Word of the Week

This week's word of the week: grockle

GROCKLE
noun
British informal, slightly derogatory

a holiday maker, especially one visiting a resort in Devon or Cornwall.

Grockle is, as stated, a term for a summer "holiday maker" (or tourist, basically).  Will and I were driving home the other day and in a one-lane part of the road, people were all mushed up into one and a half/two lanes and Will referred to them as likely being grockles.

This week's cultural awareness topic: holiday parks

Apparently loads of people from the UK come down here to Devon and the rest of Southwest England for the summer vacation months, or "summer holiday", more than doubling the population density for a few months.  Where do all these "holiday makers" go?  To holiday parks, of course!  These holiday parks are usually a little seaside enclosed area where people come, either rent a trailer or park an RV in huge massive rows, and just vacation for a week.  They usually have a few convenience stores, bars, a pool, maybe an arcade or entertainment center, but that's about it.  And apparently it's the greatest thing in the world.  Exmouth is next to one called Sandy Bay which I briefly walked through the other day on a hike along the cliffs and I thought it was a trailer park, but people actually spend loads of money to rent one for a week.  To each their own I suppose!  The one redeemer: the beach was actually quite nice, but Will says you can barely move on it in the summer months because it is so crowded.  I think I'll stick with camping.

Branscombe Beach

Will and I went on a gorgeous hike yesterday along Branscombe Beach and the white cliffs.  Honestly, one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.  The cliffs and exotic vegetation looked like they were a set from Jurassic Park or something, simply breathtaking.

I had fun collecting a wild-flower bouquet and we both enjoyed climbing a couple trees.  There are so many beautiful places to see here; Will and I just picked up a few hiking guides for Devon and there are hundreds of walks and hikes, I want to go on all of them!!

Word of the Week

Alright, time for our next "word of the week".
This week's adorable British word: tipple

tipplenoun 

/ˈtɪp.l ̩/ [C] informal

     

Definition

an alcoholic drink

What's your tipple (= What alcoholic drink do you usually drink)?

(Definition of tipple noun from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

I saw it in a newspaper the other day, the headline read "What's your favourite tipple?" and I asked Will what it meant.  He says it's only really used in that context and basically refers to anyone's favorite drink.  So a tipple = your usual alcoholic beverage.

moving on to..

Cultural Awareness of The Week!

This week's topic is wedding cakes.  So apparently the traditional wedding cake of choice in England is, get ready for it: a fruit cake.  A fruit cake?? Really? Yes, really.  

In regards to wedding planning, Will keeps saying he doesn't mind, whatever I want is fine.  Then, all of the sudden, when I decide on something, he has an opinion. "We're not having fruit cake? We have to have fruit cake!"

There are basically only three choices of cake for a wedding cake:

1. Fruit cake (which apparently is the most traditional and popular)
2. Yellow sponge cake (usually with a buttercream filling)
3. Chocolate cake

So we're compromising.  We've decided on a two-tiered cake with fruit cake on the bottom for all the Brits and sponge cake on the top for all the Americans.  And forget butter-cream frosting, the cake shop lady seemed quite repulsed at the suggestion of covering it in in frosting.  No, they only have marzipan (or occasionally royal icing, which is not comparable to butter cream) here in England.  At least I get sponge cake...


One thing crossed off the never-ending list of wedding planning.

My first rugby game!

Will and I bought tickets last week to watch a Gloucester rugby game on Saturday and decided to make a whole weekend of it.  We started with a drive up to Minehead for Will's work at a fire station up there, continued on the scenic drive to Lynton for Will to finish up his work for the day, and then it was off to find a camp site for the evening.

We settled on a site on a farm just outside of Gloucester, bought a disposable barbecue and meat, and just as we finished our dinner the storm rolled in.  I knew there had been talk of thunder and lightening storms, but we went for it anyway.  First it was a few drops of rain, then it poured.  Though on and off for the first hour, the rain and wind came in extremely strong by midnight and we thought our tent might blow away! That, or start leaking through.  Luckily neither one of those scenarios happened, but it was quite an exciting night.

Bright and early the next morning we packed up our soggy tent only to discover that our car had a flat tire.  After Will skilfully put on the spare, we scrambled to find a place to fix it so we could check into our hotel and still have enough time to down a pint before match.  An hour and 60 GBP later we were back on the road with a new tire and by noon we were checked into the hotel.

