Ah, our first quiet day after arriving across the pond. We roared around the country last week, and had a somewhat hectic but wonderful time in Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Chipping Camden (a quick night off, just lovely!) and Bristol. Thanks to everyone who came out for the talks, it was delightful meeting you, especially the blog readers who came up to say hello.
Special thanks to Pauline Appleby and the Association of Pet Behavior Counsellors who sponsored my talks and to Sandra McCune, the head of the Human Animal Interaction program at Waltham who gave us a day’s tour of the facility. More on that later, suffice it to say it was a fascinating and greatly appreciated.
Right now we’re cozy in a Bed and Breakfast on the Gower Penninsula in Wales. Fittingly, there’s a light drizzle outside, but yesterday was warm and sunny, and we took advantage of every minute of it. We took a two hour pony ride (horses in the states!) up a high ridge overlooking Three Cliffs and Bristol Bay, then dashed off to get a Sunday roast dinner at a local pub and visit a gorgeous area called Worm’s Head. The ride and visit were great, dinner was…well, what can I say? I’m not a fan of vegetables with the life cooked out of them. I’m tempted to start a Society for the Welfare of Peas. Sorry, those of you who love your mushy peas, but I like them barely warmed up.
No sympathy needed, we’re on our way to The Mumbles today, and will take reader’s advice and stop at Verdi’s for ice cream or hot chocolate.
A few random travel thoughts:
Favorite new word: “Jammy” for lucky. I’m loving all the British words that vary from American English. Lift for elevator, trainers for tennis shoes, pony trek for trail ride, rising trot for posting… I’d love to hear your favorites, it’s one of my favorite parts of traveling. (Favorite word learned in Scotland: Sauncy. Yours?)
Best food in last few days: Roasted parsnips for Trisha, Welsh Beef Pie for Jim.
Here are a few photos:
I didn’t think there were many of these left in the UK! This is outside of the Gower Heritage Center, not far from our B & B.
Here’s the beginning of theย trail to Worm’s Head, which you can see as the triangle poking above the hill. (Sheep everywhere, of course!)
And here it is a bit closer up, although we walked all the way down to the sea level and got a much better view. You can go across for a brief period during low tide, but it was getting dark and the footing was dodgy, so we decided not to make the trip. To the right of all this is a gorgeous sandy beach that goes on forever. There were even surfers catching some waves. Brrrrr.
By the way, I am loving the Wegman contest response, Katie has been flooded with photographs. How fun is that?
I’ll send some more photos when I can, internet is very off and on here, but love reading your comments when I can. We have today and tomorrow here in Wales, then it’s off to Heathrow and Germany.
D.C. says
This is sort of the opposite of the colloquialisms you asked about. However, when I was visiting my uncle in Nottingham he pointed out that Canadians seem to measure distance with time. For example, would ask how far we lived from my Mother’s home and we would answer about a half an hour, how far from the ocean, about three days. He found it very interesting and somewhat puzzling. I had never been aware of it until he noticed it.
HFR says
What gorgeous pictures! You are so lucky and your trip sounds wonderful. I email all the time with a breeder in Scotland and I remember years ago she used the expression “over the moon”. I had never heard of it and now for some reason I hear it all the time. I also think Downton Abbey has helped. ๐
Who takes care of your animals while you are gone? (Why is that all I think about?)
H
Nic1 says
Great photos and lovely to hear that you have both enjoyed your visit over here.
With you all the way on the Mushy peas Trisha! They are definitely like marmite – people seem to love ’em or hate ’em. I’ve never understood what there is to enjoy about ‘processed’ peas that taste like they have been cooked for 16 hours!? ๐
Favourite colloquialism – Fanny Pack for Bum Bag
I’m sorry, but both those phrases make me giggle like a schoolgirl! Couldn’t someone on BOTH continents have come up with a more appropriate phrase??
๐
Enjoy Germany.
Ellen Nygaard says
In Los Angeles, we say distance as time as well. I don’t even know how far anything is really, in measurements. Became aware of it at some point and know one hour and fifteen minutes equals 9 miles.
Eileen says
Many (many) years ago I had the opportunity to work in London. I was determined to not be uncool and made sure I learned the different words used there vs. here before I got there. I thought I was doing pretty well making sure I said lift and jumper and trainers, but one day our office building lost power. Workers were called in to fix the problem and those of us in the office tried to carry on with our work. At one point I needed to find a file in a pitch black back room. I went to one of the repairmen and asked for a flashlight. He said he didn’t have one but to ask that bloke over there. This happened about 3 times. I didn’t understand why they all had a smirk on their face, but I finally found one, and retrieved the file I needed.
When I got back to my desk, a co-worker asked if I had found a torch. Torch! Torchlight! How could I have forgotten? I wonder how many chuckles those guys had, and if they told their families at the dinner table that night about making the Yank say flashlight over and over.
Gordon says
Hire car (rental car), car park (parking lot), such and such “house” (at my company, this meant JMC House…company HQ). And, in my business…I was an airline pilot, there were LOTS of differences. Dispatch was “Traffic”, Scheduling was “Rostering”, a mechanic was an “Engineer”, “HOTAC” dealt with hotels and cars, furloughed was “redundant”. I could go on, but I’ll spare you.
Finally, what is universally British…Z is “Zed”.
Beth with the Corgis says
I’ve been married to a Brit long enough I have started to forget which words are American English and which British English. I was going to say one of my faves is “a bit dodgy” but then you used it and I wonder if it is common in some areas here as well? I like “bin” better than “trash can.” And the English have much better minor curse words than we do. ๐ “Pissed” meaning “drunk” instead of “angry” was a bit confusing. Sometimes my husband will say “Do they say that here?” and if it’s something he or his family say regularly, I truly can’t remember if we say it here or not.
