Monday 2 November 2009

The Best (and Worst) of Two Worlds

Mam always said that as you get older, you revert back to your childhood.

I always thought that getting older meant when you reach your late seventies or early eighties. It seems that getting older is where I am now (even though I'm thirty odd years short of old age, as it's known). I often think of my childhood in Britain. I often imagine how life would be now, if I were living in Britain,  especially with my own family...

It seems that each time I see the green, undulating hills, the patchwork countryside, the old stone walls and buildings made from local rock- hundreds of years ago, I get the feeling that the land of my birth is calling me back, and I choke up.

The Machinist would never live in Britain. It's far too cold and wet for him, even though he adores the culture ( often declaring how he loves my 'Pommy Ways'). Our Young Adults would love to live in good old Blighty, so they say, but we all know how easy it is to speculate what life would be like in another land and how completely different it would be in real life.

I'm still content with my Land of Milk and Honey - even through the daydreams - and I find it quite a source of wonderment when I compare the two countries. Take today for instance; - on my way home from a shift at the Winery, I turned off the highway into our tiny village, and who should be heading into the undergrowth at quite a speed for his reputation? 

Mr Echidna.  (The Australian version of my beloved Mr Hedgehog).  Mr Echidna always makes me smile.  Granny tells me that Mr Echidna lives on the hill at the back of the Shop, along with Mr Fox ..."It must be a sign, Helen.  These native animals must feel quite safe and peaceful to be hanging around on our hill ..."

Later, Sarah arrived home and she had 'that' voice on - "Dad, Dad, there's a snake on the road, just near the light pole. I've left the keys in my car.  Do you want to come and sort him out?"

We all recognised 'the voice', and corridor doors, leading to Young Adult bedrooms were pulled open with gusto and in an instant, our whole family was assembled at the front of the house, squinting at the brightness, attempting to focus on the rippled tarmac, searching for The Ripple that would move and reveal itself as The Enemy.  Frustratingly, The Enemy slithered into the embankment and was immediately camouflagued, as patrons at the Hotel watched quizzically.  (Yesterday, a hotel patron had run over a baby snake and had excitingly headed towards the Hotel Kitchen to ask for a jar to preserve it so that the Hotel owners could add it to their snake-in-a-bottle collection).  We have the tourists trained, too...

If only, in a perfect world you could pick and choose aspects of what you like and what you don't like about the world you live in....

4 comments:

@eloh said...

I know exactly what you are talking about. I miss so many things about Iowa...but I so love the deep south. When I spent that year up there looking after mother...it had been 17 years.

I loved walking around bare foot in the grass, outside, in the dark, to lay in the grass and look up at the stars....it was lovely.

I had actually forgotten it was possible.

Live there again.... Never

The Daily Connoisseur said...

I can totally relate to this post. I am from California and my husband is from London... One day we will move back to London. I am like your husband- love English culture- but DETEST the weather. I'm sure I will find myself longing for the California coast once I'm there... I guess the trick is to "bloom where you're planted" no matter where that be :)

matron said...

I also was born and raised in England,but when i married,most of my life was spent globe trotting because of my husbands job. When we returned,to settle down with our family,we found England had changed,for the worse.We did not want our children raised there so we settled in Southern Ireland about 25 odd years ago and we love it.The children now in their 30s and 40s also love it and do not want to go back to England at all and our grand children were all born here.
Glad you met the watercats, Mrs watercat is my daughter,very talented,
but then i am her mum !!!

matron said...

Thank you for supporting my blogspot,you do not know how happy you have made me today.You are very welcome to my world at the castle ,up the mountain.

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