That Special Time of Year

Posted on 18 May 2012 by

I love this time of year.

I love the brisk mornings, the sharp sting of the wind and the fresh rain on my face.  And I love returning home, all rosy-cheeked from the chill, where I can sit with a comforting bowl of chowder, wrapped in my favorite cardigan, watching the world outside turn ever greyer and colder.  Yes, the waning days of autumn really do…hey, wait a minute!  This is MAY fer chrissake!  Can someone please explain to me what the fuck is going on?

Okay, it’s not really this bad, but still…

Yeah, the weather still sucks.  Some days ago, during a moment of misplaced optimism, my wife and I decided to turn the heat off.  The theory was that, with summer just around the corner, it was bound to warm up soon.  However, after a week of huddling on the sofa, drinking hot tea and wearing more layers than a big, fat, Gypsy wedding cake, we caved in and turned the heat back on.  I say again, this is MAY fer chrissake!

In other news, we managed to sneak off for a week’s holiday to Cornwall.  We stayed in a rural area (meaning no Internet connections or phone reception) in a charming cottage that used to be a chapel.  Accordingly, the living room had a massive, vaulted ceiling and there was a pulpit in the kitchen.  There were also arched, churchy-looking windows with stained glass around the edges for effect and clear glass in the middle so we could watch the rain.  From the pulpit landing, a short stairway led to the bedroom and the back hallway with a Dutch door opening onto the deck, which was also a good place to watch the rain from (the doorway, not the deck).

The pulpit in the kitchen, and my wife’s handbag on the counter.

Being British, however, we ignored the weather and set about grimly enjoying our holiday.  In truth, considering the cards we were dealt, we came off quite lucky in the climate department.  We chose the one day it did not rain to visit the castle at Tintagel with its breathtaking views, and spent the less temperate days touring the insides of stately manors, accompanied by clusters of parents with children, also on holiday, desperate to find something to do to occupy their children and heroically attempting to make 16th century minutia interesting to a 7-year old.

View from Tintagel
Nice place, but they didn’t keep the property up very well.

We also took a swing through Boscastle, a village so twee it was already a tourist destination before it was famously washed away in a flood a few years back, and then famously rebuilt back to just the way it was, making it even more of a tourist destination.  (I mean, that’s the only reason I went.)

Boscastle, a lovely little village…

…but really, this is the only reason I went.

And in between rain squalls, we did manage to do a bit of the Coastal Path, sample the delights of some local towns and engage in a few, worthy outdoor entertainments, but in the evenings, we mostly sat in the cottage, drank hot tea and watched it rain.

I say again, this is MAY fer chrissake!

Our visit to Tavistock; it’s not raining, but as you can see,
everyone has opted to stay indoors to keep warm.
Lydford Gorge, one of the unexpected jewels we stumbled upon.
This, however, was mostly what we saw: mud and rain.

Post Script:  As I post this, it is sunny and 40 degrees outside (at 6 AM).  Sod’s Law in action, though at least this time it is working in my favor.

Posted in General Randomness, Travel | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Rainy Days and Sun-Days Always Get Me Down

Posted on 25 April 2012 by

We just had the London Marathon, the Queen’s Jubilee is right around the corner and the nation is preparing to be gripped by Olympic Fever, so, naturally, I’m going to talk about the weather.

Like a lot of things in Britain, weather is more difficult than it needs to be.  In a normal country, if it’s lashing with rain, you might look to your fellow commuters, co-workers or long-suffering spouse and say, “Wow, crap day, eh?”  (Or in my case, “Nice weather, if you’re a duck.”)  Conversely, a sunny morning might elicit a heartfelt, “Wow, what a nice day!” (Or in my case, the opening chorus from “Oklahoma!”)  Not so in Britain.

Here in the southeast, we have recently suffered through one of the longest periods of agreeable weather on record.  Oh, at first it was fine, and people did greet each other by saying, “Nice day, isn’t it?” but Brits become nervous if they don’t get at least three days of horrible weather per week, so after a fortnight, greetings tended to favor the more nervous, “Another nice day?  We’re going to pay for this!” or “If this keeps up there’ll be standpipes in the street, mark my words,” and, later, “I told you there’d be standpipes in the streets, now, didn’t I?”

Eighteen months of that, and toward the end, I felt guilty even commenting on the weather without prefacing it with, “Well, I realize this isn’t helping the drought, and I know we really need the rain but…nice day, isn’t it?”

And then, just when everyone thought it couldn’t get any worse, the unthinkable happened: a British Heatwave gripped what the news has begun calling, “The Drought Counties.”  (A British Heatwave, for those of you in the US, means three sunny days with temperatures in the 70s.)  It was horrible, having to suffer through those glorious days and yet not be able to say anything nice about the weather.

A woman standing in a half-empty reservoir, pointing at an
imaginary beaker of water and holding what appears
to be the longest, thinnest vibrator I have ever seen.

Then thankfully, belatedly but inevitably, it began to rain.  It has not stopped, and it doesn’t look like it is going to any time soon.

