Ms. Renee' from 'Merry Old England'

 

Greetings from England.

Hello, everyone at CHA…it’s Ms. Renee (Nelms) and I am writing this from my home in Chester, England. John. Jack, Ian and I moved here at the beginning of December, and what an adventure it has been. Ms. Patty was nice enough to invite me to write a post for the CHA blog, so here it is.

Your first question, I’m sure, is, “What the heck are you doing in England?” It’s a long story, but it has to do with jobs. I’ll leave it at that, because really, who wants to read about that stuff? BORRRRRRRING.

I’m glad to be here and have this opportunity to experience something completely different than I’d experience in Portland…or the United States, for that matter. And most people think that England is pretty much the same as the US – myself included, until recently. However, it is so different here…even the language, which would presumably be about the same, is vastly different. Let me explain.

You might remember that my family is big into soccer...the boys play it, John plays it, we’d even get up early on Saturday mornings to go watch English Premiere League games live on television at Kell’s in downtown Portland. So late last fall, John was offered an opportunity to work and train as a youth football coach at the Liverpool Football Club Academy. When I say football, though, I actually mean soccer. No one here calls it soccer. When Americans say football, we are talking about a sport where a player rarely uses his feet in contact with the ball. The rest of the world says football referring to a sport where a player ONLY uses his feet to touch the ball. (Except the goalkeeper, that is.) And really, it makes more sense to call it football, don’t you think? But I’m not writing about the rules of football – or soccer. (Truth be told, I can’t stop calling it ‘soccer’ and I have John, Jack and Ian correcting me ALL the time.)

There are a lot of other language differences that keep tripping me up as well. For example, one day I was at Jack and Ian’s school, standing at the counter to the office, having a discussion with someone who works there. We were interrupted briefly, so when she turned back to me I had finished writing something down that she had asked for, and so I handed it back to her. Then she said to me, “Ta!” and turned away. I was stumped…I thought we still had a conversation to finish, and here she was telling me goodbye. I felt so stupid that I just picked up my bag and started to walk out….what had I done wrong? It was then I heard her call to me and ask me why I was leaving. I was so embarrassed, turning four shades of red, as I said, “Well, when you said bye I figured that was all you had to say to me…but I’m confused because I thought we were still talking.”

“I said bye?” she asked. She was now as confused as I was.

“Uh, no, but you said ‘ta’ and turned away.”

She smiled and came out from behind the counter and put her arm around me, trying to make up for the obvious misunderstanding. She proceeded to tell me that the reason she turned around was to put away the paper I gave her. She then explained that “ta” means “thank you.” Hmmmm….add that to my list of things to remember here.

Another example happened at their school as well. I was volunteering in the office and had just arrived. I took off my coat and was looking around for a hook or coat tree or something. The woman working there saw me looking for a place to hang my coat and said, “You can just go put it in the toilet…it’s the second door on the right.” I stood there for a few seconds, not sure how to respond. I suppose the look on my face gave me away, because she said, ‘Oh, yes, you call it a bathroom, right? Sorry. You can put your coat in the women’s bathroom. There’s a coat tree in there.” I think I must do a lot of slow nodding and saying, “Ahhhh…okay…” around here because it seems that I am always having something explained to me.

Just going shopping is an experience as well. For instance, things aren’t “on sale” here, they are “on offer.” There aren’t coupons, but there are vouchers. You don’t write down appointments in a planner or calendar, you put them in a diary. If something is good, it is “cracking” so you’d say, “Papa John, this is cracking good taco casserole!” And if I mail something to you, I am posting it to you. It will arrive in the post, not the mail.

See what I mean?

There are more examples and I will gladly share them with you in a future post. But for now, I must go. I am eight hours ahead of you…soon to be nine hours, as daylight savings time begins on the 29th of March here. So until next time, take care!