Miss/Love: The Chemist’s

Something I Miss: The chemist’s shop (pharmacy) in the little town where I lived in the UK was a step back in time, and delightful and frustrating for it in equal measure.  If it had disabled access, I was unaware — all I know is that it had a narrow doorway and an awkward step [...]

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America, Socialism, and Fear of the Public Option

Hold on…  lifts hand with index finger raised Hold on…   I’m be with you in a minute — I’m just reading through these papers…  I’m choosing between some of these military protection plans.  I’ll be getting all the standard coverage of course: basic national defense, overseas campaigns, that sort of thing.  And I’m including all [...]

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This American’s Experience of Britain’s Healthcare System

As the healthcare debate picks up pace, I find myself being asked with increasing regularity what I think of Britain’s healthcare system.  Six months ago, I’d have jumped into the answer with gusto, but these days…  I don’t know, I am just so fatigued by all the fear-mongering and hysteria, the ignorance and the downright [...]

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I am Boring

I’ve come to an uncomfortable conclusion.  It turns out that… well… I’m quite boring.  I always had some suspicions  of this but I’d had enough social success to be able to brush those concerns under a convenient nearby carpet.  But just lately, that’s not worked and I’ve got to admit what I’m quickly realising to [...]

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Here, Too, I Belong

I love bluegrass.  And of course I can listen to bluegrass anywhere but it only feels right when I listen to it here, here in its home territory.  Bluegrass needs to set against the backwoods of America in order to really blossom into what it’s fully meant to be.  I’ve listened to bluegrass many times [...]

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Golden, As I Remember

I walked out onto the front porch tonight, just for a moment, as the sun was setting.  It had been a hot and sweaty day, with the kind of direct bright sunshine that I’ve never liked, but the evening had begun to mellow all that.  And though it had threatened rain all day, it never [...]

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Not As I Say… Not at All as I Say

I hit a real milestone in our repatting adventure the other day, one I wasn’t expecting at all.  Indeed, I hadn’t even given it a thought before. Growing up in the US with an English mother, I was used to way people treated her because of her accent.  In shops, salespeople would sometimes just follow [...]

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Miss, Love: Coffee

Something I Miss about Britain Coffee served in a mug — or better yet, in a big cup and saucer, with a real spoon for stirring.  Over here in the US, it seems every coffee shop I go to gives me my coffee in a paper cup, regardless of whether I am order to go [...]

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The Spring in My Mind

Is it grey and rainy in Dorset right now?  Because that’s not what I see in my mind’s eye.  It’s April, and I know the cowslip in the lanes is bursting into its full glory, so full and wild that it brushes the car on either side as you drive.  And the hedges are alive [...]

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Cold Like Home

When I woke yesterday and sat up in bed, I had to stop for a moment and think where I was.  It just felt like England.  Something… something… I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something was giving me the most intense feeling of being home…  What was it? I got out of bed [...]

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