The weather is cold, windy, wet, grey and, well, just plain miserable, but the only acceptable commentary about the climate is, “Well, we need the rain.”

This leads to another bizarre quirk about British weather: despite the fact that we have had more rain in the past three days than we usually get all month, the news this morning noted that, “it is nowhere near enough to alleviate the drought.”

[Clarification: Before we move on, allow me to elucidate; there are two factors at work here—drought and water shortage.  We are (or had been) experiencing less than average rainfall: this is a drought.  People are not being allowed to wash their cars (and, more importantly, farmers are not able to adequately irrigate their crops): this is a water shortage.  People tend to assume the one – drought – caused the other – water shortage – but this is not so.  The hills and valleys of the Downs are not brown and dry, the trees are not withered; the landscape is lush and green, and the rivers and lakes are adequately filled, despite there having been less than average rainfall; only the water levels in the reservoirs are alarmingly low.  The drought did not cause the water shortage; what caused the water shortage was the government insisting on building 87 million new homes in the southeast without stopping to think that at least some of the people moving into these claptraps might want a drink of water once they settled in.

I just wanted to get that straight.  Now back to our regularly scheduled program.]

It has not yet come to the level of absurdity reached during the previous drought—where news reports showing six foot floods flowing through village streets were followed by grim reports about how sever the water shortage was becoming—but I anticipate it will shortly.

So now I’m stuck in the middle of some seriously crappy weather, but am required, by common consensus, to preface any complaint with, “Well, we really need the rain…”  I’m not brave enough to flout this social convention (and, in truth, we really do need the rain) but I’d rather avoid it if I could, so if you see me standing around on a train platform or at a bus stop gamely enduring the current atmospheric offerings, I may just look at you, shrug and observe, “Well, it’s April, it’s Britain, what did you expect?”

Posted in Cultural Differences: Tie Game, General Randomness | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Going Native

Posted on 18 April 2012 by

This ten-year mark is proving to be something of a watershed for me.  After my Tin-Jubilee Celebrations, I had expected life to go on as it always had since I landed on these shores, but several long-standing comforts have, happenstancially, dropped off the radar more or less at the same time.

Thanks to a bout of man-flue, my supply of Halls Honey-Lemon Menthol Cough Drops is down to the final few.  (Yes, I’ve been HACK-HACK under the weather these past weeks but COUGH-COUGH despite a lingering – and, I am certain, life-threatening – chest congestion, I’m feeling better.  Thanks for HACK-HACK asking.)  I brought several economy-sized bags of these miracle cough drops over with me ten years ago because they were not available in Britain at that time and, well, if you want to live a civilized existence, you need Halls Honey-Lemon Menthol Cough Drops.

Halls cough drops are available here now (though not in the big economy-sized bag) but that has become moot: I have, in the intervening decade, discovered Strepsils, which are readily available, come in a conveniently flat box that fits in my shirt pocket and do the job nicely, thank you very much.  And if I really feel the need for that sharp blast of head-clearing menthol, I’ll buy a box of Fisherman’s Friends.

Then I found my wardrobe needed attention.  Every few years, I go through my outfits to see which shirts are beginning to fray around the collars and which pants (that’s Trousers to you locals; my underwear is another story) have shrunk to the point where they are difficult to button up.  (Really, it’s the pants that shrink; what other explanation could there be?)

Anyway, during this particular wardrobe purge, I noted with some alarm that my few remaining American clothing items were looking, shall we say, a bit tired.  For nostalgia reasons, I will not be jettisoning all of them, but the ones I keep probably won’t be worn in public.  (Incidentally, my wife does not suffer this problem; she is forever pointing to a newish-looking blouse or skirt and noting, “I’ve had this longer than I’ve had you” but this is because her wardrobe takes up 28.49 meters of closet space so when one of her outfits goes back into rotation it doesn’t emerge again for 2.47 years.)

But the real kicker, the one that has driven home the hard truth that I am now well and truly in Britain, came about yesterday as I was putting another layer of polish on my latest novel (you know, combing its hair, straightening its tie and making sure its fly is zipped before sending it out to see if it can get a job instead of freeloading off my hard drive for the rest of its life).  While tinkering with scenes, sentence structure and other bits of ambiguous text, it occurred to me—albeit, somewhat belatedly—that the book was about British people, living in Britain, doing British things and was soon going to be (fingers crossed) read by British agents and/or British publishers who might like to see “color” spelled with a “u”.

So I reset the default spell checker to British English, and discovered how many words, within a 94,000 word document, are spelled differently in the UK.  The answer is: a lot.  And the spell-check doesn’t account for words like “Tire” = “Tyre” because “Tire” is an actual word, nor does it account for general usage, so I am going to have to re-read the manuscript yet again to catch all the linguistic nuances that Microsoft cannot cope with.

To someone who is daily immersed in words, changing the etymological foundation of your language is frightening.  Suddenly, I am no longer on familiar ground; my old friends are gone, replaced by alien letter configurations containing the letter U, double Ls and an extra I in aluminum.

