the art of growing up

One of the advantages of living in Providence so far has been the ability to spend more time of the family, something I have written about before. Neither Laura or myself are particularly artistic, we both though believe in encouraging Aila to try her hand at everything. 


So in an attempt to encourage this leaning, Laura invested in art material. Aila thoroughly enjoyed the finger painting, though her mum is still to this day doubting her wisdom in such a decision..

Muswell

once a month

Ok so I'm blatantly failing to blog once a day, let alone much more than once a week, must do better Paul!!


The good news is that Spring has sprung, though somewhat cooler than in the UK, if recent gloating phone calls are anything to be believed. With the recent visit of friends from Canada, we took the opportunity to view Providence from the terrace on the 14th floor of the apartment building, now Kelly has a strong interest in photography, something that I have found rejuvenated in myself with the improvement of the camera on the iPhone4.


The best of my efforts follow, now if I can just persuade Laura to let me go shopping for the SLR..

The middle of the three buildings is my place of work. If you look between that building and the one to its immediate right, you will see what could be mistaken to be a halo. Its actually the light shining off a local bridge, the bridge is too far away for either Kelly or myself to be able to capture a better photo, one for another day.

For those who suffer from vertigo such as Laura, I had to step a little closer to the edge,than she felt comfortable with for this last shot. 


The more observant will have noticed there appears to be little traffic, these photos were taken at around 7pm on a Saturday night. When we visited Providence last summer, the guide who had been recommended to us by the relocation company, was somewhat shocked that we wished to consider living downtown. Given in her view that its far too busy with traffic and unsafe at night, rush hour tends to last about 15 minutes here, and given where we have lived in the past, our experience to date is that we couldn't feel safer. Mind you I suppose once you have survived Croydon on a Friday night, anywhere including Kabul probably feels safer! 


Muswell

finally.....

No, not the fact its an update but far more importantly, three weeks ago we finally collected the Car!


I had never imagined it would be such a long drawn out and very frustrating process, it all started very smoothly, the first weekend we were residents of Providence we had chosen the vehicle we wanted.  Now I have to be honest, I preferred the Ford Edge, given though that Laura will be the predominant driver during the week, the casting vote was hers, the Escape became the chosen vehicle. 


Unfortunately, when you move to the US of A from the UK, your credit history does not travel with you, combine this with a lack of social security number, the latter takes at least two weeks after you apply, something you can only do after you have been in the country for two weeks....


in some ways i felt sorry for the car salesman (not often you hear that statement), when we walked in he had a deal in about 2 hours, well its good to haggle... On day 2 he called to inform we couldn't buy the car over four years as my work permit is only initially for three and it was feasible that we could just abandon the car and finance agreement, unlikely but I can almost so there point, actually I can't but I digress. So instead we decided to lease the car, which we thought again, would be a sensible solution, given we did't want to pay $29K in cash. This then required an additional trip back to the showroom to complete another set of forms, oh and yet more additional paperwork from us to confirm our details, salary, inside leg measurement et, etc.. We are now 7 days into the process if your keeping count at home. 


Three days later we receive confirmation that the application has been successful, so another trip to the showroom, sign yet more paperwork and pay the deposit


Yep, just like me your now thinking we should be all there, entering from left stage the Rhode Island DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles), with whom we have to register the car.  By this stage I had applied for my Social Security number, indeed a copy of the application was required by Ford Finance, for the DMV though this was not sufficient, oh no. Despite having a copy of my passport, work permit, lease agreement, Social Security Application, Bank Statement, vehicle documents etc, the RI DMV would only be happy if I could provide a denial of right to work in the USA. 


Yep your read correctly, the DMV as I could not produce a SS number, would let me license a car if I can prove I do not have the right to work in the country!!!  So after yet another trip to the Social Security office, four in total by this stage, they provided me with the denial of right letter, of course this was on a Friday so we then had to wait for the DMV to open on the Monday before we could finally register and then collect our car, some 20 days after we had originally chosen it that Sunday morning.


Mind you I do miss my friends at the car rental company, we who were almost wiling me to walk in each time with good news. I'm also expecting to be seen on missing in America soon, reported missing by the security guards at the Social Security office!


as you may have guessed the car is  below....on a recent trip to the zoo.

all that matters

So finally after three weeks of trying to arrange the paperwork we have picked up the keys to our car.  For the time being all you need to know about the vehicle, is that the three year old in our family has given it her blessing as the central console and cup holders can be lit up in various colours

of course her favourite is pink!

talking of 3 years olds, it bath time.

