticket checkers and bag x-xray, it's on to passport control. I had a young Asian border agent, whom interestingly, I had a hard time hearing. This is quite an accomplishment, as I have 'bat ears', I can hear a gnat sneezing in the next county. So it went something like this:

(Heather, handing across the passport, work permit side open and face up, along with the required entry card).

Border agent: Travelling to the UK?

Heather: Yes (Thinking: No, I just wandering in here and handed you my passport to get to the platform where trains only go to the UK as a mistake.)

BA: Do you work in the UK?

H: Yes. (Did you not just see my work permit page, the one that you scanned, or are we playing border agent games?)

BA: mhrp mmm trp?

H: Yes?

BA: Trrgh sm profession?

H: Yes.

BA: (More loudly this time) What is your profession?

H: Computer work. (like it says on the border card that I handed to you.)

BA: What is your work permit?

H: I'm sorry?

BA: What type of work permit do you have?

H: (Now sitting on the fence and contemplating a response that is either condescending at her obvious border games, or more of a 'German irritation' flavour, ultimately I go with the latter. Insert German scowl here.) Tier 1. It's the page where I gave you my passport and where you scanned it.

BA: Are you employed?

H: Yes. (Not that I really need to answer that. My permit does not require me to remain 100% employed, only that I meet the criteria prior to renewal.)

BA: And where do you work?

H: Benevolent company J.

Finally she stamps the passport and through I come. I continue to find the UK immigration experience to be ridiculous. It's interesting that there is such a strong local backlash against immigrants 'taking the jobs of UK workers' and specifically at illegals, but I have to go through the dog and pony show every time I want to come into the UK on my legal work permit. Specifically, I find some of these agents to be over the top, that they appear to be pinning their frustrations onto the only targets they can find, rather than the ones engaged in illegal activity.

1039 days until I can apply for UK citizenship to have a UK passport and get off this teacup ride. Or two years and 10 months, but who's counting?

May 23 then will be the day that I drop below the 1k mark, to 999 days. I may throw a small party to celebrate the milestone. ;-)

Frugal tomato seedlings

Up here on the rooftop, I have a head start on plants and seedlings because my last frost is earlier than that on the ground. Therefore, I can start my plants earlier. Here is a recent tomato plant that I have grown from seeds from last year's tomatoes: Granted, I have a perfect growing environment here on the roof, over the average UK growing climate....but I must admit--I find seeds to be expensive around here.

A pack of tomato seeds from Asda (aka Walmart) is 1.95 GBP (2.21 EUR/3.19 USD). It then follows that plants are more expensive than seeds. A single tomato plant at homebase (like Lowe's or Home Depot) is 1.98 GBP, which is slightly more than the prices I just listed.

Of course growing your own is cheaper than supermarket prices, no doubt, but starting seed from scrath is ridiculously cheaper than buying new plants.

Business travel in Europe, in the tiny town of B

I get the feeling sometimes, that when I mention being on work travel to Germany or Paris, that people back home in the US have a vision of a fancy 5 star hotel, with pool and doorman and elegant spoken English by the friendly desk clerk. Really, however, it's a totally different experience as many of company J's preferred hotels are located near the offices that tend to be tucked away in Industrial Parks....so maybe to compare it to say, Newark, New Jersey would be a closer comparison.

I was reminded of that this week, when my German work colleague was in contact. The hotels around benevolent company J's headquarters in Germany are so small that they cannot be booked using our online travel application; but as it's hit or miss whether you'll get anyone who speaks English, most of them do not. So when our work colleagues travel, they will find a German speaker to arrange their reservation. (That being said, the staff at these small hotels are extremely forgiving with 'less than adequate German', so as long as you can muddle along with the basics and have no special requests, you're usually ok.)

My German colleague (who is married to a non-German and lives here in the UK) was tasked with making the hotel reservations for a boss a few levels up, a sophisticated yet pleasant enough fellow, one of those persons who is probably used to five star travel. Here was our conversation:

Colleague A: Hey H, 'Normal Hotel' (the favourite of company J visitors, it is close to the office, very modern inside and has menus in multiple languages) is booked up, do you know hotels X or Y?

Heather: Yes, both. X is the tiny one near Normal Hotel, Y is the one near the Pizza place, where the owner wears a dirndl*.

A: Aaah right, so then X probably make sense.

H: You might want to pre-warn him--X looks like your grandma's living room...old lady lace decor, and oodles of glass dolls and clowns all around the place.

A: Oh man.

H: It's a little freaky when you come back of an evening out and you are reaching around for the light, and when you turn it on there are 20 pairs of glassy eyes staring at you...but the main deal breaker for me is that they only have dial-up network access, no wifi.

A: Maybe Y is better....

H: Yes, dirndl lady is pleasant, but if he arrives on Monday they do not open until 18.00. And again, no wifi there either.

A: Mann, mann, mann. Maybe I should tell him they were both booked up and just put him in the Hilton in Cologne instead...

*Dirndl Lady is a real anomoly for the area of DE between Cologne and D'dorf...normally we only see Dirndls for Karneval or maybe the town's anniversary, but never for 'daily wear'.

UK-US dual citizenship

On my previous posting last week, J was asking about UK/US dual citizenship. Yes! The UK allows for dual citizenship with the US. A few thoughts on this topic...

It actually was a criteria for me a few years back, when I was nearing the threshold of German permanent residency. Germany does not allow for dual citizenship. Some of my work colleagues at benevolent company J have turned in their tiny Asian country citizenship for German citizenship. Their reasoning? European citizenship will enable them to work without hindrance, and their tiny Asian nations will always let them return as visitors, without restrictions.

I have a former work colleague, she is from the UK, but originally from one of the former UK colonies in Africa. As a result, she has dual citizenship: UK + her African country. The UK citizenship enabled her to work in Germany and meet the love of her life. They made sure that their children currently have all three passports possible: UK, Germany, and the African one. She mentioned...when they turn 18 they must choose as Germany only allows for one citizenship, if one chooses to 'be German'. She hopes that they will choose UK instead, because by choosing UK, they can then retain the African nation passport as well. However, as they were born and raised in Germany, they will probably identify as Germans, so not so easy...her point: UK people have the same rights in Germany, so there is no point in having German citizenship over the UK version, as long as the EU exists as it does now.

I would never give up my US citizenship, although I can understand why my work colleagues would do so.

I feel that the UK culture, lifestyle and beliefs is complimentary to that of the US, so to take on UK citizenship would not be against anything else in my belief system.

I continue to ponder the place of the UK in the world. I'm always fascinated when my work colleagues talk of 'heading to the continent' for work, and how they don't want to do that (be it France, Germany, the Netherlands, etc.) It's been previously suggested to me that the UK would be better off aligned with the US rather than Europe. Not sure on that, but ok.

So back from my rambling thoughts. I'm almost 26 months into the 36 required to re-up my work permit, and then the 60 required to go for permanent residency, with citizenship right after. All this planning assumes that the government doesn't change the rules before then. Currently there is a severe backlash about immigrants, jobs and everything else related to the recession. There's been a knee-jerk decison to pull back rights for workers, students, etc, but we'll see how all that pans out in the future.

Bottom line: I've spent almost 25% of my life now in Europe and the European lifestyle treats me well. At this point I see no reason not to go after both and to gain the flexibility to be able to go back and forth for work/life, as the need arises.

Back from Germany

Posting has been a little lax recently, sorry about that. I had a last minute trip to Germany for work last week. I must admit, the weather could not have been more glorious--decadently spring-like in the Koeln/D'dorf region.

Coming into DE, I can choose between low budget flights to Cologne via German Wings or D'dorf via Air Berlin under benevolent company J's travel policy. I loathe Wings to the very core of my being; I put them into the same category as Ryan Air, mainly because of the lingering memories of when they did not assign seats and I had no desire to join the scrum that involves unassigned plane seating and Germans...as well their 'Happy Snack' concept and charging for luggage just irritates me...so Air Berlin with their assigned seating and one free bag is my choice.

Coming into passport control at D'dorf, I still travel under my DE permanent residency permit. Two years back, I tried to get them to stamp me in, but they refused. Apparently, according to the passport guy, they are not allowed to stamp me as long as the permit is in effect. It is the rules! Ja, ok. So every time since I've just shown the residency page and I've been in 12-15 times and no one blinked twice.

This time, I was in the foreigner queue with a real stickler. I counted 30 EU'ites passing in the EU queue while I was #3 in the Auslander queue. The passport guy was questioning the American in position #1 about what he was doing on this trip to Germany and where he was travelling to onward, and why was he not stamped out of Germany on his last visit (he left from Germany to Belgium by car), and on and on...

The main queue finally ran out of EU people so that guy took person #2, and I got the stickler. I hand him the passport and he scans it and then looks at his screen. I imagine my German travel history now looks questionable at best:
-2003-2009 - a variety of trips in and out, with Germany obviously as a base
-2009 - permanent residency, and then a lot of time out of Germany, once I moved to the UK.

I see him scan and then squint at the screen.
He looks through the passport, page by page, passing all of the expired DE permits and the current UK one.
He looks up at me, and I give him an appropriate German scowl.
He looks once again at the screen.
Apparently he decides that I'm not an easy enough target as he hands back my passport through the slot with a 'Danke schoen'.

At the end of the year I need to renew my passport early in order to be able to get my new UK work permit sticker in Feb 2012 as my pass expires in early 2014 and the new sticker needs the passport to be valid for six months beyond the next permit expiration. So the work permit will go to Feb 2014, therefore the passport needs to be valid until Aug 2014, else they will limit the work permit and charge exorbitant fees to extend it again. My cheapest option is to renew my passport early and not be limited by the UK then.

As a result, as of Nov of this year, I will lose my free access into Germany, until I can claim UK citizenship in Feb 2014, right after getting permanent residency here (assuming that all laws remain as they all now.)

How much do I dread that gap year of 2013 and travelling to DE??

Puttering around the rooftop garden

Weather in my corner of Essex today was 'white clouds' and a high of 12. I would have never understood that forecast prior to coming here. It was a bright, but not sunny morning, and vaguely warm, when one had on long sleeves and garden gloves. Fortuneately I worked from 8-12 AM on the balkon, because 'grey clouds' rolled in around lunchtime, and brought rain along.

My camera bit the dust on the recent trip to Spain, so no photos, however, here is what I was up to today:
-I bought a giant planter at poundland a few weeks back. (no really, 1 GBP for a reinforced plastic woven square shaped bag that will probably do for a year or two, with 100 litre capacity, so quite large). I think it will suit a few chilli pepper plants. I cleared out some of the 'compost bags' that have been in place since the fall. It's always an education to me, to see what goes on in such a little ecosystem. I had a lot of worms due to the decaying veg scraps as well as the dead potatos that I had lost due to the early fall snow.

In addition, I always like to see what is growing from the compost. In this case, I had some ivy that I had clipped from Ian's in the fall; I had thought it was done and threw it into the compost, and here it comes back with a vegence and strong root system. I did remove that and put it into a smaller pot as ivy is so invasive. It will be a good candidate for ebay. :-)

-I moved the garlic mini-plants from the sprouting containers to the large pots that I won't need for the peppers. ;-) Slocombe the cat loves(!), loves(!), loves(!), garlic, and I enjoy it as well, so I felt it appropriate for us to have 20 some cloves to plant. :-)

-I spun off more of my 'seed sown' oregano to its own pots. I was not sure that oregano would really take up here, but in a garden surprise, it has flourished! I have it in one long planter, about 18 inches long, so as it spawns off in an increasing manner, I separate it out into smaller pots. If only oregano would be as big an ebay seller as strawberries. (smile)

-I re-jiggered the wall area that leads to dear A's balkon, to block it with a foraged log. The log came from the park, in the hope that Slocombe would appreciate it as a scratching post, but alas not. Slocombe has been increasingly curious and once managed to slip between the posts that support the glass that separate my balkon from A's. I like A a lot and would not want her to be offended when someone's furry behind decides it appropriate to investigate her balkon, complete with sitting on her patio table(!). Slocombe the cat doesn't recognize boundaries on her own, they need to be erected for her, so now they have been.

-And work on round 2 of the seedlings has commenced. Now that I made it through 'strawberry season' on ebay, next up will be the small plant auctions, mainly I have tomatoes and peppers, but I have a few others as well such catnip and eggplant.

No idea why eggplant seems to be a losing battle up here. Most things will sprout easily, but eggplant is the lowest percentage for me, for seeds.

I hope you are enjoying your Sunday, wherever you are? :-)

Back from Spain

from overnight lows of 7 in Malaga to -2 in Essex. brr. i did get a few days of sunshine however, to get me through this last ditch Essex cold snap.

my plants survived me being away. in addition to my usual ones, i currently have seedlings started for basil, tomatoes, eggplant, hot peppers, and cat nip.

i had a week of speaking spanish, which is always good for the soul. the amusing part was that occasionally some germans would be nearby, and if it would be for an extended period, such as the evening next to them at dinner, then the sounds of german would suddenly infitrate my brain, and an entire sentence would pop out in german, something like this:

Si, yo vivo en inglaterra pero yo soy americana. bla bla in spanish--where did you learn spanish? Estudie la literatura en la universidad; parece que ich habe nicht vergessen. Pero hace muchos anos que no hablaba mucho la lengua, bla bla.

I find as a foreigner, you become quite good at reading people, to make sure that they are understanding you. I'd get a quizzical look, then I'd ponder back and realise what I just slapped together and instantly re-calculate. It would only be when we were near Germans or Dutch, somehow the cadence crept in and attempted to take over part of the conversation. Odd.

Update on the garden side hustle: Round 1 strawberries

I mentioned before, I'd put a few plants out on ebay and come what may. Strawberries in the bigbox retailers in my corner of Essex sell for between .50 p and 1 gbp per plant. I grouped a few together to see what would happen and listed two lots. Both lots had over 10 watchers and 10 and 7 bids. I finally ended up with a sales price that averaged around .45 p/plant, with 17 plants out the door.

One set went a few hours north by post, the other set was a local pickup in my corner of Essex. (No one else was listing strawberries within 25 miles, so I had the market cornered a bit.)

The fellow stopped by this evening to pick them up. Bla bla, they have a container garden. And the usual question for me, 'if you don't mind my asking, where are you from?' He then mentioned that his wife is from Russia, and that she is their strawberry expert.

This statement from him, with wonderment:
So I'm in the middle of downtown (my corner of Essex), buying strawberries that were grown on a roof, by an American! Who would have ever imagined that?

Who would have imagined that my strawberries were going to live with a Russian in the UK? In addition, he was mentioning that they enter some kind of garden contest and placed last year...so they're hoping that these home grown ones do the trick this year.

Super. :-) Total strawberry profit today? Around 7 gbp after reducing for paypal and ebay fees.

Today's lunch from the crockpot: shrimp in a sauce

In an effort to eat (and feel) a little better, here's what I came with today for the crockpot's inaugural meal: crockpot barbecued shrimp. It was more Southern bbq than what I know from the North as bbq, but quite good anyway. Nothing pre-packaged or processed here, and no dairy. :-)

Here are the ingredients assembled. The 'olive oil spread' that I use in place of dairy butter was feeling camera shy.

I pared the recipe down a bit, I like things saucy, but 1 stick of butter sounds exhaustive, so I went with 2 spoonfuls. I also turned up the tabasco factor (although using a close hot sauce substitute) and only decided on 1 lemon once I saw how juicy it was. I didn't have fresh basil, so dried had to do.

As the shrimp were already peeled, they went into the crockpot for an hour only, on high. I toasted two small sandwich rolls and had it with that:

Total costs:

-the shrimp were a markdown that I had tucked in the freezer a while back. 1.55 for the package, and this was half of it, so around .78 p.

-1 lemon. A package of 6 m&s lemons were 2 GBP, so this was around .33 p.

-2 rolls - another markdown from the freezer, at .50 p for 6, from m&s, so around .17 p here.

-worcester sauce - this was not previously in my cupboard, it cost around 1.29 at Tesco, but there is plenty left in the bottle for future recipes, but we can estimate .10 p here.

-butter (olive oil spread instead from m&s or sainsburys), pepper, olive oil, hot sauce, and basil are all staples already existing in my pantry, so I didn't count them in. I guess we could estimate .12 p for all together.

Total cost: around 1.50 GBP for lunch.

I will definitely do this one again, although I'll try it next time with fresh basil. It's an interesting mix, lemony, but with a bit of a kick. Perfect for a chilly and dreary Sunday.

detox week - let the games begin

During February, I've found myself getting into a bit of a rut, work has been toxic and the weather here has been grey for days upon end. Normally, I shake things up a bit with my 'alcohol-free January', but this year, most of December and January were inadvertently alcohol free due to the flu and then my law papers which were handed in on Jan 31, so I didn't have time for leisure, anyway.

I woke up this morning thinking, 'as I missed my proper January, maybe it's time for a bit of a detox.' When I don't feel well, I tend to 1. go vegan and 2. give up the alcohol. I should probably add a '3. go for more, longer walks' to that as well. Something I struggle with here in the UK is the amount of cheese in veg foods. Although, I've been attempting to introduce a bit of fish into my diet as the UK does have locally sourced fish. However, in some ways that has been a bit of my downfall...in the Philly area, we don't specialise in fish, so I'm unfamiliar to any fish variety beyond Mrs. Paul's fish sticks (on a Friday night, naturally). So in an attempt to familiarise myself with what certain varieties of fish are supposed to taste like, I've been eating a lot more 'processed' or 'prepared' foods under the heading of 'research'.

However, I fully believe, that when you set a goal and have the vision to stick to it, the universe will help you to meet it.

I stopped by my local Lakeland today, on my 'fresh air' walk. If you don't live in the UK, Lakeland is a crazy expensive kitchen boutique store, which sells top of the line merchandise. Their customer service is second to none. For my US friends, this would equate to 'the Nordstrom's of kitchen supply stores'. As expected, their pricing reflects this service level.

However, I always pop in to see their 'dent and scratch' section. They have a 'no questions asked' return policy and anything that is not perfect, even if it is only the outside carboard packaging is heavily discounted.

Lo and behold, the universe thinks that I need a juicer. It has stated that opinion by offering me one at half price:

I liked my juicer in Germany a lot. However, space was limited when I came over here, and I always wanted to expand my juicing option, to do more than just citrus fruits. This 'absolutely new in box' discontinued bargain will enable me to make juice from apples (my favourite) and carrots (plentiful and cheap here in my corner of Essex).

Something else on the shelf was a slow cooker. I've never owned one, but I've eyed them up in charity shops, but they were always too gigantic. This little gem is 1.5 litres, and half off due to a 'slight blemish on the internal ceramic pot'. When I looked at it, the manufacturing dent of sorts was there, on the outside of the ceramic pot, the bit that you do not see as it is encased inside the metal heating element. Perfect for me to try this one out, to see if I like slow cooking...

I do like lentils and soups, and there are plenty of slow cooker fish recipes, actually, using non-breaded, non-processed fish, so I'm hoping this one will be a winner.


And for dinner tonight:


Kicking things off on the right foot, a salad (the photo is deceiving, it was actually bigger than it looks). Inside we have:

• a lettuce mix from Tesco, I'm a big fan of this particular one, it has young leaves, spinach, and some fresh herbs in there. 1.50/bag, this was about 1/3 of the bag
• tomatos from M&S, marked down to 2 gbp, this was around 1/8 of the box (from Spain)
• 2/3 of a marked down avocado from M&S - .50p for the entire avocado
• 2 spring onions, from a marked down bunch in Tesco
• a sprinkling of black pepper and dried oregano
• a swig of olive oil

I'll try to post further thoughts this week, on this detox adventure...

From the rooftop garden: garlic

I try to keep garlic always outside and growing; not only do I like fresh garlic and the greens from it, Slocombe the cat loves to chop the greens down to the dirt level. She does a little better with the garlic than with regular grass digestion-wise, so further reason to encourage garlic eating by growing more of it. For the record commercial grown 'kitty-grass' seems to bore her, so garlic it is.

I have one garlic bulb left from the fall's rooftop production, I noticed that some of the cloves were starting to sprout. As the weather was warm, I went outside and filled up two recycled pots with dirt from the compost pile and placed the cloves in it, and put them on my kitchen window. After about a week, I had this:

Peeking inside the tall one, it looks like I have some stowawy seeds tucked in there from the compost pile, and they like the kitchen window temps too:

(My guess on those is that they are tomato seedlings based on the looks of them, but we'll see.)

My re-purposed plastic growing container was a 1 litre fizzy water container, check out how the roots have so quickly grown to the bottom:

On the side hustle prospects: garlic plants do sell on ebay, but not for so much. It's only worth one's while if you are propogating from 'free' stock like I am. As well, garlic is one of the easier things to grow in a garden, in general, just drop the cloves into the ground and wait.

These plants however, are all for me, as long as I can keep them on the windowsill and away from Slocombe's attention. :-)

This spring's side hustle: plants

A side hustle is a little job on the side, to make some extra cash. I mentioned a few years ago, about a little side hustle I was doing, to do something completely different than my normal job, and to make a little cash. While benevolent company J treats me very well and gives me a paycheck to boot, it's nice to try out another 'career' on the side, on the evenings and weekends.

In my fantasy world I don't have to worry about renewing a UK work permit. In my non-fantasy world, I need to keep my eye on the UK legislation, and one of the conditions of renewing my UK work permit is a certain salary level--one which computer work readily supplies. Let's save that topic for my next 'UKversary', coming up shortly. Anyway, in my fantasy world, I'd be an organic gardener, with maybe a few chickens as well.

Some months back, I mentioned the 'accidental avocados'. I did end up putting one of the avocado plants up on ebay, and then watched in wonderment as it received multiple bids, and finally sold for 5 GBP, plus shipping. I boxed it up and it went north to its' new home, near the Scottish border...

Then I started to think a little further about this idea...

• My balkon in Essex is hotter than hot. In peak weather it's above 40.
• Certain veg and plants do very well up here, others not. In particular, because I'm so far up off the ground and because of the glass walls, it's a little more of a greenhouse effect.
• Except that I have a lot more space than the average greenhouse.
• I get a jump start on the UK growing season, and mine lasts longer as well, just due to the warmer temps up here.
• The UK plant market is a bit more 'closed' than some other EU markets due to government regulations.

For kicks and giggles, I listed extra strawberry plants in the fall, the runners that wouldn't stop coming. I still have over 60 runners in little pots, here are some of them, on the left:

Then I sold a set of strawberries on ebay as well, those were carefully boxed and went to live with Ben in West Yorkshire. As they were runners, they are essentially 'free' items to me. 5 down, 60 more to go...

While I cannot orcestrate a full salad to be produced off my my space (something I could easily do by late July in Germany, on 1/10th of the space), I am able to grow and sell warm weather items, so that I can them buy my salad. ;-)

So here is part of the back balkon. Last year I lined it with tomatoes. As you can see, it's a lot of spare space.

This year, I'm thinking to go after starting off a lot seedlings to sell small plants, and then those crops that do exceptionally well up here (and not so well in Essex or the UK). I usually do half decently on getting seeds started, due to that greenhouse effect.

I'm curious to see how much pocket change I can make from something I enjoy doing on the side...

Thoughts or ideas are welcome of what I should grow to sell, or how to do it...
Plants that have done well up here:

• avocados
• chilli peppers/any hot pepper variety, although they're not a big profit maker as peppers from Thailand and Jamaica are sold cheaply here.
• thai basil, from seed
• cat nip (cat mint) - last year's plants are already getting new growth for this season. I started with two small seedlings from the nursery and they mushroomed into 18 inches with pretty purple flowers on top. They over-wintered on the balkon and are now coming back with a vengence

Those who have failed up here, to various degrees:

• The cauliflowers - I attracted the white butterflies that created worms that demolished them.
• Lettuce - it gets too hot up here, so it goes quickly to seed
• Eggplant - couldn't get the seeds to sprout

Indifferent

• Potatoes - they do ok, but my winter ones flopped with our early freeze
• Tomatoes - they like the heat, but my plants get too hot and then get wilty. I actually had better tomatoes in Germany, by far

More frugal eating: zucchini boats

In a quest to use the cheap zucchini, it ended up a a side one evening, in a thrown together recipe of zucchini boats:

Nothing fancy again...the sliced in half zucchinis went into the oven for a little, with a little olive oil on them. While that was happening, just a little chopped onion and garlic in a pot with some olive oil, and in when all the veg I had on hand: a few sliced mushrooms, some tomatoes, and a carrot. The boats then came out of the oven and were hollowed out.

Next, the filling that was hollowed out was added to the pot, along with some sage. That was then scooped into the boats, along with a little cheddar. It went back into the oven for around 7 min. At that point, some breadcrumbs were sprinkled on top, and back in the oven for another 5 min, enough to brown them.

