Jet Lag and Googly Eyes

I was the first to wake up on Day 2, which is unsurprising as this is what happens at home as well. I had about an hour to enjoy my coffee on my own, in front of the fireplace/duvet dryer, before Leah joined me. She was in especially good spirits, and together we had a breakfast of lemon yogurt and digestives. Though it had been gloomy and pouring rain most of the day yesterday (the rental car driver kept informing us that it was “the rainiest 2015 on record”…) it was sunny and lovely this morning, and she enjoyed looking out the window at the cars zipping past about 12 inches away from the front of the house. The rest of the family woke up slowly, as we are still getting used to the time change. There aren’t many hours of daylight here at this time of the year, so that’s affecting us as well. Since the sun doesn’t come up until about 8:45 am, which is 2:45 am EST, our bodies are all a bit confused.

We had hoped to move into our permanent house today (called “Burns House”), but a quick email from the letting agent told us that the repair wouldn’t be made today and we would have to stay a second night at Kinbrae House.  We did go over to Burns House as a family to get a proper look in the daylight. The kids loved the place: they think the funky vibe and IKEA furnishings are “cool.” The verdict is still out for me, and since it’s cold inside I don’t think I can get a real sense of it. I wouldn’t call it “dingy” especially, nor would I use the terms “downmarket,” “shabby,” “college kid chic” or “in need of a good scrubbing.” I’ll just keep thinking about how I would describe it, and get back to you.

We left the house after a bit of exploring (here, that entails finding the light switches for each room, since they are almost never in the same room as the light fixture they control…) and walked to a deli that we enjoyed during our 2011 visit. The deli is no longer there, and has been replaced with a hip burger joint called BlackHorn. It was 3:00 pm local time, so we had the place to ourselves to enjoy a great lunch. Leah didn’t eat much (though a few bites of a very small burger must be quite a bit for such a tiny body) and spent the meal playing with a googly-eyed stuffie that the letting agent had given her. In my haste to get out of the house, I had neglected to bring the diaper bag and when we were in need, Emma and John offered to go back to the house for it. I was hesitant since we were a few blocks away, but they insisted that they knew the place very well and could find it. Since this was the first moment of the day in which they actually stopped bickering and were in union on something, I agreed and send them off with a key and directions on how NOT to cross the roundabout at the end of the street (I spoke from experience there…). They made it back after about 10 minutes with diaper bag in hand, much to my great relief.

After lunch, we walked to Carphone Warehouse (surprising they haven’t updated their corporate name yet…how many kids know what a carphone is?”) to get new SIM cards. This process was one I was dreading, but after just a quick conversation with the salesguy there (of which I understood about 60%) we were off with four new SIM cards for £50. We took them back home, popped out the old SIM cards in three of our phones (sadly, John’s iPhone is still at the BMW dealership in Edinburgh…*sigh*) and replaced them with the new. After a moment of powering on/powering off, we had new phone numbers and we were in business. I can’t imagine this process taking fewer than three days and six phone calls to Verizon Wireless tech “support” in the US, so this came as a real shock to me.

By this point, it was about 4:00 pm and the sun had gone down. We were all pretty much ready to go to bed, despite having slept about five hours ago, and despite it being 11:00 am at home. But we are still feeling the effects of jet lag/suitcase living, and Leah’s nap schedule is pretty much nonexistent at this point. I left her in front of a Peppa Pig show with David and took Emma and John to the Tesco for another quick grocery run. We picked out some pizzas for them, and haggis pakora for me and David (seriously), along with a much needed bottle of shiraz, and walked home in the rain. At one point, Emma and I did go back to Burns House to retrieve the “British bumpers” we bought for Leah’s bed. These are long foam wedges that slip under the fitted sheet and keep a toddler from rolling out of bed. She was still sleeping in a crib at home, so this was to be her first night in a “big-girl” bed and we didn’t want her to end up on the floor half way through. She didn’t mind the idea, and needed to be put back in bed only once or twice before she fell asleep. The rest of us are going to follow soon, in an attempt to reset our clocks a bit more.