Musings of an Englishman who literally quit his life in Devon in mid-2012 to move to Tijuana to love a girl.
They ended up in San Diego where he became a TV anchorman (yes really...), they got married, and now they're living in England together.
Simple as that really.
Follow your heart, who knows where it will lead.

Crazy. Beautiful. Madness.

Sunday 27 September 2015

Uh-oh, my wife discovered eBay...

“ARE you ready…?” I ask for like the twenty-seventh time as we slowly head towards the door.
“Nearly, veeerrry nearly…” Jacks replies.
“Just wait 21, 20, no… 19 seconds…”
“Huh?”
“YES!” Cue Jacks punching air in triumphant fashion.
“I won!!!”
“Huh?!”
Yep, that was the moment last month when I inadvertently discovered my wife had firmly discovered eBay.
Dear lord.
The next week-and-a-half was a standout time in the Nichols casa in the 16 months since we moved to England.
You see, I now know that pairs of women’s knee-high boots, chunky warm jumpers and most long ‘dressy’ dresses just won’t fit through most front door letter box.
I know this for a fact.
And I know because every day for what seemed like an age I came home from work to find one, two, three… maybe five… Royal Mail ‘sorry we missed you’ cards posted through the door.
Some of these cards even mentioned the fact that ‘5’ items are “waiting for you”.

You've got (a lot of) mail

Wow.
It took maybe a week for me to determine the extent of my wife’s new found love of eBay.
And by that time we’d already been to the Royal Mail sorting office five or six times to pick up the various items of post. 
At one point the beleaguered-looking chap behind the counter stated that Jacks had set a “new record” with 36 items ready to pick up in one hit. I nearly had to rent a van.

Parcel force

You see, as I found in Mexico, it’s not easy to order something for delivery like that.
Tijuana didn’t - to my knowledge - boast a reliable Royal Mail equivalent. And then I was told things often go missing.
The alternative is to get something delivered to a friend across the border in the States who can then re-deliver. But of course it’s a ball-ache just for you to get your post.
So yes, as Jacks settles properly into English life, with its penchant for consumerism, I guess it was only a matter of time before one (wo)man’s junk became her treasure.
I’m as much to blame as anyone having amounted quite a sizeable collection of G1 Transformers toys during a nostalgic phase I went through, plus an absolute boat-load of All Saints gear.
Boy do we need a bigger house.
So I mentioned before that I’ve been a bit slack on the blogging front.
You see, when you’re living in a different country with different culture, food and people, it’s easy to feel inspired.
When you come back to everything you know it’s difficult to create that same level of creative spark.
Jacks and I have discussed switching up the blog so we shine a light on her English experiences but we’re not quite there yet… 16 months down the line.
So instead I guess it’s up to me to pick out the amusing bits of life here in England as we experience new things for the first time.
Like the time a couple of months ago when we went to see Jacks’ beloved ponies on Dartmoor – and how we go one stuck in the car.







I guess it’s also worth mentioning that the summer is now pretty much ‘over’ in England – aside from some miracle occurrence.
Did we see 30 degrees in Plymouth? Did we f*ck.
Did Jacks actually feel warm at all this summer? Nope.
This is pretty summer defined in Plymouth (and indeed the UK as a whole): 


We did buy a frikkin 14ft-long sea kayak though (ahem... as a tool to make us make the most of the outdoors regardless of the weather...)





Oh, readers interested in hearing how our chili crop is going this year will be pleased to see that our jalapenos are finally producing! And there’s more to come.

From this...


To this!

Beauties!

Right, we’re off to explore and find inspiration!
Greetings peeps! Play nice ;-) x


@tristan_nichols