it's the little things

When I tell people that London has been...difficult, they're surprised, and frankly, so am I. But it's the little things. For example, I've been trying to download my checking account transactions into Quicken, so I can see how I've been spending my money. For some reason, it hasn't been working. I could be using the wrong file format. I could be importing the data wrong. It could be that my Windows Vista machine no longer works with Quicken, just like it no longer works with any number of applications. Whatever.

But when I go to the Intuit website to seek, help, I find this:

Important notice for Quicken Users:

Intuit UK has made a difficult business decision to discontinue future development of Quicken products for the UK market. To help customers affected by this decision, we will continue providing access to Quicken customer support and online services through to the end of January 2006.


Oh.

I just discovered this. It's not as though knowing that there is no Intuit customer support here would have stopped me from moving here. It's not even a significant, real reason for having a bad day, or even a bad hour. It's just...disappointing.


It's just the little things, I guess.

it's just as you would have thought

Two weeks ago, we took a short road trip around southern England.

First stop, Avebury. Avebury is one of England's prehistoric stone circles. Think Stonehenge, but in a bigger circle, and with fewer stones intact. Not...terrifically exciting. Here's how I felt, after 45 minutes of walking around in very cold rain:


The next day, we strolled the streets of Bath, so named for the hot springs that originate there. The Roman Baths are amazingly still intact. The city was lovely.

















Far more beautiful, however, was the English countryside. Hm...where are those little people with the hairy feet?

We took the next photo from Maiden Hill, England's largest hillfort.

On our way back to London, we stopped for a short hike at Lulworth Cove.

The best part of the trip? Not the sheep,

or the cows,

or the ponies.

Or even staying in a huge, gorgeous B&B, all by ourselves:

The best part of the trip was that we saw all this and we had time to stop and buy me a dining table from a used furniture store.

Finally...let the dinner parties begin!

a few differences

It's easy - too easy, really - to simply post observations about the superficial differences between the UK and the US, but occasionally I will indulge myself:

We all know what's popular here: beer, soccer, and Princess Di. If you've been here recently, you probably even know about Maddy and Fabio (not the one you're thinking of).

What I *didn't* know about is Playboy. Now, I'm sure that, in many other places, it's relatively easy to buy selected Playboy items, such as Playboy adhesive phone crystals or the Playboy beach towel.

But the range of products is unlike any I'd seen back in Hugh's homeland. At home, I never see this fleece throw,or this camping chair.

It's not like these things are at sketchy sex shops. They're at Argos, which is sort of like the now defunct chain, Service Merchandise. When I first arrived, I needed some household stuff, including an iron and a hair dryer, and I went to Argos. It's a store with no showroom. You reserve things online and then pick them up at the store. I love Argos. It's efficient. It's affordable. It's probably carbon-efficient.

But seeing all the Playboy stuff in the catalog there is a little incongruous. It would be like going to Target and seeing that, in addition to piles and piles of Harry Potter books and DVDs of The Santa Clause, the manager had decided to stock some Anna Nicole Smith wall clocks.

Everyone says that the US is a divided nation, and that what we need is an American president to bring us together. Strike that. What we need is some Playboy hot water bottle cozies.

On the Argos website, I found 111 Playboy items. Seriously.