How to Tell You’ve Gone Bougie

Maybe you always had tendencies but no space or money before. Now, you’re growing a garden!

There are vegetables galore, everything your ignorant mind could throw at a 4×10′ plot! 6 pea plants, all put in at the same time. 6 sprouting broccoli plants. Three corn plants (one died), a row of onions, a row of beets, three courgette plants, 7 pepper plants (none thrived, four eventually moved to pots, one of which has flowered), 4 tomato plants in two varieties, lettuce.

Who knew courgettes grew 3′ wide? Surely it would have said that on the back of the packet! (Wait, men don’t read the backs of packets)

And to top it all off, your old “poor food” meal, rice & veggies (no meat) has gone from taking about 20 minutes to make, to 45 minutes, has red camargue rice and brown rice, courgettes, carrots and peas from your garden, and duck breasts (because they were on sale).

But damn, is it good to eat yummy food that you’ve grown yourself!

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Expat Banking

When you move to a new country and try to set up a life there, you encounter a broad range of differences in the way people do things in this new country. For instance, in Britain, everything is harder. Ha! No, it just feels that way sometimes, especially when it comes to banking. Without five years of checkable addresses in the country (I wonder if it counts if you’ve lived some of them in Ireland, Wales or Scotland?), you only qualify for a type known as a Cashminder Account. All this means is that, like in the United States, you have a debit card, can bank online, and can deposit and withdraw money. OK, good, that’s all I wanted to do. Here, customers are charged a monthly fee for different levels of banking because the bank will offer you things like free worldwide travel insurance, home insurance, financial advice, and an overdraft. Overdraft is basically a line of credit. We have something called overdraft in the States, too, but I’ve never had it as anything other than a link to my savings account in case a check bounces, so I won’t be charged.

All things considered, I suppose the British overdraft and the American overdraft are similar, it’s just that its like having a credit card attached to your checking account instead of not having anything and being charged a fee if you go into the red.

My problem with British banking is that it’s ridiculously hard to get anything done. To change your address you have to go into a branch. Not just any branch, either, but the branch at which you started the account. You have to put in various parts of two codes to get into your account online. And because my proof of address, which came from Ealing Council, for a bill for our old address, and thus says C/O [my new address], they’re having problems accepting it as proof. They also won’t issue me a bank account right away because I’m not a UK passport holder, even though I’m not asking for any credit. What is that all about?

They say it’s so you’re more protected against fraud, and I wonder how much there is compared to in the States, but I do know someone who had her identity stolen and fraudulent charges made against her bank account.

Oh! And I forgot! Apparently you can’t do online purchasing through your bank card unless you have a card reader sent to you? Maybe that’s only with Royal Bank of Scotland. But Brits, please tell me your experiences with online purchasing. I’m really interested to know now that I’m about to be able to start doing that.

Now that I’ve finally got a job, I’m really looking forward to being paid. But wouldn’t ya know it, I can’t be for at least another week. Which means I still can’t get a cell phone. I’ll just stare wistfully at the HTC Desire for another week and debate endlessly over which phone provider to go with.

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