Tag Archives: england

Pictures Of England Needs A Helping Hand

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Pictures Of England is a unique web site that has thousands of images from the British Isles that have been sent in by members, and also hundreds of articles about people and places in England that have been written by members.  Pictures of England provides a wonderful insight into the places and events that throughout the ages have made Britain great.

Unfortunately, the cost of running the web site, the servers and hosting costs, have been increasing dramatically as membership and traffic has soared, and the owners, Chris and Sarah Plows are faced with having to close the site down in the next couple of months unless additional funding can be found.

They have implemented a Premium Membership option, as well as donations via Paypal, and hopefully this will help to bring in enough money to enable them to save the site.

This is a copy of the message that they sent out to members of Pictures Of England this week:

Dear Member,

This is an important message to all members.

Unfortunately Sarah and I are no longer in a position where we can continue the funding of the PicturesOfEngland.com website ourselves, and without the urgent help of our members will soon be forced to close the site down during the coming weeks (as soon as July 2011). This is due to the large server costs which runs into thousands of pounds and are set to increase further as the site attracts more members and visitors, and the cost of running the site continues to rise.

We are therefore, in a bid to try and turn things around as quickly as possible, introducing a paid ‘Premier Membership‘ option which we hope as many of you as possible will join in a concerted effort to help us survive the short term and hopefully secure the long term future of the site as well. Other big image sites do a two-tier membership to great success, and although they may have been built on the back of large corporations and we are just a husband and wife team, we see no reason we can’t do it too, if enough members truly value the site.

Therefore please consider making a donation in order to keep the Pictures of England website online and help secure its future. Thank you in advance for your much needed support.

Thumbs UpI know that not everyone who reads this message will be able to make a donation to Pictures Of England, but if you like this site and see what a valuable resource it is, please can you help by sharing this message and/or a link to the site with your friends and to give it a  Thumbs Up on the social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Digg etc).

Thanks in advance for helping to keep a valuable resource alive.

I have no connection with Pictures Of England other than as someone who sees the value that the site provides, and wishes to see it kept alive.

 


The Snow Returned

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If you have been following the saga of the bad winter weather here in the UK through our blog, last night when I returned home from work, I was able to shovel the melting slushy snow and ice off the back path and steps up to the house with little difficulty.

I had hoped that the snow they forecast for southwest England overnight would miss us, but it didn’t, and we had between one and two inches fall by the time I woke up at 6:30am and looked out of the bedroom window.

Where I had cleared the garden path the night before it looked more like an inch or less, because the temperatures were slightly above freezing, and the snow was already a bit slushy.   However on the roads it was still deeper, where it lay on the previous compacted snow and ice.

The car was covered with about two inches of snow, which was easy to brush off, and the windows were not frozen, so I was soon able to start my journey, deciding to leave for work at 7:30am to try and beat most of thr traffic.

Our road, which is on a steep hill, was very slippery, and the main road just around the corner which goes up a very steep hill was slick, but fortunately I had enough traction to keep going, albeit slowly, and got to the top of the hill and over the other side.

It was then I hit the first problem, a solid queue of traffic towards the bottom of the hill, waiting to cross the bridge at Wood Mill (see below – click on the picture for a larger image).  

Wood Mill Bridge, Southampton. Click on the link for a larger image.

Wood Mill Bridge is only a single lane of traffic, with a double bend in the middle of the two parts of the bridge.   Normally, three cars will go from one end, stop in the middle section, where it is wide enough for three to four cars to pass each other, and then drive on.   If people adhere to this policy of only three cars at a time, then the traffic flows pretty well.

However, since the end of December there have been temporary traffic lights on either side of the bridge, and they keep jamming up, so that only one side shows green.  I am not sure if that is what happened this morning, but the traffic was already backed up to half a mile my side of the bridge at 7:30am.

For me to get to the last section of the road that runs past the park and leads to the bridge, I have to cross two mini-roundabouts, and the road coming from the right onto the first roundabout has priority, so if only one car moves forward at a time, invariably another takes it’s place, and my stream doesn’t move. 

This time of the morning, in the rush hour, there are very few cars going south across the bridge, most of the traffic heading north across the river.  Under normal conditions, the flow is constantly moving, albeit at a slow pace, but this morning it took me 35 minutes to get to the bridge, which is only a mile from home!  

