Things I Won't Miss

I decided since I only have one full day left in England to create a list of the things I won't miss. Everyone asks what I WILL miss - but we'll get to that later.

12. I won't miss tv here. You never know if the language will be acceptable - not to mention the material in general. I am sitting here at 9:55pm watching BBC1 - a news program much like Dateline is on and during the interviews they have no problem saying the F word. BLEEP!

11. I won't miss the driving. When I take my kids to school in the morning I spend the majority of time driving on the wrong side of the street because their are cars parked on the road on the side I SHOULD be driving on.

10. I won't miss the small parking lots - also known as car parks.

9. I won't miss the amount of children I see sitting in the front seat of cars. They have great carseat laws here but seriously put those babies in the back seat!

8. I won't miss the exchange rate. We went out to dinner a few nights ago with friends and I can tell you if we went out to a restaraunt in the States and spent $180 we wouldn't be going back. And we probably would have gotten more than ice water and pizza!

7. I won't miss the lack of closets. We had wardrobes in every room - and we had to purchase those. I want a house with closets that come with it - not purchased from ikea.

6. I won't miss paying to park. You even have to pay when parking in the ASDA (owned by the Walmart Company) parking lot. It is 1 pound to park and you get that back if you make a purchase in the store - but having to remember to have it on hand is a task in and of itself some days.

5. I won't miss carrying two currencies. We use dollars on the base and pounds on the economy. Nothing like dumping out your change purse and sorting out your money to make a purchase.

4. I won't miss transformers. No, not those robots in disguise - but the electronic transformers that I had all over my home so that I could use many of our US appliances. You might wonder why - but it's just not cost effective to buy new crockpots, game boys, blenders, curling irons etc etc when the ones you own will work just fine when plugged in to a transformer.

3. I won't miss the smell. Those sheep in the corner of this blog aren't there for looks. We are in sheep country. There are cows as well. I have been asleep in the car and woken up and without even opening my eyes could tell we were close to home just by the small. If you don't know what it smells like when the farmers slurry their fields you're lucky. When a green field gets sprayed brown I'm sure you can figure out the result - especially if the wind is going the right direction.

2. I won't miss the winters. I won't miss dropping my kids off at school at 8:30 in the morning with the sun barely up and picking them up from school at 4pm while having to use a flashlight to get back to the car.

And lastly -

1. I won't miss the rain. It rained today just to remind me that I won't miss it!