I realize that you—safely ensconced in your native language—probably don’t see this as a big deal, but believe me, it is such an “out of nation” experience for me that it makes me want to put on my LL Bean shirt with the missing button and frayed cuffs, cook up a nice cheeseburger with real bacon and Kraft Cheese Slices and top it off with the last of the A-1 Sauce lurking in the back of the fridge (that stuff doesn’t go bad, does it?).

And on that comforting note, I bid you cheerio, pip-pip and advise you to not take any wooden nickels, or to retrain from accepting spurious five-pence pieces, or something.

Posted in Cultural Differences: Tie Game, General Randomness | Tagged , | 4 Comments

I Capture the Castle

Posted on 24 March 2012 by

Like many Americans, I am a big fan of castles.  I love visiting them to marvel at their antiquity, learn about their history or simply to wander silent among the somber stones as I try to imagine what life was like for the people building and living in these massive monuments of rock.  I mean, no telly—not even ITV—and not a power shower in sight; it had to be tough going.

And so, during our stay in Warwickshire, a visit to Warwick Castle became a matter of some priority, especially as it was recommended by just about everyone.  On the appointed day we were, as is our habit, up and out early, arriving in Warwick just as the Council workers were finishing the day’s first latte and well before The Castle itself was due to open.

Warwick, we discovered, is a pleasant place, accessible, tidy and agreeably quiet.  There was not, however, a lot of diversion that early in the day so we had a second breakfast at Costa Coffee and waited for the castle gates to open.

At opening time, we made our way to the entrance of the castle and stood in the queue.  We didn’t have long to wait—we were third in line and there was no one behind us—but during that short time, vague misgivings began to nag us.  There was no sign telling us what the entrance fee was.  Instead, there was a colorful, cartoon-like menu above the ticket booths offering a confusing array of options; apparently, we were to select from a number of dubious exhibits—such as The Dungeon Experience (where we could be introduced to The Castrator), The Princess in the Tower (a la Sleeping Beauty), and other exhibits that appeared to be part of a weekend seminar on murder and mayhem—like some sort of medieval Chinese take-away menu.

When we got to the window, we told the woman we just wanted to see the castle, no frills, just the basic tour.  She smiled, rang it up and told me the price.  Fortunately, hearing the amount took my breath away so I was unable to utter the heartfelt “Fuck me!” that was straining to leap from the tip of my tongue.  At least now I knew why the woman was smiling.  But we were on holiday, so I paid up and we set out for the castle proper.  At the gate, we showed our ticket and entered something that looked like Disney meets Time Team.

To our left, a huge caldron—surrounded by implements of torture—bubbled with faux-steam under a swaying hangman’s noose, to our right a banner announced The Dreams of Battle Experience to deafening rock music and in the distance—as advertized—stood The Princess Tower, recommended for ages 8 to 14

“I think this is mainly for kids,” my wife observed.

Undaunted, we toured the inner grounds and mounted the steps leading to the walls and the towers.  While enjoying the views the ramparts afforded of the town, we heard sporadic shouting and, looking down, saw hoards of grammar school children massed outside of the gate, apparently being whipped into a medieval frenzy by one of the castle keepers.  Then they let them in.

We’re under attack!  Quick, get the boiling oil!

This was obviously a big day for them all (which you might expect, seeing as how their parents had to remortgage their bungalows to afford the entrance fees) and they were well up for the occasion.  Many of the children (and adults) dressed in period costume and there was a general air of excitement tempered with the feeling (especially among the older children) that the excursion was the culmination of a series of learning experiences and that they might be expected to produce a report before the end of term.

Top: Princesses and their Princess mums; Bottom: a row of Knights.

I won’t go into boring detail about the rest of the visit (well, not any more than I already have) but I would like to cover the highlights, and lead off with this endorsement:

It didn’t suck as much as I thought it would.

The children, once they dispersed, headed to exhibits we weren’t venturing into, so the day did not disintegrate into a huge scrum as we had feared.  We soon wandered into the more modern portion of the castle for what looked like a waxwork tableau showing how the privileged classes lived back in the day (that day being 1898).  I expected it to be incredibly naff but it was, in fact, surprisingly fascinating.  The figures looked as nearly life-like as a dummy is capable of and the stores they told were genuinely interesting, intriguing and educational.

Back outside, we wandered around the back of the castle so I could get a peek at the largest siege engine in Europe, though I wondered exactly how hotly contested that title actually was; I expect there is not such a desperate a need for siege engines these days.  The device—called a trebuchet (pronounced “Catapult”)—was a fascinating contraction, and we arrived just in time for their daily demonstration.

The trebuchet in action.

After that, we agreed it was time to leave, but upon returning to the courtyard, we encountered a man with a huge eagle on his arm.  Intrigued, we waited, and witnessed an amazing bird show.

Man and Bird.

After that, we felt we really had taken in all that Warwick Castle had to offer us, so we returned to town to hunt down lunch.

