Monday, July 09, 2007

Some things that make England different to NZ

Baths appear to be deeper and narrower. Getting in or out of a bath requires a high stepping manoeuvre; you have to watch you don’t catch your foot on the edge and go for a burton.
I’d forgotten that a lot more people use gas for cooking - and grills above the cooker for making toast.
Op shops are called Charity Shops and they abound. And the stuff in them is very clean, very tidy, always in good condition. We’ve visited nearly every one we’ve seen, I think, and accumulated more books than we can hope to bring back with us.
The Eftpos (debit card) system doesn’t seem to be as well integrated as it is in NZ. There you can go anywhere with your Eftpos card and it will work. You can’t always guarantee it will here. SainsburĂ˝’s supermarket particularly doesn’t like ours.
You can park your car either way on the side of the road. In other words, you don’t have to park facing the same way as the traffic. So cars are parked higgledy-piggledy all along the road.
People don’t have to wear helmets when they’re riding bicycles; but they can’t smoke inside. That law came in on the 1st July, with much hoo-hah, and one MP has already been caught on a train smoking with the cigarette out the window. He tried to claim he was smoking outside.
People still say, I shan’t, as part of their normal conversation.

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