Christmas fair

I attended my first ever Christmas Fair this weekend. I learned what a Tombola is, and how fun it is. Its basically a suspended box that holds numbered pieces of paper. You pay to reach in the box and grab a set number of papers. If the number on your paper ends in 'not' (eg. zero) or 5, then you win a prize! The prizes are all visible on the table, so you get an idea of how many prizes are left and which one you might like, but your number does have to exactly match the prize you win. They must have had 5-10 of these around the fair along with some great games, live music and food. I find that you mostly walk around, eat chocolate, look at crafts and chat with friends. Really nice. Two more highlights from this fair were the remote control cars and a wooden marble maze. The remote control cars were my personal favourite, you used a remote control to drive a fast little car around a tiny wooden maze. You could try to beat the best time of the day, or you could race your friends, I did both :) The wooden marble maze was fun too, it was like a hand made hanging labyrinth. One person had to stand on each side of the maze and each person had to pull down on ropes/pulleys to move the maze up and down - quite a challenge AND there was a time limit. Mesmerising to watch for a few minutes.

Here's a good phrase for you, I'm pretty sure its 'shed load', as in 'a lot', as in how much you stuff you can store in your shed. Now, in the British accent, it absolutely sounds like shitload, but its said in such a casual way, I really can't tell. I have to try so hard to not laugh because of the deadpan 'this is normal professional conversation' face, and I've heard it numerous times recently.

On a different topic, I'm making good progress moving into the new house. I setup an air mattress whilst we wait for the new one I just bought to arrive. We're so fortunate to be able to ship most of our belongings from the US to the UK, so those will arrive later as well. I'm bringing over one small car load at a time since we're in between two houses for a couple weeks. Haven't quite met the neighbours yet, but I'm sure that will come when the time is right.

One last topic is driving. I've noticed a whole new level of comfort in driving. I've memorised enough of the roads that I can almost start to guess how to get around to most places now. Its quite a strange feeling really, because it was only a few months ago that I barely knew how to drive on the left side of the road, let alone know where I'm going.