The hotel room was nice enough, especially for 19 pounds.  We walked over to the stadium, had our pint and chips, and settled into The Shed for the game.  The Shed is the part of the stands with standing room only and is infamously intimidating for the opposition.  We had a great view and watched Gloucester "stuff" (as Will says) the Sale Sharks, 68-17; exciting game! We just kept scoring and scoring and cheering and cheering. 

After the game ended the crowd was invited out onto the pitch for the end of the year player awards, Will loved getting to be out on the field.

Afterwards we headed into town for dinner and drinks and enjoyed a nice night out.  Next day we drove the two hours back to Exmouth and took a walk among the tide pools, what a great weekend!

Rugby weekend

I'm off to my first rugby game this weekend!! Will and I are camping Friday night then staying in Gloucester for the night after the game; I should have a nice update on Sunday :)

Paignton Zoo

Will and I went to the zoo yesterday to enjoy Will's last day of the four-day holiday.  What a beautiful zoo.  Ashley, I think you'd love it, they have loads of turtles and tortoises and even giant tortoises, they are huge.  I saw a camel for the first time and was reminded that zebras are called "zehb-ras" not "zee-bras".  They have about three dozen peacocks as well but I think Will started to get a little annoyed at my obsession with photographing them.

After the zoo we had a really great pork roast with Will's family, then Will and I went out for a couple pints at a pub.  It was a wonderful holiday weekend :)

WORD OF THE WEEK

I had a request from a few friends (Emily and Kira) to do a "word of the week" for all my American readers.  Here's the first one: moreish

moreish

adjective 

/ˈmɔː.rɪʃ//ˈmɔːr.ɪʃ/ UK informal approving

Definition

(of food) having a very pleasant taste and making you want to eat more

These peanuts are very moreish, aren't they?

(Definition of moreish adjective from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/moreish

It's pronounced "more-ish" and basically it goes along with the "s'mores" idea, that when you want more of something, it's considered moreish.

"Those cookies are so moreish, I have to have another one."

It's one of my favorite new English words because it sounds like a fake word, like something a little kid would make up, but I hear it here all the time!

Expanding on word of the week, I'm going to do CULTURAL AWARENESS OF THE WEEK as well.  This week's subject: sandwiches.

So I've been helping out at Will's mom's delicatessen (www.delytes.co.uk, I made the website :) ) and they sell lots of sandwiches and baguettes.  The first thing you do when you make an English sandwich is you spread butter on each piece of the bread.  Every sandwich I've had in England is loaded with butter!! It's not my thing, but apparently everyone else likes it.  Give me some mayo please!  Okay, so you have your sandwich, loaded with butter, and then you add the meat, and then "salad".  They call lettuce and any other assorted vegetables collectively as "salad".  So if you go into a deli, order a tuna sandwich, the cashier may ask you "salad?" and they mean on your sandwich, not a side salad.  Stayed tuned for next week's vocabulary and cultural post!

New blog time!

Time for a new blog to share the next couple years of my life in England with the love of my life, Will.
It's been surprisingly easy to settle in here, Will's family have been so welcoming.  I've been getting to know Will's parents, brothers, and brothers' significant others and have been keeping pretty busy!

Will came to pick me up at Heathrow airport on April 14th, the flight was the easiest international flight ever.  Airplanes are terrible, flying is one of the most unpleasant ways to spend your time, I don't even want to think about all the worst case scenarios.  I got very lucky, however.  I had a direct flight (no 6-hour layovers? amazing!), had an empty seat next to me, and was flying post-Academy Awards, where all the amazing films that came out in January/February are available for my private viewing pleasure free of charge.  Oh, and did I mention the free wine? Love the free beer and wine on international flights... Most enjoyable flight ever for me, especially knowing Will was waiting for me :)

We stopped at Stonehenge on our way back to Will's parents place and at a cute little inn for some lunch.

Since arriving at Will's home in Exmouth, we've been doing a bit of travelling around the area, lots of hiking and driving, and now we're going to get on with the wedding planning (the royal wedding kind of reminded us of all the planning we still have to do!).