The Jordan-Hemming Effect

According to US News and World Report, our very own Loveland, CO is one of the top ten places to live in the USA.
http://www.usnews.com/business/best-places/listing/colorado/loveland

Now they didn't actually interview us for this piece, which surprises me a bit, but there you have it. We move to a place and suddenly, it becomes desirable. There's not much else to say, so this week we will just feature some photos of this mecca.

School's out for Summer

Unbelievable as it may seem to you in Blighty, my children have been on their summer holidays for almost two weeks now. May 29th was their last day and already they are milling listlessly around the house wondering what to do. Even computer games have become boring.

There is some hope. We have a neighbourhood swimming pool - that's Spencer above - and so far that attracts a visit once or twice a day for a splash around. I suspect - when it is warmer (more of which later) - that it will be a useful meeting place for new friends as well.

We also have acquired a ping pong table, and this is providing daily hilarity (we are all rubbish). My mother moved house last month - hence my lack of posting: I have been helping her sort and pack prior to the move, and am helping her sort and unpack following it. The house she left, the same in which I grew up - held some 46 years of accumulated. Including my father's wonderful eccentric collection of everything imaginably useful ever. It also housed the ping pong table. I remember having great fun playing with my siblings in my youth. Latterly it served as a storage table, mounded with boxes and more boxes. It had to go, but I could not bear to let it go, so now it is in our garage. Who'd've thought?

I can recall only one stretch of sustained summer grey growing up. Seems like it was the year I was 9 or 10, and we felt as if the sun would never come out and it would never warm up. Lasted the entire month of June. And guess what. So far this month has been the same, with another week or ten days forecast to come. Of course, it is precisely what we are used to in Leigh, and daily temperatures reach the high 60s and low 70s, so, while I'm not moaning, it puts a small cramp in the summer activities. Andrew is disappointed not to be able to turn on the house air conditioning, (we will never agree on a suitable internal temperature, and I am glad the issue has not yet arisen - watch this space). I have yet to dip my toe in the pool as it is not yet warm enough. There has been much rain, rather too much hail, and all around us we are warned of tornados - one set down in Aurora a few days ago.

Wildlife

The contrast between wildlife in Kent which seemed to consist of cute urban foxes, the odd pheasant in the back garden, deer at the side of the road, hedgehogs ambling into the garden at night, slow worms and dragonflies Bill Oddified into familiarity and wildlife here in the wild west is great.

I have made two visits to this nest of great hooded owls in Longmont, which is in the fork of a willow tree, some seven feet from the ground I suppose, and close enough to touch. The babies are huge now - the size of my cats - still covered in down, and now developing markings. They have learned enough to try to scare us off with an alarmingly loud clicking of their beak. We could just see a furry bunny foot - the remains of lunch I suppose - in the bottom of the nest.

We are exhorted to keep our cats indoors, as the coyotes, raccoons (cute, but vicious animals), & foxes are sure to make a meal of them otherwise. It is a legal requirement to have cats vaccinated against rabies (although I'm not sure how they will be at risk of this indoors).

A neighbour was telling us that a couple of mornings ago they had seen elk by the lake - which, for them is, in essence, across the road.

At any given time you might look up and see some gigantic bird of prey soaring above. We have yet to develop the skills to identify them, although I am assured that there are many bald eagles about. Pelicans and herons abound, and even sea(?)gulls.

There is a Peanuts cartoon of which I am very fond which has the character Sally reading a report on which she has worked reluctantly with much procrastination. The report, about oceans, goes like this: "There are no oceans in Kansas. There are no oceans in Oklahoma. There are no oceans in Colorado. There are no oceans in Nebraska.....
Someone should tell the Colorado seagulls.

Food

Unsurprisingly, food is a big issue in a new country. Several things are just different. Why should butter taste different? The children don't want toast anymore because the butter tastes 'funny'. For that matter, so does the bread (Americans add a lot of sugar/honey/high fructose corn syrup to their bread - even the organic wholemeal stuff). Being electric, we didn't bring over our breadmaker, although, of course, I can still make bread without one. But then, what's the point when butter tastes so funny? There are legions of other foods that are just different. And then there is my quest for local and organic food.

I have finally made a trip to the Whole Foods Supermarket. I'd read about them in the UK, and seemed to remember mostly that they'd been nicknamed 'Whole Wallet" Markets because they were so expensive. Yeah, well, who among us is is surprised that organic food can be more expensive? Our Whole Foods is in neighbouring Fort Collins - about 30 minutes away - and it is amazing. Imagine a completely organic Waitrose and you have the picture. I was flabberghasted at the quantity and quality of the produce along with fish, meat, cheese, bakery and deli counters. Then toss in aisles and aisles of all the other stuff that you get in grocery stores. Just wonderful, and yes, probably more expensive.

I've no great longing to shop there regularly though, as my local grocery store is terrific for organic produce, and I can get just about anything I want. On more than one occasion, strawberries have been on sale, and the organic are offered, side by side, at the same price. (More about food miles later) This week I bought some organic zucchini (courgettes) for 88c/lb. I suppose a quarter of the produce display is organic, and the variety is comparable to the non-organic.

Having conducted my share of workshops on the subject of food miles, I find, none-the-less, that I don't seem to blanch overmuch when I see that the strawberries come from Mexico. That doesn't seem so very far away to me. Have I had an American distance head shift perception change? Probably.

Organic vegetable box schemes as we know them don't exist here. Instead they operate something called Community Supported Agriculture schemes, CSAs. You pay a fee upfront - something in the region of $300-600, and then get a box each week - only during the growing season - of whatever is harvested, and if the harvest is ruined by frost or hail, then there is nothing. I shall investigate further as the growing season approaches.