The traffic lights were eventually working, letting about ten cars across from each direction at a time, but with a huge wait time in between, so most of the time the bridge was actually empty.   Oh the frustration, since the next bridge to the east is out of my way and usually very heavy under normal conditions, and the next to the west is blocked northbound for a few weeks as they work on it.  So I don’t really have any choice but to take this route to work.

Once across the bridge the traffic was light for a mile or so, until I came to Burgess Road, which runs west past the University, and this was by the time I got to it pretty heavy.  I decided therefore to not continue along there, but to take the back roads through “The Flowers”, a section of back roads that are named after flowers, and which are narrow but cut out a lot of the traffic.

Well these were slippery last week, but this morning it was like driving on a skating rink, with compacted ice under the wheels.  I drove very carefully around the bends and down a hill, but going up the otherside of the hill my wheels didn’t want to grip the road and I was sliding all over the place.  The car in front had managed to climb the hill ok, but I didn’t get enough grip at the bottom to take a run at it, and practically crawled up it, however fortune was on my side and the car kept going to the top.

Once there I hit the next main road, which only had light traffic, and zoomed onto the next hold up.

The last stage of the journey was also very slow, because the road that our office is located on is a two lane road, but there was a queue of traffic on it going in the opposite direction to me for most of the mile to the office, and I got stuck behind a cyclist who was struggling to keep the bike going at a horribly slow pace, and since he could not ride right close to the kerb, there was not enough room to overtake him, and so a stream of traffic just crawled along yet again.

At work there was a group of people shoveling snow off the driveways so that delivery trucks could get in and out.  The road goes all around the offices and warehouse, to the staff car park on the far side of the building, and even the ramp up to the car park was closed as it was too slippery.  I had to drive past the ramp, and up the down ramp to park.

I finally got to work five minutes late at 8:35am, the eight and a half miles having taken just over an hour to complete.

Whether I should have taken the back roads through “The Flowers” is debatable, however just before I arrived at work, they announced on the radio that the road which I would otherwise have taken, “The Avenue”, was partially blocked with a tree branch that had come down.  So, if I had taken that route, I would maybe have taken another 30 minutes to get to work.

Oh the joys of driving in England in the winter lol :)

Is The UK Winter About To Get Better Or Worse?

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As usual the weather forecasters in the UK have got it wrong again in the last week, with the many inches of snow that we were forecast on the South Coast for the weekend not appearing.  Well maybe a dozen small flakes, but that was all. 

Instead of heavy snow, all we saw was sunny blue skies at the end of the week and most of the weekend.  Unfortunately the sun is so low in the sky that the warmth was not enough to melt the now compacted snow and ice on the roads and pavements.  It just helped turn the snow and ice into a smoother slicker version that is now very dangerous to walk on in places.

On Saturday morning, since it was bright and sunny, I decided to go outside with a shovel and try to break up some of the snow and ice from our road, since it’s on a steep hill and has been difficult to drive on.  Where some grit and salt had been put down, or where the sun had warmed the road, I was able to chip chunks of ice away to uncover the road, but for the most part attempts to chip at the ice did little, the ice being practically welded to the road surface.

After about an hour of doing this, intermixed with meeting various neighbours who were walking to the shops instead of driving, I realised that I had a sore on my thumb.  I know this is the price you pay for not wearing gloves, but I really find it hard to work with gloves on.  Well looking at my right hand, I found another three sores, each of them larger than on my left, and the skin hanging off!  Ouch!   

So I headed back indoors where Debbie said “why didn’t you wear your gloves”,  and tried to not feel the pain as I washed my hands in icy cold water and then she helped to put some band aids on them.   Of course when you get blisters from working, it’s always on the pressure points that you use to do practically anything, from opening a jar to getting dressed and tying your shoes, so I have been struggling ever since with trying to not have anything touch them. 

We were supposed to have more snow last night, and the whole day yesterday was so dark and gloomy that you would think we lived in the Arctic!   But, no more snow, just temperatures that were marginally above freezing, and perfect for making the pathways even slicker than they were.

The back path that slopes down to where I park the car in the alley at the back of the house was rather slippy yesterday morning, and this morning it was even worse, looking really glassy and shiny and very hard to walk on.  As I navigated my way downhill to the car this morning, Debbie poked her head through the bedroom curtains to see my literally clinging onto the garage walls to try and stop myself from slipping on the last few feet, where I could not walk on anything but ice to get to the back gate.