Adopo

Muswell

morning commute

One of the many reasons for leaving the UK was that had I become so tired with the daily commute,  when Aila was born it became clear very quickly that if we stayed in the UK, I would never have the opportunity to spend much quality time with Aila than if we were to move country. I may be old fashioned in this view,  when I became a father I didn't want to be the dad who was never there, I only have one daughter, I wanted to maximise my time with her.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed riding the scooter for the past 2 years, indeed I even managed to refine my route over time, so that the journey time from office to home took no longer than 45 minutes. My goal when moving over here was to have a commute of no longer than 15-20 minutes.

When we started looking at properties they were all within this time range, ultimately we settled on our current apartment which is the grand total of a five minute walk from the office.  So now rather than driving through Brixton, Clapham, down the albert embankment and up the mall (i'll admit there are worse commutes in life!) My commute now takes me over the bridge and past the ice rink, not quite the Mall and Buckingham Palace, for the time being though I prefer the ice rink and the zamboni....

Muswell

going back to the future and chocolate brown

One of my earlier memories in life is driving down to Heathrow from my grandparents house in Norfolk, as a family we were about to depart for a new life in Botswana, to be honest I don't think at the age of 3 you really comprehend what that includes, you just know that you don't want to leave your grandparents and from what I recall most particularly, in my case my Grandad Jim. 


There are two moments in particular that are vivid in my mind, the first was that we reset the trip mileage on the dark chocolate brown cortina, he was driving at the time. I recall wanting to know just how far a journey it was, I suspect this may have been a diversion tactic to keep me out of the way, whilst my parents packed the bags. By the way, what is it with chocolate brown? its a colour that we never seem to be able to escape, even over here its seems no house has been built in the past without having had its walls painted chocolate brown, at least once in its life. 

Is it obligatory that in a house over the age of 20 years old that it must have been painted chocolate brown? was there a time when all houses were simultaneously chocolate brown? This must have been in the era of the black and white TV. I can see it now, ooo that chocolate brown looks nice Arthur, do you think we should decorate the hallway chocolate brown its looks very good on TV, everyone's doing it you know, they say its the new magnolia

Anyhow back on topic, the second memory of that day is standing in the car park overlooking, what I presume was Terminal 2, stretching  below as far as I could see, well I was only 3! were a sea of aeroplanes, this was certainly the first time  I had seen a jumbo jet, I was enthralled and recall not wanting to leave the car park. 

... So fast forward some 35 years and there I was at Heathrow, albeit sat in the lounge with my own 3 year old, ok so sat is the wrong term... trying desperately to keep her entertained whilst her mum had a break would be more truthful. At some stage I happened to look out of the window and I happened to see the plane that would fly us off to the next chapter in our life, suddenly I couldn't help but cast my mind back all those years.


We never did check the mileage on the trip....

Muswell

woooooooow....

So I guess we had better start with an apology....if you were waiting patiently every day for an update on here, or even worse were worrying if we had made it safely.....well we did, I have just been far too busy with home and work. Sorry! 


We safely arrived on time and have been in the apartment for 3 weeks this Friday, doesn't time fly when your shopping and trying to organise your life!


I will backfill over the coming days, however briefly I wanted to share this little morsel with you. As some readers may be aware I have a healthy (some may find alternative words, Laura for one) interest in sport. 


About eighteen months ago Verizon begun to run trailers online for  their fibre optic cable service, which just happened to run often on several US sports websites I happen to read, I guess they knew their market!


So on the very first day we were here, I had arranged for Verizon to install FIOS in the apartment, obviously my main consideration was to ensure we had an internet service to allow us to Skype with family and friends. That being said having also subsequently purchased our 46" wide screen tv for the living room, its obligatory over here, when you enter the country after having your passport stamped, they question when you will be buying your TV.


Their may be an untruth in the above statement!


Anyhow - Ice Hockey in glorious HD Woooooow


The link to the advert is below, this whole post will make more sense, once you have seen the advert.


Verizon advert


Muswell