capin

I've been playing around with various TV systems, meh, its a lot of cat and mouse.

I found Heinz Baked beans in ingles $2.39 a tin - ouch.

Pulaski

By any objective measure most TV is pretty bad. We dropped all regular TV service about four years ago, and suffice with an occasional dip into Netflix and Amazon prime, but even then only for an hour or two one or two Friday evenings each month. It has taken me almost a year to reach the end of the third series of Breaking Bad. At this rate I will need something new to watch in 2018. .... Maybe I will try Fringe again, but I didn't find the first three episodes very compelling.

vikingsail

42 months and counting does that answer the question!

becks_r

I so agree about the lack of places to walk a dog off lead. I really don't understand why it's not allowed here. I am dogless at the moment and thinking carefully about getting another, but the thought of it always being on the lead isn't filling me with joy!

Nutmegger

Taking the opposite point of view, I have had some bad experiences when walking my dogs (leashed) in the woods, and having loose dogs come charging up and jumping on me and my dogs. The owners' inevitable response, "Oh, I didn't think I'd meet anyone." Duh, it's a lovely Sunday afternoon -- you're the only one who thought it would be nice to walk in the woods??!! So I am very much in agreement with dogs being kept on the leash in a public place.

tom169

We enjoy taking the inlaw's dog to a fenced dog park

lizzyq

Homesick? Not at all.

Missing anything? Not really. The worst bit of moving over here was the time when steveq and the boys were in the "new place" doing all the new things first without me while I was back in the UK sorting out all the stuff from house and factory.

State College is definitely home now, the UK is somewhere we used to live.

markonline1

I agree with the earlier comment about missing stuff without being homesick. Whilst watching the AJ fight on Saturday, I was thinking how great it would be to be home in a pub watching the fight, but I don't feel I've ever really got homesick. In fact, I've only been here 4 years, but would probably be homesick for California if I moved back to the U.K.

DebzinUS

I am people sick. Mum, sisters, family. It's costing me a fortune to travel back 3+ times a year. I am headed back for the second time this year, this weekend...I was Ok ish until my husband died three years ago. Now feeling a bit lost.

Faery

Interesting responses. I've been here years and wasn't homesick at all until I went back to visit last year with my 4 year old who was born over here and whom everybody in the UK had not met in person. My Dad in particular really bonded with her and was so upset when our visit came to an end. I felt like everyone was/is missing out on her growing up. I don't really have any friends over here and no-one other than my spouse, he has no family.

I also find the location and humidity of where we live to be hard to deal with at times. No-one here gets my British sense of humor either. So sometimes I miss my own culture and the familiarity of it and certain foods. It's a downer that it is so far and so expensive to visit more than once a year and no-one other than a sibling is willing/able to travel to see us. However, as someone else mentioned, if I were to move back, I would probably miss being here too.

Pulaski

I agree. I like dogs, and we had a couple when I was a child, but too many American dogs have been weaponized. A recently retired neighbour and her husband were persuaded by their son-in-law, who is a cop, that they "needed a dog". ..... Enter a bloody great Alsatian (it started out as a puppy) but barks like crazy every time it sees anyone or anything on any bit of the road it can see! Another neighbour has a pit bull for heaven-only-knows what reason. It got out once and chased little Miss P. Then I chased it, and it wasn't quite so brave after all! That said a cowardly pit bull could still easily kill a child.

moneypenny20

In 11+ years I have felt homesick once. Last week a UK friend posted some pics on FB of an event they went to. For some unknown reason it really hurt and I wondered what the hell I was doing not living there. Woke up next morning fine and over it. I did wish I was in the UK in 2012 but that was because of the Olympics and Jubilee and it looked great. However I didn't have the money to fly over for 2-3months and I do have a tv so it was all good.

lizzyq

To let your dogs run free in a fenced, managed dog park where you expect other dogs to be off the leash would seem to be sensible. However, given the variety of predators or unfriendly wildlife a dog could meet while off the leash and out of sight in "the woods" I would think twice about letting dogs run free if I were a dog owner.

Last night our cat was, inadvertently, out overnight and was fine this morning, if a little cross (incandescent!), but on looking out the suet feeder is no longer on the pole so we may have had a black bear through during that time (we are less than a mile from state game lands). From the local roadkill I know there are skunks and raccoons, as well as opossum and groundhogs (not predators for cats, but I guess they could give a nasty bite in self-defence). There are other indoor/outdoor cats in our neighbourhood, but I haven't seen any out on a regular basis at night later on.

BTW Smokey is definitely not homesick - he thinks Pennsylvania is wonderful with more "snacks" available, if he can be bothered, and is certain that living in a wooded subdivision is much more desirable than an urban terraced house.

Pulaski

Anyone who lets their dog run free on wooded land without wearing one of these is inviting tragedy.

becks_r

My problem with the only dog park I have been to here is they seem to be very sterile, just areas of open shortly mowed grass. My last dog loved sniffing around trees and shrubs and areas of long grass and was always bored with just walking round plain mowed grass.

We are moving house this year (hopefully), and my ideal house would have come with a few acres of land so that I could make my own dog park, with interesting things for the dog. Unfortunately, I can't afford that type of place. So it will be back to walking on lead everywhere.

As I have always trained my dogs to stay in eyesight of me, I have never worried about them being out of sight on walks. I always have big dogs too, so less likely to be worried by the smaller predators. But, Unless you get an Anatolian Shepherd dog, I think I would always be worried about meeting a bear on a walk!!!