Though Warwick Castle was not what we had expected, the kids seemed to enjoy it and—as noted earlier (and I really think they should make this their motto)—it didn’t suck as much as I thought it would.  Visit the website for more details: http://www.warwick-castle.com/

I encountered one woman dressed as a jester and assumed her to be
an employee who was forced to dress that way; after taking her photo
I found out she was actually a teacher on a tour with her class who
simply wanted to “get into the spirit.”  I didn’t feel it would be fair to put
her photo up here, so I made an appropriate substitution. 
Posted in Cultural Differences: Point-UK, General Randomness | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Tupperware™ and Toilet Paper

Posted on 17 March 2012 by

We just returned from a couple days in Stratford-upon-Avon where we did the obligatory Shakespeare tour and visited a castle, but before I relate those adventures (they are planned for subsequent posts, so don’t be surprised if you never hear about them) I want to talk about the hotel and the weather.

The hotel we staying in was A) a bargain and B) a sign of the times.  My wife found the deal some months ago and we couldn’t believe how cheap it was to spend 5 days there—with meals included!  But times are hard and hotels—especially during their slack seasons (and really, who wants to visit Warwickshire is March)—need to do all they can to keep warm bodies in their beds, so we found the too-good-to-pass-up deal too good to pass up.

The hotel was three-star and, honestly, that turned out to be an advantage.  I’ve stayed in four-star hotels and, while I appreciate the additional luxury, there are significant advantages to basic service as long as you don’t mind missing out on a few unessential frills.  The rooms were comfortable and well appointed, the staff—with few notable exceptions—cheerful, attentive, eager to please and generally grateful to have a job that didn’t involve a hairnet and a name tag.

The food was good.  It was not exceptional, it was not artfully arranged on large square plates and it was not, more importantly, piled up so high we couldn’t finish it; there is little worse than spending your holiday in a chronic state of indigestion due to overindulgence.  We were served good food, hot and palatable, better than what we would get at home and we didn’t have to do the cooking or the washing up.

The weather, too, was good.  Not brilliant, but then it wasn’t pissing down, either.  However, it was a bit dull.

Atmospheric, or like living inside of Tupperware?

My wife and I, always ready to look on the bright side, kept referring to it as “atmospheric” but in truth it was simple cold and grey, the kind of cold and grey that only Britain can produce.  For every day of our holiday, the sky was a smooth, unblemished expanse of grey that gave no hint of where the sun might be and which made 8 in the morning, 1 in the afternoon and 5 in the early evening all look identical.  It was disconcerting and, after a while, pretty boring; the kind of weather Bill Bryson eloquently described (and this is why he is a best-selling author and I am not) as “like living inside Tupperware™.”

But I’ll take boring over wet and windy any day so, with our inadequate outer garments, we gamely fulfilled our sightseeing quota, which I will cover in separate posts (if I get around to it).  So, for now, I’ll leave you with a few additional words about the hotel:

The difference between a three and four star establishment (and between the US and UK, for that matter) became painfully evident when a waitress dribbled my appetizer into my (full) wine glass.  She was suitably chagrined and apologized profusely but, when she removed my sullied wine glass, she returned with an empty one.  Hardly a like for like exchange; in the US, I’d have gotten a free drink, and likely a free entrée, as well.

The other difference was in the bathroom.  Levels of luxury are noted mostly by the little details; anyone can feed you and make sure you have clean linens, but folding your toilet paper end into a diamond, that is a mark of quality.  We didn’t get a diamond, just a point, but then of course we weren’t in a four star hotel, just a three star:

How to tell your hotel’s star-rating by looking at the toilet paper
Posted in Cultural Differences: Tie Game, General Randomness | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Britain on a Budget

Posted on 9 March 2012 by

I am so glad Jonathan and Jackie Thomas did not write this book ten years ago; if they had, I could have easily gone to England—as I had originally planned—and I would not have gone to Ireland, met my wife, moved to Britain and started this blog.  In fact, I am so grateful to them for not publishing it a decade ago, that I agreed to write a review.

Their book, 101 Budget Britain Travel Tips is an excellent resource and an attractive book, to boot.  I found myself wishing they would offer it as a hardback because of the stunning photographs in it (which allowed me to play the “I’ve been there” game) but a hardback book would be expensive and a pricey book of budget travel tips would be too ironic, even for Americans.

The content of the book is well laid-out, entertainingly presented and packed with useful information both on what to see and how to save money doing it.  The Thomas’ have been to Britain an average of once a year for the past ten years so they have a lot of experience—some of it gained the hard way—under their belts.  They also have an insatiable curiosity about Britain and have managed to discover interesting sights and activities off the hard-packed tourist trails that are diverting as well as economical (there are pedestrian paths that pass underneath the Thames; this I must see).

Also, interspersed among the pages are “The Top Ten Things to Do For Free in…” segments, which will provide you with free entertainment practically anywhere you end up.  These are handy for tourists, but also serve as a kick in the pants to people who live here—Britain is a beautiful and intriguing place; get out there and see it!

If you’re a bargain hunter, you’ll appreciate Jonathan and Jackie’s tips on how to get around economically, or cheaply, or even free.  Britain is expensive, make no mistake, but if you keep your wits about you, it isn’t hard to travel on a budget, and this book is filled with tips that will show you how to make sure your trip-of-a-lifetime will take your breath away merely due to the spectacular scenery and magnificent sights, and not when you see your next month’s bank statement.

