Thanksgiving, Part 2

Well, we survived our Thanksgiving here in England. We had to make some 'modifications' to the traditional Thanksgiving, but we did it. We went shopping for our supplies on Wednesday evening. We found a 8 kg turkey, jars of cranberry sauce (they don't have fresh), minced beef (ground beef) for the stuffing, bread we had to dry out for the stuffing, and sweet potatoes (for the pie). They don't eat pumpkin pie here, but everyone has heard of it and seen it in our TV programs. They are really fascinated with it, so there was no way I could have a Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie. The problem was that I couldn't find pumpkin anywhere. Chris went to stores in three different towns looking. In despiration, I went on the Food Network website and found a sweet potato pie recipe that claimed to be the 'best' pumpkin pie ever. Well, it was a little more work, but it did make damned good pumpkin pie.

We had seventeen people in (we had to cram them in) for Thanksgiving dinner. Everything went very well and the food turned out great. Steve, my boss, brought something they call crackers. When he asked if he could bring crackers, I thought of Ritz, saltines, etc. What crackers are here are gifted-wrapped tubes with little 'presents' inside. What you do is you hold one side and the person next to you holds the other. When you both pull, it makes a popping sound. Inside each one is a paper crown, a riddle, and a tiny plastic toy (like a yo-yo). They were a lot of fun.

As no one is coming over for Christmas, we will be leaving for Scotland on the 27 of December returning on the 31st. We will be staying at a hotel in Edinburgh. I will e-mail the address and other information to Ellen and Sara if anyone needs to get a hold of us.

For those of you that don't already know, Todd found a renter for our house. If you see him, give him a hug and Guinness for me as a big THANK YOU!!!!.

The weather here is great. The mornings are a little chilly, but it warms up quickly. Even in the morning though, it is warm enough for me to run around school with out a coat (remember that we have to go outside to get from class to class). Tonight, as Chris isn't feeling well, Ev, Ann, and I went to Bembridge to the McDonalds for dinner. It was nice enough that all you needed to wear was a sweater. Needless to say, they don't get snow here.





Picture from the hills of Ryde. The picture shows the Solent (water between the IOW and the mainland. Portsmouth is the land beyond the Solent.










This is Ryde from the hills on the way to the girls school. The large church in the background is directly across the street from where the B & B is that we stayed in when we first came.

Thanksgiving, Part 1

It has been a very strange week. For the first time ever, I worked on Thanksgiving. Here, it is just like any other day. So, while all of you were enjoying turkey and football, I was teaching classes. That evening after school, Chris, the girls, Carin, and I went out for dinner.

The night before Thanksgiving, Chris and I went to the supermarket to buy the needed items for Thanksgiving. The turkey was available, but most of the other needed items, were not. They don't have canned pumpkin for pie, cranberrys for sauce, or bread crumbs for stuffing. So, we are having sweet potato pie (from scratch), stuffing made from homemade bread crumbs, and english cranberry sauce. We will have to wait and see how it goes.

After our trip to the store, Chris and I went back to the High School for the PTA Quiz. The quiz is very popular here. They are held in bars, pubs, resturants, etc. You have a team of no more than 6. Each member pays £2. There are 6 rounds in which you answer 10 questions. (May be question in theme or not). The question rounds we had were:

Adverts
Numbers
Cartoons
Books
TV/Movies
General Knowledge

Our team took thrid place. Not bad, considering last year the same team took third to last. If nothing else, we had a lot of fun and help raise money for the PTA.

I hope everyone in the US had a great Thanksgiving. Love from the UK.

Comment Function

Sorry if you have been wanting to leave a comment but have been unable to. I don't know what happened to disable the comment function, but hopefully it is fixed. I everyone getting geared up for Thanksgiving. I am having a Thanksgiving 'party' here on the Saturday following Thanksgiving. Don't know exactly how it is going to work, as I have very few pots and pans and non of them very large - at least not large enough. Well, I will just have to get creative. So, when you are all celebrating and eating, think of me working.

Plans for the Holidays

Time to finalize those travel plans for the holidays. If anyone is thinking of visiting, which you are more than welcome to do, please let us know ASAP. We are thinking of going to Scotland and need to make the arrangements. However, we don't want to do that if we are having visitors.