Adventures in England, Part 08

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

After all this time of “showering” by standing in the tub and using a clean, empty, quart-sized milk bottle to pour water over ourselves, we finally, with Kath’s help, deciphered the shower system! And yes, the mysterious pull-cord that hangs from the ceiling near the door is involved. You have to pull it first. If you don’t, nothing else works. Pulling that cord turns on the shower gadget. Then you set the dial on the shower gadget, which determines the temperature of the little mist of water comes out the showerhead. It's a bit of fuss to find a temperature between boiling and icy, but somewhere between 4 and 5 on the dial will do it, with some fine-tuning involved.

Today we went downtown, mainly just for fun and exploration. We poked around in various shops. We stopped by the estate agents to say hello to Kath. We browsed a large furniture store because Demetrios wants, one day, to put a sofa in our living room (“lounge”) in place of one of the loveseats. He did find one small enough, but we’re not ready for it yet. We walked to the train station to pick up a timetable, by which to figure out how to get to the airport in Manchester on Monday. We stopped by the town’s other taxicab company to try again to find the cabbie who rescued us in June, but were told we need to check with their main office in the town center because that’s where the computers are. Another day. And we picked up some laundry detergent and an airing rack, as it’s called here.

And I made use of the laundry detergent and the drying rack as soon as we got home. The laundry situation had been becoming urgent. So that’s another issue resolved. We’ve been moved in exactly one week now, and we seem to have most issues in hand. We even have plans for getting a reliable phone and Internet service when we return and we know where and how to rent a TV.

Thursday, October 08, 2009

When you wake up in this neighborhood, you hear various birds chirping, twittering, warbling – and quacking. Yes, we have a resident duck somewhere nearby. Must go investigate. I haven’t identified any of the other birds yet, except gulls.

Today we became members of the Ormskirk Public Library. Demetrios was hoping to find videotapes there of The Two Ronnies, a favorite pair of comedians, but there were none. We did sit down at a computer long enough to check e-mail and learn that our neighbor, Dickie, has pneumonia.

It was market day again in Ormskirk, but we didn't see anything we were in any hurry to buy today.  It was fun just to wander among the vendors and street musicians in this quaint little town.