Today has also been several degrees above freezing, and still no more snow, and I wonder when I get home if anything will have melted, or if it will be worse than this morning.   If it does snow overnight I am sure things will be chaotic tomorrow, since nothing has been salted or gritted for days.

My plan for tonight is therefore to try and use the shovel on the back path to see if the ice has come lose enough to chip it away, otherwise tomorrow morning is going to be fun!   Of course it might just snow…

Just heard from Debbie, who went shopping and of course the supermarkets have no salt either.  She brought two small packets and they went nowhere.  Oh well…  It you don’t hear from me for a while, I might be lying on my back recovering from a fall…

Reverse Culture Shock

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I have to admit that moving back to the UK after having lived in the USA for the last fifteen years is a bit of a reverse culture shock for me in many ways.   Fifteen years is long enough to get past most of the pangs of missing things from where you came and also to become well adjusted to where you moved to, however even after that length of time, there were still some words or customs I came across that were different in the USA that I wasn’t aware of before.

So having moved back to the UK and now having started back to work, albeit after almost three months of trying to find a job and spending much of my time at home, I am not back in the real world of living in England.

Working for a family owned company here is very different to working in Corporate America, where there are so many rules and regulations as to what you can and can’t do, and many of the traditions that might have been have long since gone.   Here for example, people in the department take it in turns to get tea/coffee for everyone, something that I haven’t seen in years.   The boss took us all down the pub for lunch on the first day, and it’s still acceptable to have a drink at lunchtime, whereas the mere mention of alcohol at work in the USA is a big “no no”.   Companies don’t necessarily have microwaves and water coolers here for the employees, in fact ours has neither, but there is a good supply of hot water to make a decent cup of tea as you would expect!

Driving to work is also very different to what it was in the USA, and for me it’s a step backwards.  No more driving 25 miles down the highway for me, or like in my last job 45 miles, which I could do in about 45 minutes.  Now it’s just over 8 miles to work, but it takes me between 40 minutes to an hour.   Only 1/4 mile of that is using a road that has 2 lanes each way, the rest is on just regular roads, and of course much of it is just one big traffic jam.

I guess this is just one of the downsides to living in the UK again, having to deal with the traffic, whereas in both Indiana and Florida where I was living in the USA, the traffic levels were much lighter.  Not only that, once I got out of the residential areas, the rest of the journey was on main highways with at least 2 lanes in each direction.  The traffic in the UK has always been terrible and it gets worse every year, but I am grateful at least that I am not working in London.  Most people working in London have to take public transport to get to work, and that just seems to get more unreliable every year too, so all in all I am pretty lucky to just have a 30 minute journey every day.

My next task, having moved house this weekend, is to sort out a food system for work.   In Florida I used to make myself oatmeal for breakfast in the office, and could bring in leftovers at any time to heat up in the microwave.  I also used to drink a lot of water, and kept bottles that I would fill up from the water cooler.  Now without either a water cooler or a microwave I am looking at alternative options, so will have to bring in my own water from home (since I object to paying an arm and a leg for bottled water), and will probably have cold cereal in the office, since there is a fridge that I can keep milk in.   We don’t have enough money for me to splash out on buying sandwiches etc more than once a week, and besides that, I prefer to know what I am eating, trying to eat healthy as much as I can.  Having lost more than 20lbs in weight over the last two years, I am determined to not put it all on again, as I feel so much better these days.

Well enough rambling for now… Please feel free to leave a comment…


The UK Versus USA Culture Shock

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I was born in England and spent most of my life there, apart from a year in New Zealand in the late 1980′s, but although I am well travelled, having visited many countries around the world both on vacation as well as for work, the cultural differences between the UK and the USA never cease to amaze me.

In 1994 I moved from the UK where I had been living for 15 years, to Northern Indiana, where I would spend the next 12 years, before heading south to Florida.

Most people think that the biggest difference between the UK and the USA is that in England you drive on the left side of the road, and in the USA you drive on the right side, but it’s really far more than that.  There are a myriad of cultural and social differences that only really become apparent when you spend a significant time in the other country.

There is an awful lot that I don’t like in the USA, I have to admit that.  Let’s face it, I didn’t grow up here, so things are not what I am used to, and that is normal for anyone to find.  However there are also a lot of things I do like here, and a lot of things that I don’t like about England too.   In a perfect world I would take a blend of ideas from multiple cultures to get the best of everything.

I have learned that paradise doesn’t exist, since nowhere is perfect.   Take that dream of a tropical paradise for example.  It sounds perfect doesn’t it!  Golden sands, the sound of the ocean, little tiki bars and restaurants, swaying palms.  On the other hand you have maybe a high cost of living, limited entertainment, limited shops, theaters, museums or any of those things that you take for granted in the big city.  Hurricanes!  Did I mention those?  Frequent power outages… just to name a few things that you might miss.   Have you ever wondered how many people who live in places like Jamaica and The Bahamas actually go to the beach?  Relatively few actually.  Like most people, you don’t visit places that are on your doorstep.

However I am digressing instead of writing about the original topic, which was differences between the UK and the USA.  I’m good at getting sidetracked, as Debbie well knows :)

I found so many odd differences between these two countries, that I have actually pondered whether someone said “we have to be different to England, so let’s make everything work differently to them”.  Read on and you too might wonder, but I also wonder which came first, the American or the British version…

We all know that electricity in the UK runs on 240 volts, and in Europe and most of the rest of the world on 220 volts.  The USA and it’s neighbors runs on 110 volts.  Why is that?  It seems that 220 volts is more stable, but I have no idea why the difference.

Now driving on the other side of the road I can understand, and it historically goes back to horse drawn transport centuries ago, but other things I have no idea about.

Take the old rotary phones, which I grew up with.  In the USA the dial and numbers went the opposite way around to in the UK.  Fortunately I didn’t have to use one, because it would make calling really hard.  It was bad enough in the UK, especially when the phone slipped on a high digit, causing you to mis-dial and you had to start again.

Many locks on doors turn the opposite way in the USA compared to the UK.  What’s the logic there?   And light switches go the other way.  In the UK you flip the switch down to turn a light on and up for off.  In the USA it’s the opposite.

One thing that you will never change my mind about is chocolate.   To my dying day I would declare that Cadbury’s is the best chocolate in the world and not Hersheys!

But take something like health insurance.  In the UK it’s free!  If you go to see the doctor, or need a triple bypass – it’s free!  In the USA you could end up spending a small fortune if you got sick, and you have to pay high premiums on health insurance.  It’s also almost impossible to afford if you lose your job or your work doesn’t provide health benefits.  However, if you get sick in the UK and your treatment isn’t urgent, you could end up on a waiting list for a year.  The quality of treatment is often better in the USA, but it comes at a price.  Good if you can afford it.

The thing that really hit me hard was when I got my first job in the USA.  I had been living in the USA for 5 years before I got my first job, having been employed by a software house in London since I relocated.  I had a horrible shock when I was told by Human Resources that the working week was 40 hours (but they expected more like 60), and that there was no vacation time the first year (“come again?”), 5 days the next year, and then 10 days off – but wait – you get 3 weeks off after 5 years service!   I was shocked!  In Europe by law companies have to give you a minimum of 23 days off a year, and many companies in the UK expect you to take a 2 week chunk of that during the summer, rather than have constant long weekends throughout the year.  Many places also have a 35 or 36.5 hour working week.  My heart sank as you can imagine when I heard that.   But I have gradually got adjusted, except when I hear from friends in England who have been on an exotic trip for 2 weeks, and then are planning another week somewhere in the fall, whereas I have to figure out how to make the most of my 10 days, allowing for trying to take time off over Christmas, which leaves maybe 4 days for the rest of the year.

Easter always hit me hard too, since in the UK everyone gets both Good Friday and Easter Monday off, making it a 4-day weekend.  This falls in the middle of the 2 week Spring Break for the schools, so it’s great for parents.  I couldn’t believe that a country that is far more religious than the UK would not have time off for Easter, at least in many companies.   Then Christmas of course, where in the UK we have Boxing Day, the day after Christmas Day.  It’s hard to think about going to work the day after Christmas, but so far I haven’t had to and hope I never have to.

There are so many things that I can think of.  If you know of any differences that I haven’t listed, or have any theories, please leave a comment.   You can also find some more information on Cultural Differences between the UK and the USA on another article that I wrote at Associated Content.