A Week in the Life of Braudia

We have comfortably settled into a routine here in Northeast England, so we figured it was time you heard about a typical week in the life of Braudia.

During the weekdays, the fun begins at 8am. That's when our alarm goes off and we get up. We head down for breakfast and watch "Wild Tales" or rather I, Claudia, watch Wild Tales. It's a kid's show about baby animals. I know, a bit juvenile, but they are so cute, and the stories are done really well! Once that's over, we watch a bit of the news and the weather. 'Round here, the weatherman always says more or less the same thing: "Another miserable day in the Northeast" or "It's absolutely horrible out there" or "It's going to be a bitter 2 degrees (celsius) out there"...it's funny cuz the weather isn't great, but it's not "horrible" or "miserable" all the time. It's just kind of blah, but the weather people make it out to be a daily drama. I guess we all need to have our fun, somehow...

Around 8:45, Bret and I head out on foot or on our bikes into work. We both work close to home, so we don't need to take any buses or anything. While at work, I just do my typing, photocopying, enveloping, etc, and Bret researches, plots graphs, and advises Astronomy students. Bret has two communal coffee breaks during the day where he gets to chat with other astronomers. During my work, I listen to music and podcasts (cuz my job is so easy!). Tuesdays are my favourite days, because I get to listen to my "60 minutes" podcast and "This American Life" podcast. Sometimes I also listen to "Left, Right, and Center" but I prefer the other two.

I get a one hour lunch break in which I leave the social services building and run errands around town. On Tuesdays or Wednesdays, I buy fruits and veggies at the local stand. Sometimes I go to the library to check my email (we're not allowed to access hotmail at work) or check out cds and dvds. Other times, I buy toiletries at Boots, the main British super-pharmacy.

At 5pm, I begin my trek back up the hill to our home. Bret and I split the cooking days, but roughly, he cooks 3 days and I cook 3 days, then we eat dinner out one of those days. We make really nice meals! Sometimes we do an all day crockpot (pork and stews are really good for this). Other times, we do whole chickens. These are great because they are cheap and we get lots of meat out of them. We eat lots of lamb, and I love making duck. We do not eat beef anymore because British beef is less than delicious. We have seafood one a week, and sometimes we have a high protein vegetarian meal, like tofu or mixed bean soup. I also like to make fancy salads and cut up fresh fruit. Oh, and we also eat lots of chocolate gateau for dessert!

Anyway, our grocery day is usually Monday or Tuesday, but we do not go to the store because we do not have a car. Instead, we get our groceries delivered from Tesco. We just go online and pick out the food we want, then pay an extra 4 pounds for delivery. We choose a time slot (say between 9am and 11am on Tuesday), and the tesco man brings the groceries to the door. I miss browsing through the aisles, but this is ultra convenient for us. On Sundays, we plan our week's meals, buy our stuff, and make it throughout the week.

Anyway, so after dinner, we do the dishes. We do not have a dishwasher, so we have a system, which is usually Bret washing and me drying and putting away. It's actually not too bad because we put on fun music and I drink a glass of wine while Bret drinks a beer. Then we either play a boardgame (I know, we are dorks, but they are so much fun!) or watch a movie and wind down.

The weekends are a bit different. On Friday nights, the astronomy department goes out to the pubs, and I meet up with them. It's lots of fun cuz I drink my ginger beer + whisky and then we all eat out at a restaurant or something. Saturdays and Sundays, we have little adventures. We might go shopping or go into Newcastle. This coming Saturday, we are renting out first car and going to the Kielder Forest in Northumbria! Bret often works out on the weekends, too, and I do a bit of writing. And of course, there's cleaning the house and doing laundry (again, music is key to making this a 'fun' activity) We love hanging out with people, inviting them over, and going to the movies. And we are super excited for the milder weather to come so we can have picnics and Bret can teach me soccer, I mean football!

So as you can see, we've got a nice steady life. We'd love to meet more friends (and I'd love a more challenging job), but we have our good times, given our limited means!