First we had one of the most spectacular movies of all time, Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Now in time for the 100th anniversary of the sinking, Titanic is to become a 4 part mini-series written by Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey.
Read the full story here:
The Sinking of the Titanic is Now Set to Become a Mini Series.
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 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 
Debbie and I returned home at the weekend from our Christmas trip to Florida to see my daughters, and I consider us to be very lucky, since the northern part of the UK had already been hit by sub-zero temperatures and record amounts of snow.
It didn’t take long however for Old Man Winter to move south, and by Tuesday we had snow in the south of England. Fortunately going to work on Tuesday morning it wasn’t as cold as expected, so I didn’t need to scrape the ice off the windows of the car, just use the regular wiper to clean the windows.
Tuesday night we were threatened to have up to a foot of snow, but when I left work it was just light drizzle, and I made it all the way home in almost record time. It wasn’t half an hour later however when we saw heavy snow falling, but fortunately we only got just over an inch, far less than the forecast said.
Wednesday morning I set off for work early, expecting to have to have a major scraping job on my hands, and also to have to wade through deep snow, but it was already melting a bit, the car windows were not frozen, so I just had to brush the snow off the car, and got into work 30 minutes earlier than usual.
When I got to work I found that several people who live a bit further out of town and where the snow was falling earlier, had been forced to abandon their cars as they couldn’t get home. One of them left work at 5pm and didn’t make it home until 11pm, and this is less than ten miles from where I live. I guess I ought to be grateful that I live where I do.
We had a bit more snow during the day and it was threatening more for the evening, so I decided to leave for home ten minutes early to beat the traffic, and had a good journey home, that is until I almost got home.
We live halfway up a steep hill, and I managed to take the turning off the main road onto our access road ok, drove the two hundred yards or so along there ok, then made the sharp left turn to go up the hill, and didn’t get too far. The road was covered in snow and ice, and was too steep for the car to get enough grip to drive more than 20 or 30 yards up the road. Frustratingly, this was only 20 yards short of where I needed to be to back off the road and down the alley at the back of the house to where I park.
Well I tried and tried, reversed down the hill and around the corner, tried again, but the car wasn’t going to make it, so I parked at the side of the road and walked the last 1/4 mile home. I then got changed, put my boots on, grabbed the bucket of salt/grit that we saved from the week before Christmas when we had the last freeze, picked up a garden shovel, and headed back to the car. I spent a while shovelling snow and ice away from around the wheels, cleared ten feet behind the car and about 20 feet in front, sprinkled the grit down, and tried to get up the hill. It took me 2 or 3 attempts, including a second round of shoveling having reversed down the hill a few feet, but finally I slithered up the hill and was then able to reverse into the alley. Phew!
I then took my now empty bucket to the grit bin at the top of the road, hoping to refill it for the next time, but was dismayed to find that the bin was empty. Not more or less empty though, I don’t think there was enough grit to even fill the palm of my hand. Oh well…
More snow was forecast Wednesday night, but I woke up this morning to find that nothing had covered my footsteps of last night, however it was bitterly cold, and the snow out the back was crunchy underfoot. The car windows took forever to scrape as the ice was really hard, and shovel in boot (trunk) I started my way down the alley to the road.
The road was still covered in snow and ice, and there was a car and a van close to the bottom of the slope, both obviously couldn’t make it up the hill the night before. I turned into the road, then slowly worked my way down the hill, hoping not to slide into either vehicle (which were parked on opposite sides of the road), or to fail to stop and run into the line of trees at the bottom of the road. I made it, then turned left into the access road, which was really slick and slippery. At the end of the access road the road turns sharply right and goes downhill, then immediately onto a main road, with traffic that comes around a bend fast. I decided to go really slowly down the last bit of the access road, because if not I could end up not stopping on what looked like a skating rink, and didn’t relish the idea of sliding into the main road and oncoming traffic. Luckily the main road was clear, I slithered down the last section of the access road, put my foot down on the accelerator, and started up the main road. Another sigh of relief…
The main road of course immediately goes up an even steeper hill than where we live, and this is one long haul of a hill too, up one side and then down the other. Fortunately the road was clear enough, and the rest of the journey to work was uneventful, and also done in practically record time.
