Leicester is a two-syllable word

Running late on an update, but we have not been idle.  I was admittedly lazy last Sunday night, but had some long work days so far this week.  The highlights since the last post include moving into a bungalow and getting our own Wifi. This means we have a shipping address and are able to order things online so I could finally buy that 2L bucket of virgin coconut oil on amazon.co.uk at a reasonable price.

Other amazon purchases included:  a laser pointer to entertain the cats, an HDMI cable to hook up the laptop to the TV for streaming 'Merican Netflix and Hulu, 4 pints of fish oil because it makes me feel awesome, and believe it or not, a meat grinder.  One cool thing about UK amazon is that express shipping is super cheap, but I guess that makes sense considering the the surface area of the UK relative to the US.

If you were curious about why in the hell I bought a 220V 50Hz meat grinder when I'm only living here for 11 more months, it's because I make our cats their own food.  Yes, we did this back in Indy, and yes we're crazy cat people.  But our cats do not do well on the dry UK food, and won't even touch the wet food.  So, I have a recipe from a veterinarian that involves ground chicken and rabbit (with bone) and supplemented with heart, liver, kidney, and additional vitamins and minerals.  It's always a slow transition to get the cats to eat it, but once they do the health benefits are obvious.  I also use the grinder to make my own hamburger and sausage.  I may even try to make some UK style bangers for fun.  We'll see.

I did make an exotic stirfry of aubergine, mange tout, and courgette for our first meal at the bungalow.

Aubergine, mangetout, and courgette.  Can you label them correctly?

Last Saturday we watched the Leicester (les-ter, not lay-ses-ter you silly american) Tigers home game opener against the Worcester (wus-ter) Warriors.  I am talking about rugby, a sport I knew precious little about.  We went to the game with some families of work colleagues - it was quite nice to get to know some of my coworkers outside of the office.

Leicester is a 30 min drive from Derby, and full of history of course.  I was told that King Richard was exhumed and chopped up into tiny pieces and scattered in the local river here from a bridge - the actual story behind "Humpty Dumpty" rhyme (he was a hunchback?).  I remain dubious, even as Wikipedia is at my fingertips.  There were some legit Roman ruins however, it was no coliseum, but a 1000 year old wall is still impressive.

We all met at one of my coworker's houses (free parking!), and it was a short walk from there to the stadium.  The most humorous architecture on the way was the prison, which I could have mistaken for a castle or minster if I didn't have the guidance from a local.

A prison in City Center.

The Tigers are the premier team when it comes to rugby, and they did not disappoint.  I stand by my opinion that as a sport, rugby is just barely less violent than MMA.  American football is brutal, but these guys have minimal padding and safety equipment.   The fun part is that after the guy gets tackled, and you think the play is over (if you have an American football background), he rolls a lateral pass to his teammate at the action keeps going!  Pretty exciting stuff in the middle of it all.

Getting ready for the scrum

In addition to referees, there were many first-aiders on hand, ready with water, bandages, and who knows what else.  (These guys are tough.)

Hammie envy

Caterpillar is the main sponsor, and their logo is 10x larger than the team name on the jersey.

Leicester Caterpillars?

As crazy as I hear football games are in the UK, and as violent as rugby is, the crowd was ironically reserved.  A respectful hush goes through the crowd during penalty kicks, and everyone is super positive to the visiting team.  Refreshing, really.

After the game, we grabbed a pint, then made our way to an Indian pub for dinner.  The best part about Indian pubs are that the food is the same without the fancypants experience, so the prices end up being about 60% less!  By the way, the name of the Indian pub was named "Martin Pub" and has been featured by Jamie Oliver.  Awesome place!  I cleaned up everyone's leftovers.

The crew!