Water meters

Posted on March 30, 2009
Filed Under The English People and I, Things that surprised me | Leave a Comment

It is finally on the news that there is an initiative to install water meters in every household. But only if the environment agency ‘has its way’.

It’s not surprising that in the country where it rains so much, there are actual droughts.

Why this wasn’t done ages ago is beyond me…

Rugby

Posted on March 21, 2009
Filed Under General, The English People and I, Things that surprised me | Leave a Comment

I am ashamed to say, I actually started to enjoy the game! Still a long way from understanding the endless rules but it’s a lot more entertaining that football :D

Small Talk

Posted on March 12, 2009
Filed Under General, The English People and I | 3 Comments

One of thing where I have to become more English and less…me… is small talk. I can’t do it! If I don’t have something really important to say or to ask, I just don’t! But I can see the advantages and I can see how rude I may look for not being able to do it.

Example: Gym dressing room, had my OU swipe card showing. A woman asks me if I work there. I say yes. She asks me where, I reply. She says ‘I’ve just retired from the OU’ I say ok. And that was it. I can see it in her face she was expecting me to say something and be nice, but nothing… I said bye and left.

The alternative would be me saying: ‘Oh really? Where did you work? For how long? Who do you know there?’,  etc. And the next time I saw her I would actually remember her face, talk to her a bit more, even about other things, and I could ask her things of my personal and professional interest, all that kind of things. But no… I just said ok and left.

Need to improve my PR skill. It is essential these days!

Cycling in Milton Keynes

Posted on August 26, 2008
Filed Under General, The English People and I | 1 Comment

Well that was a nice back holiday weekend. Three days of pure relaxation.

The weather was good enough for us to do what we starting doing every good weather weekend: Cycle around.

We found very pretty places and cycling is a fantastic way to get to know MK and what it has to offer.

This time I remembered to take pictures :) .

The lake you are going to see is also the view from my gym.

Portugal, England and the Olympic Games

Posted on August 19, 2008
Filed Under General, Portugal, The English People and I | Leave a Comment

 

English person: So how many medals did we win today?

Portuguese person: So did we win any medal at all this year?

(yes we already won a silver ;) )

Wedding

Posted on June 2, 2008
Filed Under General, The English People and I | Leave a Comment

I haven’t felt like writing much lately (maybe because I have enough to write already with the thesis ;), and to be honest there haven’t been many events or news to write about.

But this weekend I went to the reception of wedding of on of the students. It was a very nice and friendly reception, only for a few friends and family. The food was very good and the speeches quite funny :P

We ate, talked, took pictures. Because of their religion there was no alcohol which is a nice change from what you usually see in wedding with someone always drinking too much and making a fool of themselves.

Congratulations Imran and Selina. I wish you all the happiness!

Abortion law, and sex of the babies

Posted on May 28, 2008
Filed Under The English People and I, Things that surprised me | 1 Comment

Now here is something that I just only found out and left me very confused.

I’ve written before about abortion laws and how liberal they are in England. Abortion is permitted up until 26 weeks pregnancy and in practical terms all you have to do is go to your GP and tell him you want an abortion.

Oddly related to this is the fact that in the vast majority of hospitals, they are not allowed to tell the parents  the sex of the baby! I know that there are some people who like to be surprised and therefore, don’t want to know the sex of the baby. But being forbidden? I found that very odd. Then I found out why. Apparently some people abort if the baby is a girl. So to prevent this from happening the sex of the baby can’t be known until birth. Which leaves me with a question: one of the reasons why people defend abortion is that it is best to keep the baby from being born than to give him/her a life time of misery with parents who didn’t want them. I wonder how the lives of the baby girls will be with parents who didn’t want them. On the other hand, there should be no discrimination between boys and girls!

I’m still confused as to if this is a very conservative of a very liberal law :S

Visits from Portugal

Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under The English People and I | 3 Comments

My mum and my friend R. came to visit for 4 days a couple of weeks ago.

Mum: Where are the people? There are no people on the streets! Is it always like this?

Me: Yes mum, it’s always like this. You only see people in the city centre.

Mum: And where are the cafes? And the shops?

Me: There aren’t any. Only in the city centre.

Mum: Well lets go to the city centre and have coffee and see people!

Me: There is no point mum. Everything closed at 5.

