Home Sweet Home -- Part Two

3. Lots. Perhaps more a function of being in an urban area than of the country, the size of a residential lot is considerably smaller than we're used to in the American Midwest. Many houses here (including ours) are "semi-detached" which means they share a common wall with a next door neighbor. We'd call them duplexes, except that each side is owned and maintained independently.

Ours is a "semi-detached" home. The neighbors own their half separately, even though they are in the same structure, and even selected a different color of window casings.

Few people have any sort of front yard at all. We do have a tree in front of the house, but many of our neighbors have bricked over the space in front to park a second car, or just to eliminate the tiny patch of grass that would otherwise be there. Most front yards are surrounded by a hedge, fence, or wall. The back yard (or "garden" as it would be called here) tends to be long and narrow. Some gardens are exactly that, others a grassy lawn, still others are paved over.

The refrigerator is small, but it's surprising how much fits inside.

4. Appliances. Almost all appliances are smaller (our refrigerator fits under our counter top, roughly the same size as a dishwasher in the U.S.). We miss having a dishwasher (some Brits do) and a garbage disposal (we've not seen one here). Gas or electric room heaters are common (see #5 in Part Three).

Smaller, under-counter appliances require getting on one's knees!

Other appliances, such as TVs, microwave ovens, or computers, tend to be much like they are at home. The difference, of course, is that all house current here is 240 volts (compared to the U.S. standard of 120 volts) and the wall plugs are big, clunky objects with three large, rectangular prongs, and all wall outlets have a switch next to them, to turn the current on and off. Switches are just the opposite of the U.S. -- up is off, down is on.

Big, clunky plugs are standard in the U.K.

Computers and other electronics don't seem to care about the voltage, so long as one has the proper plug adapter or cord. However, anything with a heating element or motor, such as a toaster or a hair dryer, is best bought here rather than brought from the U.S. Our American appliances burn up rather dramatically when plugged into 240 volt current!