Although more snow is forecast and it’s still bitterly cold outside, the sky has been blue all day, and I am hoping that this will be enough for the snow on our road to melt enough for me to get up the hill and home ok.
I emailed the city this morning using their Actionline link to see if we could get more grit in our grit bin, and got a response to say that they would answer my inquire within three days. Oh joy – maybe we can go shopping on Sunday! Or maybe not as more snow is forecast for the weekend, and the freezing temperatures are set to continue for another week at least.
As for the two people who didn’t make it home on Tuesday night, neither of them made it into work yesterday or even today. While the main roads are mostly clear, the side roads after the partial melt and the severe freeze last night have turned them into slick skating rinks, and it’s practically impossible for anyone to go anywhere.
This is so different to my experiences while living in Indiana, where the city had so many snow ploughs and salt trucks, plus a number of other people had pickup trucks with blades on the front to plough side streets and car parks for shopping centres and businesses. In addition many people shoveled the snow from their own sidewalks or used snowblowers, yet here in England that rarely happens any more.
Do you have a snow day story to tell? If so, please leave a comment and let us know.
Winter is fast approaching here in England, the clocks have now gone back, it’s darker at night, and at the end of a long day at work so many of us are now faced with a dark and damp commute home, which can sometimes turn into a nightmare experience.
My drive home from work is only 8 1/2 miles, yet last night it took close to 1 1/2 hours to get home. It was even worse for several people I know in the office who didn’t get home until 8pm and 8:30pm, and that was only a drive of 14 miles.
The problem last night was on the motorway close to work, where a woman fell from a bridge onto the road, plus about 5 or 6 miles further up the road where two trucks collided. The whole motorway system therefore came to a grinding halt for 10 or more miles around.
Unfortunately, the city of Southampton is sandwiched between the South Coast of England and the River Itchen, and the motorways run from the southeast, north around the city and off to the west. So, if the motorways all get snarled up, people come off looking for an alternative route, and that leads them onto the regular roads that are already heavy with traffic for most of the day. The regular “A” roads around here are more often than not only 1 lane in each direction as well, so it doesn’t take much to cause major holdups where the roads cross others, or where they cross the river.
Since I work to a fixed timetable (the buzzer sounds at 5pm and everyone rushes out at the same time to head home), there isn’t much I can do to avoid the rush hour, and given the location of the office, I don’t have many alternatives as to the route I take to get home. So, like thousands of others last night, I just sat in traffic and listened to the radio.
Hopefully tonight will be better, but as soon as it gets dark and wet here in England, everything slows right down. The one big consolation is that I drive an automatic, so I didn’t have to spend 90 minutes with my foot on and off the clutch at least.
Well it’s been five weeks ago today since I left the sunshine of hot and sticky South Florida and returned to the UK to be with Debbie.
It’s true that we have had some nice days where the sun has shone, there have been blue skies, and it’s been a pleasant 70 degrees, but there have also been quite a few days where the temperature has barely climbed above 65 degrees all day. Sunday was grey and gloomy all day, from the time we got up until the time we went to bed. You can’t really say until the time it got dark, because it never really got light! Monday started off the same, but it turned out nice in the afternoon, and we were able to have a BBQ and sit outside in the sunshine. Tuesday was mixed and also breezy. We went to Calshot, which is across the other side of Southampton water, and had a good walk along the beach (well pebbles). But today has been another one of those grey gloomy days, most of the afternoon it’s been spitting with rain, and the last two hours it’s been blowing a gale and pouring down.
The schools go back at the end of this week, and Debbie heads back to work tomorrow after six weeks off. We wonder where summer went to, but although we haven’t had the money to go anywhere and spent anything, we have had some wonderful local walks and done some good exploring of the local countryside. That’s something we both enjoy a lot, and I have a lot of posting to catch up on, with plenty of photographs to add as well.
As soon as I came back here I signed on at the job centre to claim unemployment benefit, but so far I haven’t received anything. With so many people out of work over here, the offices are backed up, and with my having just come back from the USA it hasn’t made things easier either. I hope to hear back with a positive result within a week, as my money is almost gone, what bit I had left over here, and Debbie only earns enough to barely cover the bills and food.