And we haven't even touched milk, cheese, meat, and dry goods...

The Laundry

Who'd've thought something so mundane would feature as a transition topic? I mean, if I'd moved to a third world country and had no washing machine, maybe one could see it, but it's just silly how different doing the laundry has been here, and how, every week I still feel like I'm embarking on something out of the ordinary. (OK, OK, maybe it just takes me a pathetically long time to get used to things.)

For starters, the washing machine we bought (second hand)- although a perfectly normal American Whirlpool - is GIGANTIC. I have washed my king sized duvet in it with room to spare, and every week I put all the whites for the four of us in and feel guilty because, as often as not, the machine isn't full.

Then there's the water. We live in a mountain desert - it's absurdly arid, but it does snow in the mountains in the winter, and our water source is melted snow. It is very, very soft and a huge contrast to Kent water. I bought a new electric kettle in September. Six months on the interior looks exactly as it did the day we bought it. There are no water deposits. If you leave a glass to drain by the side of the sink, it will dry quickly and spotlessly. What this means in terms of washing is that, in theory, one should need very little in the way of detergent. The bulk of a box of detergent consists of water softeners, which is why you're instructed to add more in hard water areas. I'm told our water is so soft that we really should only need 1/4 cup (2oz) detergent per load. All well and good, but....

....The machine only washes for a scant 8 minutes on a 'normal' cycle, and I find that things I wouldn't have thought twice about in England (most commonly tea slurped down the front of my shirt) don't come clean here! My AEG in the UK used to wash for 25 minutes with it's 'normal' cycle. So I find that if I select a 'heavy duty' cycle that provides an 18 minute wash, and if I spot treat everything, I generally get satisfying results. So why do Europeans get longer washes? I expect the average American would tell you that it's because they're dirtier and don't wash their clothes as often. H'mmmmm.

The worst thing of all is that I don't yet have a clothes line outside (although I do have one in the garage), but I do have a dryer. And so I end up throwing much of the laundry in the dryer, which is energy anathema to me - but I still do it (electric drying makes clothes really soft, and eliminates the need for ironing. {which, those of you who know me well, was never a real worry for me as I used to 'save electricity' by not using my iron}). At least our HOA (Home Owners Association) doesn't forbid hanging laundry out to dry - as apparently many of them do (although a little cursory research tells me that it is illegal for HOAs to prohibit this harmless and ecologically sound practice). Again, it is so dry here that even in the depths of winter you could hang clothes out to dry, and if they didn't freeze, they'd be dry by nightfall. So the acquisition of a clothes line is high on the agenda.

Laundry. Turns out it's on the "Odd To Be Here" list.

Spring Break, Daylight Savings, and Barbie

The children were on "Spring Break" last week. Normally I love school breaks and having them home, but I was anxious this time: worried about how they would occupy themselves in this new place. In the event, the week flew by and we had to arise early again this Monday morning and get them off to school - whereupon I sit here with my normal post break blues. Perhaps that's a good sign. The entire week was fantastically warm, and we managed some gardening and walks. Andrew played some sort of ball every day with Spencer. Sally and I did some shopping and library visiting.

The clocks went forward TWO weeks ago, which is preposterously early. At the end of March that extra hour makes little difference in terms of daylight, but at the beginning, it meant that we were back to waking up in total darkness. Horrid. Now it's just dawn again at 6:30 and tolerable.

I have been visiting my mother and, with the help of a book found in the library, we have been sorting out the Barbie doll collection that my sisters and I played with as children. What good children we were too, as most outfits are complete and in good condition. My grandmother sent us our Barbie Dolls for Christmas in 1961 with a generous set of clothes. Subsequent Christmases saw more clothes and we have 90% of the original vintage wardrobe. It was great fun putting all the outfits and their accessories together, and even more fun seeing, from this book, how much all this stuff is worth. Of course, it's all very well being told that "Friday Date" (the ensembles all have names) is worth $$$, but I know enough not to count my chickens. None-the-less, a conservative totting up put our collection at some $6000.

Global Economy?

One thing that we're having to contend with since moving here is that we cannot get a dollar denominated credit card.  We still have our UK cards, of course, and can use them, but now-a-days, most credit card companies charge a commission on foreign transactions, which I'd rather not pay on top of  this abysmal exchange rate.

So we've applied at various places for a card, but are always turned down.  The reason given? We 'don't have a credit history.' 

Now quite apart from the fact that my nieces - ages 18-24, without a credit history of any kind - are bombarded with pre-approved credit card applications, the credit reference agencies that are confident that we have no credit history are called Experian and Equifax.  That's right, the very same credit reference agencies used in the UK and with whom I have some 27 years of credit history.  Our bank tells us that they could conceivably ask to look at our UK credit history, but they would not be allowed to take it into account when making a decision.   Global economy anyone?

It gets better.  Andrew has had an American Express card since 1973.  He wants a dollar denominated American Express card, but has been refused because, apparently, he has 'no credit history.'

A retailer invited us to apply in-store for their credit card, with the added enticement of a luscious chocolate cake for those making an application.  We told the woman that we knew they wouldn't give us a card.  Apply anyway, she said, you'll get the cake just for applying.   Andrew obliged.  What fun it was when, a couple of weeks later, a rejection letter arrived in the post.  Only this time the reason cited was that 'the applicant was deceased.'   Do you think in this global economy, the US credit reference agency might liaise with our UK insurance company so that we could arrange to collect our life policy?