I guess one of the reasons I have for starting this post is to keep "my people" informed as to my doings while I'm in England. It's going to take way too much time and patience to give a full report, so here are just some random observations. :-)

The bathroom sinks here all have two faucets, one for hot and one for cold. You would enjoy watching me trying to wash my face. To prevent alternately freezing and scalding myself, I try to mix hot in cold in my hand and to splash my lukewarm concoction in my face before it drains out. It's great fun!

Lexie has a lovely British accent! Not every word sounds English, but certain phrases and intonations do. I'm trying my best to pick it up.

Some time this last week I saw a weather forecast for subzero weather. I was pretty impressed, because so far the temperature hadn't sunk much below freezing and mostly stayed in the forties. This would be a pretty big jump!! Then i remembered that they use Celsius here, the cheaters, and they were merely talking about weather below the freezing point. The funny thing is, the forecasters sounded as excited as if they were expecting a deep freeze. They aren't used to cold weather here.

Everybody around here rides a bicycle. Today when I walked into town with Karena and the kids, bike after bike passed us. Old ladies carrying umbrellas rode by, plaid wool skirts bunch around them. A student rode by in her mini skirt (!) and tights. Karena said that she sees girls riding in heels! Because bikes are THE transportation, i guess one just has to do what one has to do.....

I need to sit down and learn all the coins sometime. I've bought a few things, and each time I have to turn each coin over and read it to figure out which ones I needed. At the post office (yes, some of you will be receiving post cards!), the Indian postmaster wearing a huge white turban pointed out which coins to use. Rather embarrassing. Shouldn't take me long to learn though. The currency system here isn't nearly as confusing as I expected it to be, fortunately. The pound (which right now is worth about two dollars) is the basic unit and is divided into one hundred pence. Quite simple, really.

Anyway, I'm having a marvelous time here. Lexie is great fun to play with, Arthur is an incredibly smiley baby, and Charlie and Karena have made me feel quite at home. I can hardly believe my time here is already half gone!!