There are many things I have discovered, many things that I need to tell you. They are in a grab bag of thoughts, mental detritus set aside in a place I think, “Ooh, I should tell someone that. And so here you are and here I go.
FYI: There is a mail strike going on.The stack of stamped post cards I planned on sending to you are sitting, because I have no place to put them. The card for Ruth, recovering from surgery, the note of sympathy to her husband; the books, the short stories for contests, the manuscript to return to my editor, the gifts for my sibs, including uniquely UK candies (I mean, wine gums. Yet they contain no actual wine? Plenty of suspicious gelatin, though.) — all of these things sitting in drifts around the house, waiting. I’m all for supporting the people against the establishment — Go Postmen! — but right now the strike is filling me with a tiny but growing shriek of “Aaaaaargh!”
Another small item of information: Envelopes are different here. I haven’t had to use many, as we’ve mainly confined our bills to direct deposit, and our business dealings to telephone and internet, but we had to pick up a couple of envelopes a week or so ago. I looked at them, figured out how they worked, and then promptly tried to only pull down one flap to seal the letters in. No. Pull one pre-gummed flap up, pull one flap down. Not so hard, but it’s counterintuitive for me, as both flaps are bent down, and it makes me smile every time…
FYI: There is something to be said for haggis, I’m sure, but not by me. Haggis is one of those obvious foods that everyone hears about as a specialty of Scotland and then cringes and rolls around and says “Eeew!” and “Ooh” and vows never to eat. Well, no one minds; people who like haggis just figure there’s more for them, people who don’t can rest easy with their chips. Haggis, I’ve found, is one of those 
things like turkey at Thanksgiving; unless it’s Robert Burns Day, not many people have it on their everyday menus – at least not here in the city, although it’s on the menu at touristy restaurants we pass. But what we have found on many menus – at snack trucks (what we might call a ‘Roach Coach’ in the U.S.) and sandwich shops we’ve passed is the word ‘Bovril” on the menu.
After saying the words back and forth to each other for a couple of weeks, we finally remembered to look it up while we were thinking about it. It’s a slippery word, it is — Bovril. It reminds me of bovine, and ‘boll weevil,’ all run together. At any rate — we looked it up. And it was Marmite and Vegemite all over again. Only Bovril has some kind of beef extract in it, which can be drunk as (the ubiquitous in British novels) beef tea.
Now, this is a serious question — I’d like to know why Americans haven’t got a national taste for yeast paste foods. And no, it’s not because Americans make healthier choices – we’re probably twice as salt-addicted as the UK, Australia and NZ and Canada where these things are relished. Is it because of the UK’s link with food processing, or producing war foods? Is it because… ? What? I don’t get it. I really don’t. Bovril. Hm.
Is it me, or does this coffee shop in Central Station look too much like another one? I mean, do their beans come from Seattle?!
The other day it seemed that this right-side-driver’s-seat thing had finally sunk into my brain. On the freeway, people merge in nicely. The roundabouts, while still somewhat confusing, are driven by the cabbies with an air of ‘what the heck, just jump in,’ and I think we’ve got the hang of the signaling — mostly. A gentleman has even offered D. the use of his car (dear, sweet, generous and completely delusional Englishman…), and so, we feel it is only a matter of time before we’ll be able to wrestle with and win through the UK roads.
Maybe one of us will. The other of us still can’t figure out from which direction the bus is coming, despite the fact that the bus shelter has an ADVERTISEMENT on one wall, making it opaque, and leaving the other clear to see the approaching traffic. No, she simply steps beyond the advertisement, and scans the road… and jumps, as the buses pull up behind her, gears grinding and brakes squealing…
There are tons of other things I meant to tell you, I’m sure, but they’ll have to wait. The sun is shining, which means I must throw some laundry in immediately to take advantage of the puddle of sun on the living room floor and position my laundry rack in order to speed drying. Air drying leaves all of our towels with quite an exfoliating effect, but we certainly don’t have to iron our jeans and cords anymore!
– D & T
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Costa’s a UK based company that started up the same time as Starbucks, completely independently. I’m sure their expansion and popularity has a lot to do with the worldwide explosion in chains of coffee shops, but I wouldn’t call them a knock off of Starbucks. I prefer their coffee too 🙂
Please note: NOT a fan of Starbucks. The sign just looks a lot like theirs, you’d think they’d try really hard to look as different as possible from the stuck-on-every-corner-substandard-pseudo-hip-yuck store.
Giggle. Roundabouts…. or roonaboots. Every American fears them.
Okay, I never drove the entire time I lived in Scotland, but then I lived in Edinburgh, so it wasn’t at all necessary.
But street crossings…. oh my.
Once I learned how to do it like a native, it has ruined me forever in Utah. Not only do I now chronically look the wrong direction, but I want to walk into the middle of the street and stand to wait for cars to pass instead of waiting for the lights to change like a good little girl.
Bovril as a tea? Now that seems odd. We use it in Canada as a soup sometimes… sort of like “chicken in a mug” but not often. I mostly see it used for darkening gravy, flavouring soups or stews, etc. It comes as a liquid, powder, and cubes here.
I, too, prefer Costa’s over Starbucks
To address the issue of yeast paste (marmite / vegemite): I believe that you’d have to look at the conditions under which the yeast pastes developed. The version of yeast paste developed in Europe arose, possibly, as a means of getting a little bit more money out of an industry in which there was competition. So, if you’re a struggling brewery, and can’t raise your prices because there were other breweries which would undercut you on prices, you’d look for something to do with your waste product (yeast).
Or, perhaps it developed as a means of stretching the diet? That seems to be the “legendary” case, as far as the Australian version of it.
I’m not certain (and am just guessing, as a matter of fact), but I do know that it required a brewery, and one with a degree of stability, so that someone could look at the process and consider the waste product as something other than waste.
If you’re the only brewery in town, you’ve got a lock on the market and don’t have to be quite so efficient, and that’s probably going to be along the lines of the American brewery.
If I had more time, I’d research this … but, fortunately, I do not. 🙂
I’ve tried Bovril, despite that awful name (you are right: it does make you think of a combination of hard-backed insects and weed-killer), and I don’t get the attraction. I remember expatriate Brits in Japan almost weeping with joy on receiving care packages with Bovril; it made me a little suspicious about British cuisine.
As for crossing the road safely here, I have always been directionally challenged and had to look every which way, so it isn’t so bad for me. But whenever I am with other Americans, I always head for the driver’s side of the car even though I’m the passenger. Obviously there is some directional sense in there somewhere.
Bovril is lovely stuff. Best drunk from big steaming plastic cups in wintery football stands (kops?).
Well, I’ll at least have some Costa Coffee. Sorry, Neil – I’ve already been warned not to go to any footy games, so no Bovril – which sounds like bovine boll weevils — for me…
Ah, roundabouts. They’ve actually recently built two or three here in Modesto, for some unknown reason–two-lane suckers, so they’re not so bad, but…why? Stop signs too boring?