Of course, it you really want to see Britain, the best way to go about it is to marry someone who lives here and go live with them.  If that idea doesn’t appeal to you, then I suggest you buy this book.  It will probably be cheaper in the long run, anyway.

About the Authors:
Jonathan and Jackie Thomas are the founders of Anglotopia.net, a website for people who love Britain: British TV, Culture, History or Travel, they cover it all, and more.

Visit the site:  http://www.anglotopia.net/

Buy the book:  http://www.anglotopia.net/101-budget-britain-tips-guidebook/

Posted in Cultural Differences: Point-UK | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Bright Eyes

Posted on 4 March 2012 by

I read Watership Down many years ago and was absolutely captivated by it.  I’m sure you all know the book I am speaking of—the one about the brave bunnies who set out from their doomed warren to found a new colony in order to provide a much-needed boost to Art Garfunkel’s career.

I’m not certain what prompted me to pick up a book about bunnies back then, other than the fact that we used to raise (and eat) rabbits, so I had more than a casual interest in them.  I expect I anticipated a pleasant, if somewhat bland, story, but it turned out to be a wonderful tale that was intensely interesting, surprisingly exciting and strangely disturbing all at the same time.

The bunnies, as you know, overcame some pretty horrific obstacles, and the story ended in a bloody, drawn out fight to the death.

But, it was only a story, all made up, with no basis in the real world.  Or was it?  Some weeks ago, I caught a snippet on the news (I generally avoid watching the news as it invariably ends up with me shouting at the telly; really, no good comes out of it) about an activist group protesting the council’s plan to put a housing development on Watership Down (which would provide an interesting symmetry as it was a housing development that resulted in the destruction of the original warren).

Anyway, this surprised me; not that locals were getting their knickers in a knot over the council’s plans (that happens all the time) but that Watership Down was a real place.

“Of course it is,” my wife told me when I queried her.  (I might also add that she said it with a total lack of chagrin at having failed to notify me of this important bit of intelligence during the past decade.)  Apparently it is common knowledge over here, but somehow ten years have gone by without it having come up in casual conversation.  Never mind; the fact was eventually revealed (and just in time, it seems) so I proposed that we spend Saturday driving up to the northern edges of Hampshire to have a wander around the bunny warrens before they disappeared for good.

The map led us to one of those idyllic areas where impossibly narrow roads sweep through verdant vistas and the air is rich with the scent of money.  The houses were large, the grounds well-tended, the security impressive.  The locals remained reclusive, however, though they probably give us a glance as we wandered across their security monitors and thought, “Bloody tourists!  Crawling around looking for that sodding rabbit hill that never existed.  It was a bloody book, you fools!  Well, at least they help us keep the Council at bay; otherwise we might have an estate filled with working class people nearby, and that simply wouldn’t do.”

Or something like that.

The actual Down itself was scenic and looked, well, like a Down.  I mean, really, if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.  The walk was pleasant, however, and took us past an ancient hill fort that was, unfortunately, fenced off so I couldn’t get any good photos of it.

It was nice to get out into the countryside again after a long and sedentary winter, and I was chuffed to bits at getting to see the real location of the made up story about the rabbits, and get a photo of it:

At least I think it’s the real thing; it was on the map but I might have been looking in the wrong direction.  As I said, they all pretty much look the same so, while I can be fairly certain that one of the green bumps I looked at was the true Watership Down, I cannot swear that this particular one is it, though the odds are favorable.

One thing I am certain of however, however; I didn’t see a single rabbit.

Posted in Cultural Differences: Point-UK, General Randomness | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

A Decade as an Expat

Posted on 28 February 2012 by

Ten years ago today—on 28 February 2002—I gave up my apartment, quit my job, sold my car and climbed aboard a jet bound for England to marry a woman I had met six months earlier and had seen only a few times since.

Of all the hair-brained, impulsive and ill-advised adventures I had willingly jumped into, this one was by far the most extreme.  I had, in effect, made myself homeless, jobless and broke on the expectation that this woman (who, let’s face it, I hardly knew) would not grow tired of me in three weeks time and send me packing.

Despite the prospect of certain failure (if past performance is any indication of future outcomes) I remained confident that I was doing the right thing: ten years later, the jury is still out, but it’s looking pretty hopeful.

These past ten years have been an amazement, an education and a huge adventure.  I have seen and done things and gone places I could only have dreamed of when I was younger.  Even my everyday life is filled with experiences I would never have imagined just ten-and-a-half years ago.  Back then, one of the high points of my morning was driving south on Route 9 in Halfmoon on my way to work and seeing dawn break over the landfill (no, it really was pretty, with gulls wheeling and diving and the pipes belching fire from the top of the enormous mound in an attempt to siphon off the excess gasses); these days I ride a bus (in itself exotic) and cross rolling downs through twee villages and a scattering of thatched cottages; I don’t recall many thatched cottages on my way to work in Albany.