Total meal cost:

.15 p each for 2 zucchini

I had already incorporated the other veg and cheese costs into the main meals where they were used, so let's add it all up to .10 p per zucchini, so a total cost of .25 p for this side serving pictured.

New friend Ian deemed this one a success and asked for a repeat performance.

Frugal eating: Zucchini

Here in the UK I'd love to be able to grow Zucchini (or courgettes for the British trained amongst us)...however, my balkon here is way to warm. While in Germany I had no problem to spit them out in containers, in the UK I fizzled once they got to flowers and about two inches. It was just too warm, and they'd rot. (grumble, grumble)

However, I made the 'Markdown Madness' rounds last night. Often, I'll step out for some fresh air and will make a habit to allow Tesco and M&S prices to dictate my menus, making my rounds around when the good markdowns should have just taken place.

Normal price at Tesco for 2 courgettes is 1.20 GBP (1.42 EUR/1.61 USD). Yikes, yikes, yikes!! That's for zucchini about 4-5 inches, and NOT organic!

I realize that is sorta expensive for the US and EU costs, and I've yet to bring myself to pay this. However, let's see ('Schau mal' for my German friends), what I found:

Going to my local tesco around 18.30 results in finding things 75% off. So I picked up 4 packages of them. :-) At .3o p for 2, that's .15 p (.18 EUR/.24 USD) each, or 75% off. I could have purchased 3 more, but the expiry was on Thursday. After giving them a short tap, I estimated they'd be fine until Sunday, so thus I purchased 4 total.

The first offerings...nothing fancy...a little olive oil and onion, and then I added two sliced zucchini, and at the end sprinkled them with black pepper. Here is 1/2 of that. So I had one half on the first night, and then leftovers on the second night.

-->Don't you wish that you lived near my corner of Essex? We have 3 more packages to go through! ;-)

Tomorrow, they'll be making an appearance in fajitas, when New friend Ian will be here.

Slocombe's revenge

Dear Internet humans!

Slocombe the cat here. I've taken it upon myself to update you, because 'someone' has been going to work this week and leaving me all alone. That is not a very wise move, because then I get up to no good...

Even though I'm a retired ancient cat, I'm pretty sharp mentally, if I do say so myself! Someone noticed her avocado plant (raised from the compost heap) hasn't been looking so good in the past few days. She brought it in when the frosts came in the fall, and it's been fine, until the past week or two...

Here is a photo of it from a few months back:

What she finally figured out tonight, was that due to her office visits the past weeks, I've been lacking in 'structured outside time' on my lead! I like nature and smelling the fresh Essex air and getting a little dirt under my paws. To make up for it, I figured out how to balance myself on the plant pot, and, uh, water it.

Yes, I have a perfectly fine and functioning litter box.

Why must I do this then?

-->Because I'm terribly bored since someone leaves me here alone all day, and I don't have a balcony cat flap!

So now, she's finally figured out the mystery of why her avocado is suddenly keeling over and damp...because she caught me in the act. Drat! Curses! Foiled again!

Well, it's only Tuesday, and she's at the office through Friday this week. I can think up some new mischief in the meantime...

back in the saddle

I am very blessed to be able to spend most of my time working from home. However, I acknowlege, appreciate and validate that blessing by periodically coming to the office when requested by my employer. As I only go into the office 2 days on average per month, when I go in, I make the best of it and I go in with bells on.

Starting tomorrow, I need to go in for the entire week. Periodically, I spend a week in Germany in the office, but it's been at least 18 months since I last spent a week in my local UK office.

My lunch is packed and in the fridge.
My pc, notebook, office key and badge are all packed in the backpack, as are my cereal and office snacks.
It takes me about 25-28 minutes to walk to the office.
The weather report has been reviewed and my clothes are selected and set aside.
My main alarm and backup are set.

Now, all I need is for Monday morning to begin...

ask and you shall receive

Looking out at the front balcony this morning while on work calls, something caught my eye:

Once I was finally off the phone, I was able to investigate further:

It's a fluffy white feather, which somehow drifted onto the wet clothesline, and then remained there. I never get birds (or feathers!) on the clothesline or on the balkon because Slocombe is a fierce and mighty presence. I do occasionally see blackbirds on the roof however, or pigeons lower. It's quite a fluffy feather:

You may recall that my mother periodically sends messages, but she prefers the back balkon, so I don't think this one was from her.