Of course I have registered with all the internet job search sites, but they all pretty much return the same jobs, and nothing has really matched my skill set yet. I would like to add a commendation for the one recruiter who I found through Linked-In, and who took the time to call me while I was still in Florida, as well as to check up on me at least once a week here, providing tips on potential job openings in companies where he didn’t have a contact, as well as working hard to find a place for me within his clients. If you are looking for an IT job in the south of England, particularly if you are working with IBM Midrange systems, I highly recommend Adam Langley-Smith of Required-IT to handle your job search.
Meantime, I am trying to decide what to do, trying to figure out how I can earn enough money online to keep us afloat, and there are so many ideas, but the hard part is to know what to do and in which direction to turn. I thought of looking at ghostwriting (writing articles for other people – they get published without your name on them), but I would really love to be able to write under my own name. I would love to write a book, but I can’t think where to begin, I need a plot, and the worst thing is that this could take a year or more before I got published, and then the book might never be successful anyhow.
I keep trying to be realistic, since my IT skills are in need of some re-tuning, but still I am hoping that something will come along.
Tomorrow will I hope bring some good ideas, since Debbie goes back to work, and I have more time to myself, time to devote to writing, promoting, and to trying to earn a penny or two. I would really love to have some good money coming in soon, as we had planned to spend Christmas in Florida so I can see my two daughters, but if I don’t get a job, that isn’t going to happen. There is always the Lottery of course, or the million to one chance of a benefactor leaving a donation in the Tip jar on the blog, but I don’t realistically expect either of those to happen. Just have to get lucky and get a good paying job.
So farewell summer, welcome to my new working life, trying to make it by writing and blogging. Wish me luck…
Both Debbie and I have been busy this last couple of weeks creating new lenses on Squidoo.
While Debhie has been working on her collection of lenses about Hampshire, I have been working on my USA States lenses, and also a local one about my daily walks.
Firstly, Debbie created a lens about Southampton, the city where she lives. Southampton is one of the largest ports in England, in the middle of the South Coast, and has seen many famous ships sail down the river, including The Titanic, Queen Mary and Elizabeth, and also their successors the QE2 and QM2.
She just completed another about Netley, a suburb of Southampton which has a lot of history. Netley has ruins of an Abbey, as well as an old military hospital, the remains of which have been turned into a country park.
Meanwhile, I just completed a lens about the morning walks that I take where I live in Deer Creek in South Florida. The lens has over 80 photographs from the walk, including some nice homes, lakes, and much of the tropical foliage and wildlife of the area.
I have also been working on a set of lenses about the states in the USA. I am creating these in alphabetical order, and so far have completed Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas and California. Each lens has background information on each state, and a list of other lenses about that state. If you have a Squidoo lens about any of these states, please feel free to add it to the list of lenses to get some free promotion.
If I haven’t got to your state yet, why not subscribe to our blog so you can be kept up to date with progress. I hope you enjoy what you see here.
Bishops Waltham is a small town in Hampshire, at the head of the River Hamble and close to the South Coast of England that dates back to Saxon times. Much of the town is unchanged, retaining the historic buildings and shops and narrow streets. Debbie and I stopped to take a walk through the town in April. We hope you enjoy the photos that we took, which are in the gallery below.
The town is one of the few in England that has managed to retain it’s character, and as well as many of the Georgian buildings remaining, Bishops Waltham has managed to suppress the influx of larger supermarket chains and almost all of the shops in the town are family run businesses. The local butcher had a number of protest signs outside because one of the supermarkets is planning to open in the town, which will sound the death knell for many of the local shops.
The ruins of Bishops Waltham Palace on the edge of the town are open to the public in the summer months and are run by the English Heritage Trust. The palace was used by the Bishops and senior clergy of Winchester as they travelled through their diocese. Winchester was the richest diocese in England at the time, and as such its properties were grand. The palace was destroyed on the orders of Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil war. Much of the old Palace is still in the town. Apart from the ruins, which are open to the public and well worth a visit, material from the Palace was used as building materials in town buildings still standing to this day.
Click Here for Books and other items about Bishops Waltham from Amazon.
This is the story of a fun shopping trip I had with my eldest daughter on Saturday. I will do my best to try and bring the character of the area and the sights to life and I hope you enjoy this trip as much as I did.