I have, in short, experienced much, learned much and regretted little, and it was all down to a whimsical trip to Ireland in August 2001.  I’m sure you all know about that because I’ve been banging on about it for ten years now.  Nor have I been shy about my plans to commemorate my Tin Jubilee Celebration by producing a book about that seminal event.  And now, at last, I have.

Postcards From Ireland is now on sale.  You can buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.UK, Kindle.com, Kindle.UK, Barnes and Noble Nook or Smashwords.

Additionally, to help heighten the festivities, I am offering my first two books—Postcards From Across the Pond and the creatively titled More Postcards From Across the Pond—as 99-cent eBooks.  (This is a limited time offer, which means they will stay at that price until I can be arsed to change them back.)

And now I’m going to do something I expect you’ve never seen another writer do: I’m going to warn you off buying it.

If you are a fan of my first two books, then you will know they are books of hilarious essays about my life here in Britain.  And if you are expecting the third book to be a continuation of the first two, you would be mistaken.  It is not a collection of essays, but a linear narrative recounting my Ireland adventure from ten years ago.  This is not to say it isn’t funny; it is.  Even I had to laugh at my ten-year-old self when I was reminded of how hopelessly ill-prepared I was for a solo trip to Europe; in looking back, I am amazed I pulled it off without being killed or arrested.  But there is, in addition to the frivolity, a thread of romance, a revelation of my impressions about seeing my soon-to-be-wife for the first time and how I ended up in the very circumstances I had originally gone to Ireland to avoid.

So, if you’re looking for a book of essays, don’t buy it, but if you want a fun read about a clueless American let loose in Ireland, then you might enjoy it.  I hope you do, for I certainly enjoyed sharing the story with you, and finally getting the chronicle down fully and completely.

And someday, perhaps soon, I might decide if I made the right decision after all.

Posted in General Randomness, The Books | Tagged | 4 Comments

Out Of Time – Expat Angst

Posted on 22 February 2012 by

This post is another special feature of my Tin Jubilee Celebration: a journal entry from ten-years ago as I stood on the cusp of becoming an expat.  Postcards From Across the Pond already existed as a web log (remember those?) at that time, but this entry did not go into it.  In looking over the published posts of the time, I think I should have put this up instead; it’s a lot more interesting.

25 February 2002 6:34 PM
[Yes, I used European-style dates in my journal; I thought it looked classy.]

It occurs to me that I haven’t written in my personal journal in a while, and maybe that’s because I don’t know how I feel.  Or, perhaps, I don’t know how I feel because I haven’t written in my journal.  Chicken and egg—you decide.

The fact is I feel numb; I just quit a job where I was making 60k a year and had a good pension and comfortable future to look forward to.  I’m leaving my children (okay, they’re adults now, but still) and my friends and moving out of the country to marry a woman I hardly even know.  Like most outrageous things I do, I simply make up my mind, do it without thinking and then deal with the consequences.  I like to think this time it’s different, and to a large degree it is, but the pattern is disquietingly familiar.

Right now, I’m sitting in my apartment, at my desk, writing on my computer, surrounded by all that is familiar to me (granted, it’s a little sparse in here, but you know what I mean).  I sat this afternoon on the balcony, smoking a cigar and having a brew, enjoying the familiar scenery.  On a purely intellectual level I know that this is all going to change in a few days, but there is no hint inside me that I believe any of it is real.  I’m simply getting a kick out of telling everyone the story and being the center of attention because I’m doing something so radical.  But now all that is over; I’ve had my good-bye party at work, I’ve gone out to dinner with my friends and basked in their admiration as they effused about how brave and romantic I’m being.  And now I’ve got to pay the piper.

Tomorrow my furniture goes.  After that, I’ll be sitting in an empty apartment, just waiting to get on a plane.  What is going to happen to me when I get over there?

I’m finding I can’t conceive of it.  I have no thoughts beyond getting on that plane.  After that, it’s all blank.  I suppose that shouldn’t be unexpected.  After all, I can only get my head around so much.  I’ve been busy extracting myself from America, and that has proven to be a rather large job.  England will take care of itself.

Still, why am I doing this?  What on earth could have possessed me to quit my job and leave my country?  That’s a little over the top, even for me.

On the other hand, is it really such a big deal?  People change jobs, move from country to country and get married every day.  Granted, they don’t always do all three at once, but many of them have.  Maybe I think I should be feeling something only because I’m on the cusp of such a big change; the fact that I feel nothing makes me wonder if I’m making a mistake.  Shouldn’t I feel excited, or happy, or elated, or terrified?  I feel nothing.  I feel like I still have my job, I feel like I’ll always be here in America in this apartment and that life is just going to go on this way without any inconvenient interruptions.

Two days, twenty-two hours and thirty-five minutes to go.  I wonder—when I land on the other side—how real it will be then.  Will I miss my old job and old friends?  Will I miss my boys?  Will my guilt overtake me?  Will I be homesick?  Will I not like living there?  Will I be able to get a job?  Will I become depressed and screw up my marriage?  The opportunities for failure abound.

