Bits and pieces

Hello again.

Just a quick email from work (during my lunch hour) to update people on our recent activities. We've generally been up to administrative and organisational stuff that comes with moving countries and settling down, although some of it has been unexpected.

Max's behaviour is still less than desirable. He's taken to ripping up the mail when it's delivered in the morning, before he gets collected for day care. A bank statement and a gas bill were destroyed yesterday, and somehow I don't think the gas company is going to accept the excuse of "my dog ate the bill" when we don't pay up. On Monday he destroyed my exchange of driving license form, but not G's, sent by the DVLA, so I had to queue up at the post office yesterday to get a new one. It's driving us crazy, because he's got such a neurotic, irrational brain for a dog that many of the techniques listed on separation anxiety websites, namely distracting dogs with a juicy treat when leaving the house, don't work. Max has never been ruled by food, so even though we leave some chunks of frozen beef for him each morning, which he always eats, he still sets about destroying things. It's forcing us to think wistfully about him not being here which we don't want to do, but it's hard not to when you come home to find your scarf chewed up and bite marks on the kitchen door. G's started preparations for fencing off the front garden, and a kennel and heating pad were delivered yesterday, so soon he'll be an outside dog again.

On the other hand, having the new car is really, really good. We had planned to go for a drive on Sunday, but the forecast was for sleet, heavy snow, and all sorts of undesirable things. But Sunday morning dawned with a lovely blue sky so we hopped in the car....and immediately the clouds started to close in. However, the rain held off for most of our trip, and only poured for half an hour or so. We travelled east from Edinburgh along the coast, and there's some lovely scenery there. We drove through North Berwick, which seems to be the Noosa or Bargara of the Lothians - one new housing estate didn't have any properties under £1 million, which is a LOT. We also passed about a billion golf courses, including one that was right next to the main road. I'm sure cars must get hit by stray golf balls.

G was excited to drive through Belhaven, the home of Belhaven Best, and we stopped at the gates to the brewery. Belhaven kind of merged into the town of Dunbar, which had the narrowest, most ill-signposted streets we'd ever come across, and produced some hairy driving moments.

Driving in the UK is good, because pretty much every road, aside from suburban streets, is names (e.g. A1907). This is really, really handy when reading from a map, because it's really easy to tell if you're on the right track or not. The fact that some of these roads turn out to be more like glorified cart tracks is a minor point.

As for the unexpected bits, the door to the washer-dryer has broken, trapping a load of sheets inside (at least it wasn't clothing). This machine, an Indesit (see this page for one of many sites listing the brand's problems), is a piece of junk. We don't usually bother with the drying cycle because the clothes, towels, sheets etc, finish the cycle damp and steaming, rather than any closer to being dry. However, this means it takes about two days to dry things on the clothes horse, because, even after three additional spin cycles, the load is still sopping wet. All up - piece of rubbish that is to be avoided at all costs.

So, after realising on Sunday morning that the door of the washer was not going to open despite our best efforts, which included me kicking it, we called our landlady to tell her. She came over on Monday afternoon to check it out for herself, because she clearly thought that we were unable to work the door or something - she lives in Dundee which is over an hour's drive away, a long distance for British folk to travel unnecessarily. Not surprisingly, she couldn't get the door to open either, and phoned G on Tuesday to say she's going to replace the whole machine. Yay! G gets to do a bit of handyman stuff tonight and uninstall the washer, releasing our trapped sheets through the lid of the machine, all ready for the new one to be installed. It does mean, however, that we're going to have to go to a laundromat on the weekend to do some washing, which is a pain. Oh well, at least we're getting a new machine next week.

Anyhow, lunch break is over and I'd better get back to it. I'm interviewing for this role tomorrow, and I'm quite nervous. I just want to know one way or another what's happening with this position. I'd love to get it because then I don't have to go through the whole job-finding stuff anymore. But, what will be will be.