Of course the internet is the source of all knowledge. Tiny white feathers are either an angel's calling card, or specifically related to a Guardian Angel. When I looked out a few hours later the rain had dried and the feather had moved on.

A few days ago, I asked for a sign. I guess I got it.

The balkon garden: oregano

It was mild in my corner of Essex today, around 11 degrees, and not raining during the day. Most of the garden is looking like it is supposed to in wintertime.

One of the few bits of green that I have is the oregano that I started from seed outside last summer:

Once we get some warmer temps in a few months, I expect this to go crazy. I was curious to see if it would survive the snows and our numerous days of below freezing temps, especially being in a container rather than the ground, and it has done much better than I anticipated.

The plastic bag vending machine at Stansted

Forgot your plastic ziploc bag for your carry-on liquids? No problem, for 1 GBP you can get one from the vending machine in Stansted.

• Kinda clever to use a design similar to a kiddie gumbal machine, like the ones you often see that cost two quarters in the US or 1 GBP here.
• Kinda highway robbery, 1 GBP (1.20 EUR/1.58 USD), for a plastic baggy. Especially so, when you consider that more often than not I've forgotten to put an item or two, such as my eyedrops, contacts, or blistex into the separate plastic baggy, and I've never been called out on it.

When I was in Germany last month, they didn't even bother to ask people to show their plastic bags or to separate out their liquids from their hand-luggage. Everything went through the x-ray in Frankfurt and the very serious Germans took a long time to look at my backpack on the screen.

Herr X had something identified on the screen and Frau Y asked if she could search my bag. However, my bag has many zippers and she was not finding what she wanted, so I peered over to see what they spotted. In my 'school' section, I carry a small metal pencil sharpener, it is encased in a metal capsule to catch the shavings. I pulled it out.

Ach so! says Frau Y, and holds it up for Herr X.

Herr X: Ach so! Eine kosmetisch yadda yadda.

Yes--my 'cosmetic pencil sharpener' and I have spent over two days here, that was long enough, thank you.

And they didn't give a rat's behind about all my liquids like my hand sanitizer, eyedrops, contacts etc. rolling around in the various pockets, sans plastic bag. But all that brainpower was working hard to confirm that my pencil sharpener was authorized to travel internationally to the US.

Tonight's frugal dinner: Polish cauliflower with a twist

A long while back, I mentioned that I had made Polish cauliflower.
I like to eat as frugally yet healthily as possible, meaning, I want to eat well, but cheaply. ;-)

Here was tonight's modification to that original version:

It's one quarter of a cauliflower (from France) 4 mid-size carrots (from in the UK, East Anglia), 1 spring onion, olive oil-based butter, and bread crumbs.

Throw the carrots in a pot of almost boiling water for a few min, add in the cauliflower for another brief few min, and then separately melt the butter with the breadcrumbs and chopped up spring onion, which should be ready in under a minute. Put the cauli and carrots into a bowl and then pour the contents of the other pot on top.

The reason for the dish?
Tonight, I went to Essex Boot Camp, where I had a groupon offer from December. It's a might fun way to spend an hour on a Tuesday evening, traversing through the park and then doing push ups around a tree and other silly but generally varied tasks. After all that fitness, I thought it best to skip the pizza deals mentioned yesterday. ;-)

As well, I've been finding a lot of good deals on produce. The cauli, carrots and spring onion were all on the 'sell-by' mark down date. It's kinda silly, as the carrots look superb and have at least another week and half in them, but who am I to complain about cheap produce?

Costs?
the cauli: .75 p for the entire head, so maybe 20 p for this portion
carrots: the bag of 12 was .38 p and I used 4, so let's say 12 p
the spring opion was in a bunch of 10 that was down to .58 p, so 6 p for this one
I'll skip the butter and breadcrumbs cost as they's been costed out previously.
Desert was a marked down kiwi: .25 p

Overall cost then for the meal was around .53 p (.63 EUR/1.56 USD) and there were no leftovers. :-) Even if I would have purchased the produce at its original cost, it would have only doubled or tripled the meal cost, so still ok for the UK.

I did have a carb heavy lunch though in anticipation of working out, so this was only meant to be something lighter.