I am a bit rusty, so I hope you will bear with me as I get my groove back. I thoroughly enjoyed my cleopatrasparachute blog, and frankly miss blogging. My husband and I have recently relocated to the UK, and I thought this would be a great way for us to stay in touch with our family and friends...and to provide a non-toxic, non-habit forming sleep aid as needed! I am open to suggestions, and will share as much as you can stand! So, grab a cuppa and let's get this started..
I am now officially an empty nester. Our younger daughter graduated from high school, and was accepted to University in England. Our older daughter had already flown the coop, and moved to Georgia. Add to the mix a bit of a mid-life career evaluation, and it seemed moving to England made sense. My husband had spent the bulk of his career overseas, moving to the US only ten years ago. I have a perverse love of crappy weather, so I was keen!
Six weeks ago, we arrived at London Heathrow weary, excited, and stunned. Not to mention rumpled and completely disenchanted with transatlantic flight. Our initial flight was cancelled and we were re-routed to another airport. We lost our carefully chosen seats, and ended up in the much detested middle section with broken entertainment consoles. Let me just say, there isn't enough mid-range airline issue Vin de Ordinaire to make the trip in any way pleasant. But I digress. We finally landed in the early morning hours local time. We were here. We still could not believe we had done THIS.
We loaded up our rental car with our nine (not a typo- it really was nine!) suitcases, turned on the GPS and made our way to our new home via the "wrong" side of the road. And Mom, the dude with an English accent is standard on GPS thingies here! Who knew? After about twenty miles and numerous roundabouts, John began to relax. We drove to Brighton first so John could get his salary paperwork completed, and then on to our new home in the lovely town of Rye.
I have been fortunate enough to travel through much of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but had somehow missed Rye in my previous adventures. In coming here, I had to trust - without reservation -my husband's choice of a town. Any female reading this knows just how difficult that is to do. After all, this is the same guy who picked a flea infested, moldy, stale cigarette smoke scented, airless hotel in Orlando for a family jaunt to Disney because "it has a free breakfast and is close to the gate". Needless to say, I haven't forgotten. This time I had to let it all go. John had taken the train from his new post to as far as he was willing to commute, and looked around for the best fit for us. I think he did very well. There. It is in print. Rye is an old port city with roots going back to Medieval times. One of the oldest structures in town dates from the 1100's. The town is situated up on a hill overlooking three rivers and out to the English Channel about two miles away.
Anyhoo, we arrived in this most ancient of towns, not quite knowing what to expect. Our shipping container was weeks away, we were in temporary lodging for the first week, every single toilet had a different flush mechanism, and we had no local bank account. And we talk funny. I had always thought the English had an accent....turns out it's us. I do pretty well overall, but my use of y'all does seem to make the stodgiest of Brits dissolve into third-grade giggles. And this after I had practiced long and hard trying to remove my southernisms from my vocabulary. Sigh.
I hope to see you again soon in the blogosphere... Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment