All Posts in "Mother In Law"

The Ashes.  A long-standing tradition in England (and Australia, for that matter).  And England finally won the match, or test, at Lord’s – I believe they said it was the first in 75 years.  Well, it was also the first time I actually watched a cricket a game (or part of).[ad#ad-1]

The English are well-known for their reserve, and I think it also applies to sports.  By this, I mean that they do not go out of their way to explain it.  My husband and his family have always been sports fan.  That is, they follow all the English sports and have their favourites, even if they really don’t go fanatical like some fans.  They also don’t try to convert people to their sports religion.

This is very different from my experience in the States.  Over there, if you mention that you don’t understand the American ball games, someone would stand up and go into detail about how the game works.  Some sports fans, like one of my brothers, may bore you with all the statistics of a particular favourite player, completely oblivious of the interest (or lack thereof) or understanding of the listener.

Football (soccer) is easy for me to understand, as that is played in the US.  Rugby I have seen a little of and understand understand how they score, etc.  But cricket is another matter.  It does not help that I had never seen a match before yesterday.  But the terminology had been cmpletely baffling to me.  Even when I’ve asked a question, everyone just shrugs it off with “It’s cricket.” 

So, while visiting my mother-in-law, who is recovering from her fall and is finally home, we watched the end of the cricket match, the second test.  At this point, England needed 4 wickets and Australia needed something like 185 runs.  As much as comparisons are made between cricket and baseball, they are completely dissimilar.  The physiotherapist, an Australian, arrived just as England scored the first of the last 4 wickets.  By the time she left, the game was over.[ad#ad-1]

In that time, I learned what a wicket was and what is meant by an “over” (though I fail to understand how that terminology came about).  I still don’t know how they decide who bats and who bowls and whether there is a set number of runs that needs to be scored, while I understand that the number of wickets is 10.  I still cannot grasp how a game can last days on end, the terminology of 20/20, or why a female cricketer took nine hours to bowl nine overs.  As far as I can understand, 6 balls is an over, so 9 overs is 54 balls.  Why did it take so long?  Of course, I’m still too ignorant of the game to even ask more questions and no one’s about to explain it unless I ask specific questions.  Is it because it’s too complicated?

Yank by — July 21, 2009 in Sports 4

OK, it’s the first day in a week that we’ve had a little time to spend on the computer.  I have not been blogging much, nor visiting my web friends, including my old friend Peggy (all the way back to college/university), who has just started her own blog.[ad#ad-1]

Now that the kids are nearing the end of their school term, we are more serious about finding jobs.  We have been living off savings (terrible situation) and the situation has become dire.  We had looked into jobs previously but there have been little available in the area.  We are considering moving, but this was difficult with the kids in school and the tenancy agreement.  But the situation is about to change.

It did not help that my mother-in-law fractured her wrist and hip last week.  We have been up and down to London to visit her and to help with errands for my father-in-law.  She was extremely independent before and there has been such a change in routine for the both of them.  He has learned to be a little more independent and tending to regular household duties.  We’re considering going up to give the dog a long walk again.  She has to learn to take things easier and only push herself gently.  She has had to have a blood transfusion, and yesterday, we found out that the surgical site was leaking.  It could help explain why she is so volume depleted and her blood pressure keeps dropping when she gets up, not to mention that her appetite was down for a while.  She is progressing well with therapy, despite the bad wrist.

Unfortunately, her bedroom is on the second floor (third floor for us Americans) and she is not allowed to climb stairs yet.  When they decide to discharge her, we’ll have to make arrangements to move a bed down to the kitchen.  Having never been in such a position before, we are starting to appreciate what many other families have to deal with when an elderly parent or grandparent becomes temporarily disabled.

We had thought that the kids could spend a week with Nanny and Granddad over the summer break while we attack the job market, but that idea is now nixed.  Unless they can be of help and not just sit in front of the TV, waiting to be served, we cannot impose on my in-laws in such a way.

I finally went down to the DVLA in Brighton to start the process for my driver’s license.  I’m not expecting anyone to need it for at least the three weeks that my passport will be gone, but you never know.  Perhaps, I’m courting disaster, but if the disaster is that someone needs to see my passport to complete the hiring process, then it’s the kind of disaster that I would welcome at this point.

Again, apologies to my blogger friends.  I can only promise that I’ll look in now and then for the moment.

Yank by — July 14, 2009 in My Journey 1