The town of Peasedown

Hi all

I went to the Post Office yesterday. It's an old building, selling postal services of course, some stationery supplies, greeting cards...and 2nd hand books, which seemed a bit odd...and then, dog food and pet supplies (?) There are three convenience stores, one of which is a co-op and has quite a lot of the supplies we need, though we are driving to a nearby town once a week to do a big shop. All of the convenience stores are heavy on the candy, chips and alcohol...I wish they had a bit more in the way of produce.

When we were grocery shopping, we were consuming every free sample offered and the guy behind the counter asked Mary where she was from--and guessed Texas! Yes, that is quite the Texas accent she has. :-) I keep being surprised when people ask me where I'm from because I think I don't have an accent. Of course I don't understand half of what people say to me the first time--I am constantly asking for repeats. I'm trying to pick up on the differences in words...of course we all know petrol rather than gas, most of us know crisps instead of chips, knickers instead of underpants...but I realize I should ask for a single ticket on the bus rather than one-way, the street beggars ask for small change vs spare change...and I am still not sure what a quid is (I asked a boy at the grocery store what kind of coin I needed to put into the shopping cart to release the key and he said, one pound quid. Why "quid"? why not just "one pound"? these are the things that keep me awake at night--well, that and jet lag...and middle age)

The bus system here is a complete mystery to me. We get schedules, we go on line, and I end up having to go into the station and ask a live person because I can't figure it out--and even then two people behind the same counter give me conflicting answers! I want to head into the city of Bristol next week...the amount of planning it takes is exhausting--I think I'll go have a nap!

I went to the university yesterday to meet Mary and saw her closet of an office, shared with four others...then we headed to the pub because her faculty, professors and students, meet there on Wednesdays. Some great people, from all over the world--Thailand, Pakistan, Italy, Finland..she is in an interesting field!

We had a day of heavy rains--I was the only person in Peasedown with an umbrella.
This weekend we are heading to Frome (pronounced frume) which has the greatest concentration of historical buildings in all of England or something like that. we also want to get to Stonehenge, which is just an hour away, even though everyone says it is disappointing. But still, we're so close--can't miss it!

More later...we miss you all!

Karen