Mum: What???? How can you live here??? What do you do????

No comments…

Easter holiday

Posted on March 27, 2008
Filed Under General, The English People and I, Travelling | 4 Comments

Russ and I decided to go somewhere this weekend as on Easter people are granted with 4 days off in a row :)

I’ll show some pictures here but if you want to see all of them follow this link or click at the images link at the top of the page and open the Devon Easter 2008 folder. Comments are not available there at the moment because I was spamed, but you can comment her.

As I was desperate to see the sea again, we decided to go back Exeter and explore a bit of Devon, home of the fabulous Muse.

We stayed at a dairy farm where Russ stayed before when he was working there. It was gorgeous. We had a small apartment all to ourselves and it was so clean and nice it felt just like home.

We left on Thursday evening so we could have more time to explore. On Friday, after a morning of shopping, we decided to go to a nearby park and do one of the walks around it. The walk route was 5 miles long (~7km) which by itself would be very exhausting. What they didn’t tell us was that part of the walk included crossing a field with cows and so much mud we completely buried our boots in it! :o We managed to get out of there but it was quite an adventure. I was so glad I took my waterproof walking boots. It was also very cold and windy and it rained sometimes but the views and the contact with Nature was all worth it :D Unfortunately there are no pictures of this day.

Saturday we decided to go on a ‘treasure hunt’. The goal is to follow leads and finding the final answer but the important bit is that it takes you to places you would never find out on your own. From fantastic beaches (with rocks from the Mesozoic- Triassic to Cretassic-you can see some on the picture with a fantastic cross-bedding) to fantastic villages, it was amazing! The weirdest thing was to be on a beach and it started snowing!! On the beach! This was something I never experienced before. It was weird! We drove and we walked a lot up and down hills until we finally got back home exhausted again!

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Sunday, we went to see a local cave. It was a touristic thing but it reminded me of the time I did a speleology course (remember Vanda?) and I really want to do it again! After that we when on another walk in the woods to see the highest waterfall in England. It was great walking up next to the waterfalls in the middle of the woods with nothing but trees and animals and water around us. And the air was so fresh! We ended the day eating ribs at a great restaurant in Exeter, exhausted once again ;)

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Monday was the day to come back. But on the way back, despite the heavy traffic, we managed to still go and see Stonehenge! I’d been there before but Russ hadn’t so we visited and had an audio tour. It’s always impressive. But again it was so cold and windy we couldn’t even keep the hands out of our pockets for long even with gloves!

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And we came back home! Great holiday! definitely something to do again in some other part of the Kingdom (or outside the Kingdom-been trying to convince Russ to go to Ireland where he hasn’t been and I’ve been a decade ago).

NHS vs SNS (3)

Posted on March 25, 2008
Filed Under Portugal, The English People and I | 2 Comments

After coming back from a fantastic holiday to find a freezing house, the only thing I could do was to download the pictures Russ took into my laptop. The post and pictures will come later as I don’t have them here with me.

But before I post about the holiday I think I should talk about my experience with the NHS on Thursday just before I left.

I was well impressed! After complaining to my GP about my constant ear problems he decided it would be best to see a specialist and arranged and appointment at the hospital for an external appointment. It took 2 months. I’m not sure how things are in Portugal now but last time I check it could take up to 2 years to get an appointment. So it started well.

On the day, I was ready for a wasted afternoon. I was wrong! The doctor was fantastic, didn’t speak to me as if I was an idiot, was very kind and caring. Right there I got a camera up my nose, down to my throat (not very pleasant I can tell you), then I was sent to a pressure test and an hearing test! In 31 years of asthma, nose and ear related problem I never had this done. Well I had it now and in 1.5 hours I was done and going home! That was impressive!!! :D

I found out there is nothing wrong with my hearing, I have very dry skin in my ears which causes a horrible itch and I need to moiturinse (!) (so that is why!) and my problem is not my ears but my nose which is constantly swollen meaning I have to use a steroid spray everyday for many, many years. :(

Well from personal experience NHS hasn’t been bad for me, but still the mortality rate in maternities due to lack of midwives and in hospitals due to super-bugs doesn’t give me much confidence. Also Russ is not as lucky as me and his GP is the kind you want to kill! :@

 PS-Tottaly unrelated. With the new Wordpress update I can also write things in different colours :D



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