For now, however, the party continues because, after all, it’s all about me.  Tonight is my last Irish Dance class and I’m sure to get more “Oh you’re so brave” and “That’s so romantic” thrown at me.  Tomorrow I’m making one last visit to some close friends where I’m sure to get more of the same.  It won’t be until I land at Gatwick that the ego stroking will stop and I’ll have to decide, for myself, if I’ve done the right thing.

But, of course, by then it will be too late.

In re-reading that journal entry, two things struck me: One, that my Americaness has softened over the past decade, and Two, I did not, after all, make the wrong decision.  I thought you might like to know that.

POSTCARDS FROM IRELAND – the making of an expat

…the tale of how all this came about…

Release date: 1 March 2012.

Posted in Out of time | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Pancakes and Updates

Posted on 19 February 2012 by

So what happens after Valentine’s Day?  Pancake Day, of course.

It takes me by surprise every year how seriously they take the day before Ash Wednesday over here.  Back in the States, the folks in New Orleans called it Mardi Gras and used it as an excuse for a massive piss-up while the rest of the country pretty much ignored it.  In Britain, Shrove Tuesday is called Pancake Day and, by golly, we’re having pancakes.

The stores stock up on all things necessary for a successful Pancake Day, and make certain you are able to find them.  The accoutrements range from eggs, flour and sugar—for the traditionalists—to frying pans and jugs of pre-made pancake batter, so even the laziest, busiest and/or most clueless among us have no excuse for serving fish fingers, oven chips and peas for dinner instead of the requisite rolled up crepes soaked in lemon and covered with sugar.

And as if they pancakes aren’t shockingly sweet enough on their own there is an assortment of auxiliary toppings available, including Nuttella.

It’s not the sort of dinner I would want every night, but it’s a nice treat once a year.

Otherwise, I have a minor announcement:  the proof copy of Postcards From Ireland has arrived and it looks great.  After a few more tweaks to the manuscript, it will be ready and on sale in time for the 1 March release.

To help kick off the campaign, the ebook editions of Postcards From Across the Pond and More Postcards From Across the Pond will go on sale for $0.99 (£.77).

The ebook edition of Postcards From Ireland will be listed at $2.99 (£1.95)

All the paperback editions are priced at $8.75.

NOTE: Do not be fooled into buying the old version of Postcards From Across the Pond, which is still listed and sells for $18.99 (paperback) and $9.89 (ebook) unless you like paying over the odds.

Posted in Cultural Differences: Point-UK, The Books | Tagged , | 4 Comments

The First Degree

Posted on 11 February 2012 by

Yeah, it’s cold over here in Britain and, as usual, the locals aren’t used to it, the major infrastructures—highway, railway, water, electric—can’t cope with it and the heaters in our flat aren’t rugged enough for it.  In addition to that, I’m not very thrilled with it, either.

Usually, when cold comes to visit, it sneaks in during the night, nips at our startled ears and noses in the morning and then flits away before elevenses.  This time, however, it has come—uninvited and unexpected, I might add—for a protracted visit.  When I got up this morning my thermometer read one degree—one single, lonely degree—above zero (that’s minus 17 in local time).

You have to look carefully, but that is 1 degree. Fahrenheit.

Now, it’s bad enough that my old friend, NY Cold, has come to call and (not altogether unexpectedly) brought along his bastard cousins Snow and Ice, but it also had some other old and not-so-dearly missed acquaintances from the old country in tow: Itchy Skin and Static Electricity.

Cold arrived about 10 days ago, then Snow popped in last week and, since he hasn’t gone anywhere, Ice soon followed.  So I, along with the rest of southern Britain, dug through wardrobes for forgotten scarves, wooly hats and thick jumpers as we hunkered down and prepared to wait it out.  But then, a few days ago, I realized I was spending a significant portion of my day scratching at various (publically acceptable) parts of my body.  As it is too cold for fleas, I realized it was the dry, itchy skin that the lingering cold weather used to visit upon me back in NY.

Next, I discovered that, any time I ventured near a metallic object, an arc of electricity would leap from my fingertips with a sharp crack and flash of light, leaving my clothes smoking, my hair standing comically on end and everyone in the vicinity surprised at the inventive uses of profanity they had just heard.

The sitting room, thanks to the rising sun, is finally getting warm, but my wife has informed me that—Arctic conditions or no—we are going on our morning walk around the park.  I suppose I shouldn’t complain; I of all people should know how to deal with it, especially with the inborn survival instinct that I possess and the locals don’t seem to have, namely the quiet, rational voice in the back of your mind that—as you think you will go mad with the cold—whispers its soothing promise: “Someday, it will be spring.”

That;s something you don't see everyday in Horsham park: a Saturday morning with no one playing football (soccer).

So, me, my thick jumper, knitted scarf, wooly hat and inner belief that spring is just around the corner will be wandering through the park in a matter of minutes.

On the bright side, it will make our ritual cup of tea very welcome indeed when we stop for elevenses.