Sometimes he gets a craving for steak and kidney pie with a side of mushy peas. Yuck and yuck! No offense to many who surely love it.
Lucy says
I’m so pleased you are enjoying your trip to Gower. it is a beautiful part of the world and I am lucky to live her – just above Three Cliffs Bay. I would so much love to meet you. I was walking my dogs at Oxwich this afternoon, where the mist wasn’t so bad and dreaming off running into you! Have a fantastic rest of your trip ๐
Barbara Bilder says
Where we would say, ” I was sitting near the front,” Many Brits (not all) will say, ” I was sat near the front.”
Beth with the Corgis says
I also live in an area where we measure distance in time. I always attributed it to the broad mix of interstates and secondary highways (with traffic lights ubiquitous in more populated areas) in the region. Some place that is 60 miles away may take an hour to reach if primarily traveling on interstates, but easily twice that if you can only reach it on secondary roads. Knowing the distance doesn’t give you much idea of how long the trip will take!
Melissa L. says
I think snogging is a great word. Thank you Harry Potter.
Kat says
I have a particular fondness for ‘things went a bit pear shaped’ as an expression for the plan or activity fell apart. I also love ‘grockleshoppe’ or as we’d say in the US tourist trap.
I’m enjoying your travels vicariously. They bring back fond memories of the time I spent in school in Britain.
emdee says
The best Welshism is their use of the word “now” to mean “in a bit.” For example, ending a phone conversation with “I’ll talk to you now” or getting up to go get a drink and saying “I’ll be back now.” I also particularly like the English phrase “on your tod,” meaning alone, as in, “poor Willie’s on his tod while his owners gallivant around Wales, which, outrageously, is FULL OF SHEEP.” (And Brits will, sadly, find Willie’s name chuckle-worthy.)
Bryony Francis says
We have an expression in England most will have heard of – “keep your chin up”. Topically, i understand in German the phrase with the same meaning is “keep your ears pricked” Love it!
Frances says
Some local phrases for you – “mithering” or “mithering on”, meaning whittering on especially in a vaguely complaining tone; grand = splendid = wonderful (“Grand day today!”); cracking = really good (“Cracking little dog, that”). Some terms are still very local – ask people for the word for the passage between two terraced houses and you will get everything from “passage” to variations on the old word guinall (spelling entirely optional, it seems!), to “What’s that?” from people who have never lived in a terraced house. And an entirely personal neologism from a local road sign: “heaning mislett”, which so exactly describes some of my acquaintances who enjoy being miserable and telling me about it at length that I feel it deserves a place in the lexicon.
I have adopted the American “kitty-corner” – I’ve never found an English version!
Trisha says
Lucy; You must be very close! We are in Parc le Breos, and just walked around Three Cliffs Bay this morning!
emdee: Thanks for explaining “now,” made no sense to me until you did, because to us, ‘now’ means, uh, now!
And I didn’t think about Willie’s name until you mentioned it! Oh dear, now it’ll be hard to forget!
Melisaa: What is snogging? (should I ask?)
em says
Popping in to put in my vote for ‘gobsmacked’ as my favorite British colloquialism, though I am quite partial to ‘rubbish’ in place of the more typically American ‘trash’, too.
My favorite American colloquialism is one from Southern Appalachia- ‘I swan’, or ‘I swanee’. It’s used as a gentle exclamatory, like ‘my goodness’ but while I had heard it a few times, I never understood where it came from until I heard a program on NPR about regionalisms. The presenter explained that the term was actually an abbreviation/corruption of the phrase “I shall warrant ye” and thus held the same function in the sentence as ‘I declare’. I had an instant flashback to one of my college English professors, who contended that the closest thing to Elizabethan English spoken in the world today is the found among the dialects of rural Appalachia. I was skeptical at the time, but maybe ๐
Gordon says
Trisha,
I hate it (well, not “hate”…I don’t “hate” anyone or anything, but you get the idea…) when someone does this to me, so apologies in advance.
Snogging (Google is your friend):
Noun 1. snogging – (British informal) cuddle and kiss
Gordon says
Oh, and if someone/anyone has beaten me to the punch defining Snogging while the posts are awaiting mderation, said moderator can delete my previous post as well as this one. Thanks. ๐
Steve Lee says
If you had a sunday roast dinner at a pub I doubt very much that you would get mushy peas. Mushy peas go with fish and chips or pie and chips. You probably got over cooked process peas.
Mithering is like pestering and is especially used to describe children ” Mithering Kids” or children that scream and cry ” Scryking Kids”. I miss the use of the word “fortnight” – 2 weeks.
Also ” keep your pecker up means remain cheerful against the odds but doesnt translate well to USA
I’m eating Marmite on buttered crumpets at the moment – delish!!
Robin Jackson says
My favourite for confusing dogwalkers: “pavement.” “Keep the dogs on the pavement” means opposite things in the US and the UK. In the UK, pavement is the elevated bit along the side of the road that automobiles DON’T drive on, which in the US is called “sidewalk.”
My favourite for confusing young readers: “jumper.” This had to be changed in the Harry Potter books for the US market. In the US, it’s a type of dress, typically worn by young girls. In the UK, it’s what the US would call a pullover “sweater.” Mrs. Weasley gave out a lot of jumpers to the kids, but it painted rather the wrong picture for American readers when Harry got one.