Caroline in Arizona

Sammy2018

scot47

https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2018/1...j753j6wUrXPgnQ

Another alternative view of what has been happening. Guaranteed to have the Blimps and Kippers raging !

Gordon Barlow

Any chance that an independent Scotland would have its own King again, Scot? Are there any descendants of MacBeth among the living?

Jensmate

Hello All
it's a mild morning here in Folkestone; a bit of sunshine, a few whitecaps out there on the Channel and the fragrance of other peoples' breakfasts wafting through my window. I'm enjoying my second cup of coffee and thought I would revisit my post and give an update.

I read all the new posts and here is a message to all those who are abroad and are longing to return home: make a plan, keep at it and you WILL come home. Having a plan is important. It keeps one focused.Write it down and revisit it often. In the meantime, work hard, save and make the most of what your present country of residence can provide. All your experiences will be brought back with you and will ultimately make the UK a richer and more vibrant place.

I brought back a wholeheartedly optimistic, can-do attitude from my time in the States. Nothing is impossible; anything can be accomplished.
It irritates a lot of people especially those who think that their lot in life is someone else's fault, all ways has been someone else's fault and always will be someone else's fault. The EU's fault. The fault of the immigrants. Especially it's the government's fault.
Take responsibility for your lives people!

How many years, decades, did I long to be able to visit my sister on a regular basis? Now, Senior Railcard in hand, and a 2 hour and 10 min train journey later, she meets me at the station. We spend the next 48 hours lunching and laughing, shopping and laughing, crafting and laughing, sitting in front of the fire and reminiscing and laughing....
I left at 21 and she was 35. We are now 63 and 77. Athough there have been illnesses and deaths, marriages and divorces, remarriages and children, grandchildren and great grands in those 42 years between, it's like I left yesterday. We have become older but far more wiser and ultimately better friends..

Christmas is almost upon us and I have to say, after experiencing the excesses surrounding US holidays, UK retail excesses top the lot.
So much Christmas ... STUFF.
Perhaps it's the result of a more secular society that it has swapped Christian worship for retail worship? Perhaps it's because there is so much more disposable income now than there's ever been? Perhaps I notice because Christmas in the US is secondary to Thanksgiving but here Christmas is the year's MAIN EVENT? And it's mostly made of plastic or plastic wrapped.
For a country the complains it's drowning in plastic, recycles like the Dickens and prohibits giving away supermarket plastic bags.......it certainly seems hell bent on using more of the stuff.

Someone asked how I kept fit after retirement? Not having a car, I walk. E v e r y w h e r e.

Cafe Society. Folkestone has a plethora of wonderful cafes and eateries. And I have discovered that some of these offer my new favourite bevvy. Coffee with liqueur. After a hard days shopping in Asda, browsing books in Waterstones and picking up a pound of Battle of Britain sausages at the butcher's requires a pick-me-up at The Commons....a latte with a brandy added. A winter warmer, although it's hardly winter with these mild temperatures. Remember, I lived in Vermont....if its above 0C, its mild.

So, all going well thus far.

fulwood

Thanks for the update. Glad to know everything is working out fine.

happy-go-lucky-lass

I just want to say I love your posts and your wonderfully upbeat writing style. Thank you -I visited this thread many times when I was feeling low and homesick, and it always made me smile. I can't wait to come 'home' and scoff BBQ hoola-hoops and get up at dawn to hear the birds' singing. x

Jensmate

Hello hgll
Ah! Homesick and low....I'm so very sorry and I can empathize having been there too. I cant speak for the Hula Hoops but I can assure you that, when the time comes, those birds will be singing for you too. I hope your plan is in place and that you can see the light (home) at the end of the tunnel.
Best wishes.

BEVS

Irish Guinness

durham_lad

Rorypens

So true, I am way for 36 years now and having just retired I spent 2 months of this summer in UK and I ABSOLUTELY loved it. I was so surprised how much Having been quite "never will go back" for the last 36 years I really shocked myself.

between two worlds

Very interesting how surprised at yourself you were—and will you, Rorypens, like Jensmate and so many others, come back for good, do you think?

Jensmate, your posts are wonderful. Thank you for them. I love the way you celebrate the joy of your return but you also credit your time in the USA for much that was good, like the "can-do" optimistic attitude. It's an attitude I—despite growing up in the UK!—have always had, so on that front I felt at home in the USA. On many other fronts, I didn't; like you, I was always "hefted to this landscape" and I just missed it more and more.

Durhamlad, your words, too, are clear and evocative and resonate with me, especially your image of the bungee-cord linking you to UK and the way it becomes tighter and tighter as time goes on....

I am so glad to be back here and I try, as jensmate does in the second post, not to take it for granted even though it's five and a half years now, and to remind myself of how much I longed to do the things I now can do easily. Be with my siblings and mother, have meals together or just pop in for a cuppa, visit an ancient church or Cathedral, sit in an English park, enjoy the countryside by bus rides hither and yon (we too are living without a car), go for walks in town or country, and just the general Englishness/ Britishness of everything. Even silly things like the bad puns in newspaper headlines. Even a respectable broadsheet had as headline, after the theft of that piece of artwork (?!), a lavatory made of solid gold, from an exhibit in Blenheim Palace: "Solid gold toilet stolen...police have nothing to go on."

Ok that is silly and I hope you don't think it reflects my general level of intellect!!!! But seriously, there's a widespread love of language, puns, and wordplay here that I missed in the USA.

Unlike jensmate, I did love this country before. But being young, loving languages, and naturally wanting to explore, I left after college to live in Italy, for what I thought would be two years. I loved living there, and met and married my USC husband there, so ended up there for five years. At the end of that time I was feeling homesick for the UK and beginning to recognise that, but now married and with a child and with DH the wage-earner, couldn't even think of going back there, as our lives pointed to his career in the US; so I went for love, not for an idea of a better life.

All these expat stories are so interesting! This is a great forum to share experiences.

Rorypens

Thats a very interesting question. The truth is probably no BUT I am considering returning for the summer months - I don't think the winter months would be my thing. I definitely see me 2 or 3 months a year there though which is a big change from my prior poor attitude towards my home country. If the summers were longer I would stay longer. Having come from a very blue collar dark and depressing northern mining town I seem to have developed an insatiable desire to have a summer cottage in the south west ;+) Maybe its age?

durham_lad