There is a suburb of Southampton called Portswood. It has a right old mish mash of shops and a very diverse clientele. Portswood is bordered by a very wealthy residential area, student land, and a whole host of cultural communities.
Portswood has a great shopping centre which is spread along the High Street. I suppose it runs for half a mile in length, and each side of the street has a range of banks, pharmacies, charity shops, greengrocers, clothing outlets, bakers, etc. There is a Post Office on one side and a library on the other. There are also various fast food take aways and a couple of restaurants. There is even a high end supermarket (for all the wealthy people) and a low end frozen food shop (for the not so wealthy people). There is a beautiful bridal shop and a Blockbusters video store. There used to be a Woolworths store but alas, the store is now an empty shell as the company have gone into administration.
The High Street (equivalent to Main Street in the USA) used to be the main place to shop in England when we were growing up, but these days most of the shopping is done in the newer malls or shopping centres that are on the outskirts of town, leaving the High Street full of more interesting shops and restaurants, many of them lower end but very diverse.
Well, on Saturday morning, my eldest daughter and her bump which is now a definite, easily recognisable bump) called to ask if I’d like to go and hit the charity shops with her to see if we could find some maternity clothes. We used to go shopping together regularly, but haven’t done this for ages, so I was quite excited about having a girly afternoon with my eldest baby. My daughter had apparently just had a temper tantrum because nothing fitted, so she was in need of something to fit her expanding waistline.
So, I prepared myself with flat boots, plenty of carrier bags, money and a promise of “don’t impulse buy”. Off we went and actually managed to park quite easily, which is a rarity nowadays when shopping in England.
As soon as we got out of the car, Gemma (not her real name) needed the loo (restroom), despite having gone just ten minutes earlier at my house. As luck would have it, there was a public toilet at the entrance to the car park. I waited outside as I knew what was lurking in there (I really dislike having to use public toilets). I heard her close the cubical door which was then followed by cries of “eeerrrr” , “oh no” and “why did I come in here?“ I patiently waited, giggling away, until she reappeared, muttering about “now she knows why she carried antibacterial hand wash in her bag” and “why don’t they clean these places?”
We followed our previously well trodden route which takes us down one side of the road, cross at the pedestrian crossing, and back up the other side. That way, we miss nothing!
The first thing we noticed were that a couple of local businesses had closed down, one a national butcher chain. However, we didn’t let this deter us and we soon found ourselves inside the Barnados Charity shop. There it was, a cream lampshade, just calling to me! “Debbie, I want to be in your bedroom, buy me, buy me“. It was £1.50 ($2.50) and it was brand new! First purchase made… oh yes, I was supposed to be looking for maternity clothes… rummage, rummage, nope nothing let’s move on.
So on we went… past the fish & chip shop, past a newsagents, past a Pound Shop (equivalent to a Dollar Store), past a bingo hall, past an Indian restaurant, and there was our second target the Scope shop which is a Charity for cerebral palsy and disabled people in general. Rummage, rummage, “oh look at those gorgeous emerald green patent shoes, they look brand new” only to be met with “for goodness sake Mother, they may have been ok when you were ten years old, but not now!“ Oh ok… back to the hunt for maternity wear. Then, I saw it waving at me from a hanger… a gorgeous white crinkle cotton blouse… well, I had to have it, didn’t I? I only have about 5 white crinkle cotton tops so I really did need it. Nice hats for weddings etc, no, don’t need those… onto the books… nope nothing there for me but Gemma found one she wanted… nice handbags and “Oh what a gorgeous pair of boots” can I really get my size 7′s (US 9) into a size 5 though? No maternity clothes.
We went past the frozen food shop for the not so wealthy people… past the pub, oh didn’t know there was a pub there, but it’s next to the betting office so probably not a nice pub… past the dry cleaners and across the road to the other side.
Now here’s where I first noticed that there were a lot of foreign accents, and I mean A LOT. As we were looking at the beautiful Cinderella style wedding dresses in the bridal shop window, this poor unfortunate lady walked past us. Over here, long, blouson style tops are in fashion and are worn over jeans, trousers or maybe leggings. Well this lady who sounded Russian obviously didn’t know about the trouser part because she had her bright yellow blouson style top on – which only just covered her derriere I might add – over the top of a pair of grey lacy tights (pantyhose). Well, I wanted to run after her and point out her mistake, but Gemma held me back. At the bottom of the ladies rather large grey lacy covered legs, were a pair of interesting yellow ankle boots and on the top of her head was a grey beret, so it looked like grey head, yellow body, grey large lacy legs, yellow feet… oh dear! But seeing people dressed, ummm, differently, is all part of the colour of Portswood. You will see Asian ladies in Sari’s, students wearing typical student attire, old ladies in things they really shouldn’t be wearing and then normal people like me and Gemma.
So on we went, past the mobile phone shop… past an internet cafe, oh that’s new… past a bank… past a low end shoe shop… past a hardware shop… then into another charity shop, this one was the Cancer Research shop. The lady behind the counter was a real character. She was what I’d call a rough diamond. She had badly bleached blonde hair with two inch dark grey roots which was badly in need of a good cut, lots of cleavage showing, a chain dangling a stone studded ‘R’ around her neck which her cleavage threatened to eat at any second and both hands full of rings… but she was lovely.
By this time, I was fed up with rummage for maternity wear and asked straight out if she had any. She went and found a gorgeous top for Gemma and we matched it up with some trousers too. As I was talking to the lovely lady, I spotted a beautiful pinky coloured cashmere cardigan which had been displayed on a wall. I asked to look at it, which of course involved the use of a step ladder and the voluptuous cleavage threatened to escape as the lovely lady made her way back down the ladder with my best find of the day. It still had the Marks & Spencers tags attached. It was made with cashmere & angora… price £8.95!!! Originally, it would have been £40-50. M & S sells good quality clothing that lasts for years. It’s not cheap though, but it’s also not the most expensive, but everyone here loves Marks & Sparks as we call it.
Then the bargains flowed, shop after shop we found some great stuff… maternity combat trousers, big baggy tops, a sparkly evening top for me and then… oh I just have to have you… my little darlings, you’ve just been waiting for me to find you… what caught my eye? A pair of gold, satin covered, open backed, kitten heeled shoes with a little jewel on each side… I know, they sound terrible but they are just perfect for a party I’m going to next weekend. I’ll be wearing a black trouser suit with a lovely cream top and the shoes will be discreetly, yet still on show, tucked under the black hems. Now of course, I might not be able to walk in them and I imagine dancing will probably be out of the question… maybe after a few lemonades I might attempt a dance, we’ll see.
We found a Polish shop. No, not a Polish shop that sells Polish. A Polish shop for Polish food shopping. We have the country’s largest Polish community here, and shops to cater for their needs are popping up everywhere. So we went in to see what delights they had. Well there was jar after jar of some lovely looking things, no idea what they were though.
When we eventually crossed the road at the top of the High Street, we were laden down with bags. Our feet were aching and Gemma was needing another bathroom moment but decided to wait… wonder why? We went into an Asian food shop where Gemma found some Botong for her South African husband. Botong is, I think, raw meat flavoured with goodness knows what and made to look like a sausage. Gemma tricked me once into tasting some and assured me it was cooked. I won’t tell you how it tasted or how my stomach reacted, I’ll leave that to your imagination. Anyway, Gemma thought her husband wouldn’t notice how many bags she had if she took that home for him… smart girl 
We approached a fabulous shop selling all kinds of fresh fruit, vegtables and flowers. Over here, it’s quite common for shops to display their goods outside the front of the shop so you can select what you want and then go inside to pay. As we got closer to the door, Gemma started making some interesting sounds… almost like pleasurable gasps really. Then it hit me… the smell of fresh fish. Whilst my stomach was turning over and threatening to evacuate it’s contents, Gemma was in sniffing heaven. Great big gulps of fishy smell went into that girl… it’s a craving she has, the smell of fish… I waited outside turning a shade of green and trying to sniff the air coming the other way while she went and sniffed around and eventually came out with a bag of fresh fish and a gleaming happy face.
We then returned to the car, weary and tired but happy with our bargains. I made sure the fish was put in the boot (trunk) before we made our way home.
Can’t wait to go again…