Trip to a small island

New Arrival – 5 May 2006
Last Friday, our good friend Susannah moved in with us for a while. Suz has been here in the UK for four weeks. She works about 30 kilometers from here but the road system is quite slow. It can take her from 40 minutes to an hour and a half to get to work.

Kaz applied for a job when she first got here. No luck as yet but at least it allowed her to get her resume up to date. The local council library provides an Internet service that we joined. It is free and allows us to keep in contact with the world. We booked a flight to Glasgow for Thursday 11 May 2006. Praise to Ryan Air for their cheap flights. 28p (70 cents) is all it cost to fly there and back for the two of us. Airport taxes push up the price to the £30 level each, but still, it’s a relative bargain.

For those of you interested in price comparisons, petrol is £1 a litre ($2.50), a 2004 BMW M3 will set you back £30,000. An 05 Ford Fiesta a mere £7,000. A pint is around £2 for the warm stuff. The colder Belgian or Irish beers cost up to £4. (I’m thinking of finding a home brew kit – except the town water is pretty crappy. An office job here might get you £18 to £25,000 per annum before tax – and rentals go from £1200 per month closer in to London and around the £800 pm out where we are for 2 bedrooms and not too much else! And watching TV is not free – over £130 for a licence!

We managed to get signed up for gas, telephone, electricity and water. Getting the Internet on at home is a drama though. Almost no-one offers a month by month subscription except Virgin – and they will not accept an international based credit card! I even offered to pay 3 months or more up front. That was not acceptable. I tried to write to Richard Branson via the Virgin Home page but I am afraid his interest in customer problems appears to have waned with the achievement of big money. Or so it appears as he has not yet answered my email.