An assortment

Often an idea for a post stays with me for a week or two, and I gently roll it round, thinking about what I want to write on that topic. However, all of the following have been in my mind for a while, but they form no coherent narrative but I want to record them as part of this first year's experience.

Chip and pin

Chip and pin came to the UK in 2006, so it's been a natural part of my daily spending and one that I've not really thought about. The technology is slowly being introduced over here and it's interesting watching what is meant to be one of the high-tech nations struggling. Complaints about the speed of the connections and increased transaction time abound, but for me there's a much more confusing part to this. In many situations, I can make a payment, especially by credit card, without having to provide a single piece of identification; no PIN, no signature, nothing. This terrifies me in a way that I never was in the UK. Yes, I know credit card theft happens and people can make payments in other ways, but I feel like this is akin to leaving the back door open and hoping no-one finds your house. Hopefully chip and pin will end this, but it still seems strange to be asked for my signature, especially when no one bothers to check if it looks like the back of the card!

2 for $6

A deal is a deal, and I like using store-based bargains to save money on our food shopping each week. An interesting quirk of American grocery stores is how they price a deal of say 2 for $6. In the UK, I would expect one to cost $4, thus incentivising me to buy two for $6 to bring the average cost down to $3. Here (and trust me, I've done my research) if a product is on sale 2 for $6 and you only buy one, you only get charged $3. While this is great for me as a consumer as I don't overspend (unless I truly need the second one!), I feel that the supermarkets have missed a vital trick here.

Change

Ok, I admit that I have always found the image of foreigners to the UK scrambling around in their wallets, examining each individual coin and performing mental arithmetic just to buy a packet of crisps amusing. Indeed, one of my favorite stories about my father in law is when he went to buy a round at the bar and just held out his handful of coins and asked the bartender to pick out the right amount. In the US, coins just simply aren't used. With the smallest bill of $1 widely available, and the cost everything elevated so you won't find much on sale for less than a buck, the concept of paying in change is alien here, and I get funny looks when I do it. I often avoid it for this reason, and also because despite there only being 4 coins, I find the math involved to get 42c using 25, 10, 5 and 1 more frustrating than carrying round a pocket full of coins. That, and I'm collecting the special state quarters so I don't want to mistakenly give any away!

Snow

Anyone who knows me on either side of the Atlantic knows that I love snow. I love the cold crisp days that goes with it, I love being the first person to make footprints in the virgin snow and I love the snow days from school. However, after undergoing weekly snow showers for most of the last 2 months, I want to revise my position slightly. I still love snow, and I'm more in love with how beautiful and pristine it makes the world look when your world is mainly trees and bushes.

However, having to wake up extra early to snowblow the driveway so you can drive to work because apparently 6 inches of snow doesn't not a snow day make isn't cool. Having to break your back chipping ice off the walkway to your home because you didn't shovel it when the snow was fresh and now it's frozen harder than a rock isn't cool. Having to pay back snow days at the end of the school year, when no-one wants to be at school any more and your best friends are coming to visit isn't cool.

I still check for snow on my weather apps with eager anticipation every day, and I think I'll be sort of sad when spring rolls round and there's no further chance of it, but it will be a different relationship with snow as the years go by.

Bees

Part of the big draw of being in the US is to be able to live a little more sustainably. I've talked some about my initial homesteading efforts last year, and I'm starting to plan out my first ever vegetable garden here - more of which in later posts. More excitingly, my mother in law and I will be keeping bees this year. It started as an idle conversation when we were living there, and I then attended a one day course to see what it was all about: I was hooked. Bees are fascinating creatures and the idea that I can do something to improve their genetic stock and keep the species alive appeals to that hippy part of me. So we've ordered the bees to arrive May 10th (maybe I'll keep a homesteading blog as well) and we're currently attending bee school, which should give us enough knowledge and information to make a successful first year. Watch this space!

Oil and heating

This final thought is more registering some information for me to refer back to. Now, I fully appreciate that we went a little over the top with our first house purchase, moving from 800 square feet in Leeds to just under 3000 here. I also appreciate that the winter is colder here and I'm not entirely sure how well insulated our house is. Regardless, we have had a delivery of 100+ gallons of heating oil each month for the last 2 months, and the cold weather won't let up for another couple of months yet. This just seems like an awfully large amount (3 gallons a day!) and I wouldn't say our house is hot at any time, more like comfortable, with a drop in temperature during the day when we're out. A small bit of research says that this is normal for a house this size in New England, but I can't help but feel that we could be doing a better job of using less oil. Again, watch this space for updates as the warm weather arrives.