Dippy Jones Across the Pond: Day 58 - This is my life.

It started earlier this week. You know back home, when the snow has started melting, but it's still pretty cold but then, one day, you start to feel it? Those warm little breezes breaking up the cold and letting you know that spring is coming. Well that started to happen early this week. Minus the snow of course. It's been rather chilly, I generally have to bring/wear two sweaters to my office because the Peer Adviser Resource Room where I've set up my makeshift editing room, is freezing. Also, the only bathroom on that side of the building has no hot water, making you feel even colder if you go to the bathroom at all. But then I started to feel tendrils of warmth on a day that was all clouds. We'd already had a few nice bright, sunny and warm days, but the cloudy and rainy days that generally prevailed were still really cold. But almost every day this week has been either really bright and sunny (and of course warm) or cloudy, and rainy but warmer than normal.

I even went out and lounged around on my blanket after work one day... it was so gorgeous! But then my allergies chased me back inside.

Which reminds me, I finally got allergy eye drops this week as well! As far as I can tell, I seem to be allergic to the grass. According to the BBC Weather, the pollen has been "high" recently, but they give no indication of which pollens they're finding. According to Zirtek's pollen map, pollen in my area is "very high" and it specifies that it is grass pollen right now. Grass pollen season from now till August 4th (oh goodie... just when I'm leaving! *eyeroll*). Turns out the eyedrops I'm used to are "available world-wide as opti-crom", but I got the discount brand "Pollenase"; saved me a whole pound!

And that brings me to the grocery store (that's where the only open pharmacy in town was). I've realized why I'm having such a hard time keeping my fridge well-stocked and my meals interesting and diverse. It's not just that I only have a 1.5' x 1' x 3" (no that's not a typo: feet, foot, inch) shelf. It's not only that bread has a tendency to go bad before I can use it (solved now, mostly by my discovery of the existence of half loaves). It's that grocery shopping is meant for families. All the packs of meat or fish, even the packs of bananas etc, are meant for families. I have no room to store leftovers, if I don't eat everything I make, it has to go in the garbage, or I have to make myself eat it. So I can't make food in any quantity. If I buy meat other than for sandwiches, it's a race to try and use it up before it goes bad (a race I usually lose). So I'll stick with my fish coming from a tin, and my protein being primarily in the form of bacon and eggs and then just scarf down fresh fruits and veggies before they start to look off as well. You're only supposed to have one serving of protein a day anyways... it's probably better for me this way. It's just not what I'm used to, and that is very evident.

I've already got a running list in my head of foods I want to have when I get home; waffles with peaches and whipped cream, good marinated steak, Kraft Dinner, mom's home made bread, my home made marshmallows, Heather's cupcakes... Mmmmmm...

I also realized just recently that my birthday will be here in just over a week. No one here knows it's coming, I have no plans, I have to film at graduation all that week, and Jon's not coming up like he was supposed to. I'm preparing myself for this to be a rather disappointing birthday.

And before I go, I apologize. I haven't been updating this blog nearly as much as I would have liked... if you've got me on facebook or livejournal, you may have seen that I've been updating more on my livejournal than I have here (though some of those entries are private, so you might not have noticed :P) It's just been things that really don't fit with this blog. This blog is about my experience here in England. Writing here about my recent interest in body politics, or my random inner musings just doesn't seem to fit. So sorry about that, I'm going to try and make this blog more regular. Even if it's only really for the next month O.O That's right. There's only about a month left in my internship. But more on that later. I have places to go and things to see!