Posted in Cultural Differences: Tie Game | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Trained

Posted on 5 February 2012 by

I am, apparently, some sort of criminal in training (there’s a pun there, reach for it).  Any day now you will find my picture on the wall in all Southern railway stations under the heading “Ticket Thief!”  Happily, they cannot—due to lack of hardware—add “Shoot on sight” to that, but they might encourage their employees to “Blow Whistle and Shake Finger Menacingly” if they spot me hanging around the platforms.

Here’s what happened:

I was returning from a client’s site last Thursday on a “fast” train.  For the uninitiated, a “fast” train is one that doesn’t stop at every pissant little burg between London and Brighton , touching only on the highlights, such as Croydon, Gatwick Airport, and Haywards Heath.  I was in a hurry because it was Thursday and on Thursdays I drive my wife to art class in Haywards Heath.  Now, my wife can drive, she just doesn’t prefer to, so I have been driving her to art class on Thursday nights for the last five years, but if I couldn’t be home by 6:30 I would be too late to take her and she would have to drive herself.

More to the point, I would not be able to drive her to art class, and then take myself to the pub down the road for a cigar and a pint and a curry and a convivial chat with the locals.  And that would be wrong.

And so, as the train pulled away from East Croydon station, I did some mental calculations and realized I was not, in fact, going to make it home on time.  The route I was on required me to disembark at Gatwick and find another train going to Horsham.  That could add half an hour or more to the trip.  And once I got to Horsham station, I still needed to get home.  So I came up with a fall-back plan.

I’m sure you’ve already noted the fact that the train I was on stopped at Haywards Heath, which was my ultimate destination.  Accordingly, I found a train guard and asked if I could purchase a ticket from Gatwick to Haywards Heath.  He said he would come by in a few minutes.  He never did.

When I got out at Haywards Heath with a ticket to Horsham, I was not worried at all.  Now, I know you can’t travel to Canterbury with a ticket to Cambridge just because they start with the same letter, but in this case, I was travelling the same relative distance and in the same general direction: from Gatwick airport, the lines fork, and one tine goes to Horsham, the other to Haywards Heath.  I wasn’t stealing a ticket, merely transferring the Gatwick to Horsham portion to the Haywards Heath line.

The lady manning the gate did not see it that way.

I showed her my ticket, and after we established that I was not at the correct station and I began to explain how I happened to end up there, she started giving me a proper bollocking.

This confused me.  I was wearing a shirt and tie, I was obviously a respectable middle-aged man travelling on business, not some saggy-drawered, skateboard-toting hoodie trying to jump the turnstile, yet she was verbally beating me like a red-headed step-child.  To what end, I wondered; I was already at the station, she could shout all night and it wouldn’t change the ticket, or that fact that I had arrived holding it.  Was she planning to send me back to Gatwick?  For a while, it did appear so.

Eventually, I was released so I could go to the window and purchase a ticket from Gatwick to Haywards Heath.  I didn’t bother asking for a refund for the unused portion of the ticket I was holding, I just bought the proper ticket—which is what I had wanted to do all along—and returned to the guardess.  She took it, and picked up where she had left off, launching into another bollocking.

This time I was really confused; not angry, or embarrassed, just confused.  I was now outside of the gate, where she had no power over me at all.  She wasn’t accomplishing anything; I had already properly paid for my ticket, so what was the tirade for?  I felt like putting my fingers in my ears and singing, “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA CAN’T HEAR YOU!”  Instead, I just walked away.

Now clearly, I had not followed the rules, but I openly acknowledged that fact and actively sought to put it right; I thought this—along with my status of “very obviously not a criminal”—would count for something.  I suppose this was her means of deriving job satisfaction—a sort of non-monetary perk—from an otherwise unexciting occupation.  Thing is, I probably satisfied her scolding craving for the evening and the next group of oiks who sauntered down the walkway with no tickets at all were likely released without comment and sent on their way with a hearty “Cheerio!”

Yeah, I didn’t think so, either.

Another random photo, this one to make you feel better
about the one I posted last time with the flowers in it.

Posted in Cultural Differences: Point-US, Grumpy Old Man | Tagged | 4 Comments

Belated Birthdays

Posted on 29 January 2012 by

I had my Burns Night dinner last night: swede (that’s rutabaga to you on the other side of the pond) mashed with butter and pepper, mashed potatoes with gravy, and oven-cooked haggis.  I like my haggis cooked rather than the more tradition method of boiling because baking it produces a nice, crispy exterior.  It also precludes the mess that a burst haggis occasions.

My Burns Night celebratory meal occurred on Saturday because on Wednesday, the real Burns Night, I was busy picking up donuts for my obligatory birthday treats so I could bring them to work on Thursday.

Now, Thursday wasn’t actually my birthday, but I still had to pick up birthday treats for two reasons:

1. It is mandatory.  Over here, instead of your co-workers taking you out for a birthday drink, you are required (by Parliamentary decree, they tell me) to supply cakes, cookies and other assorted goodies for everyone in your office.  A strange custom, but who am I to argue with tradition?

2. Bringing them in on my actual birthday was out of the question because there are so many people with birthdays in early January that we have to stagger the dates.

It’s an unfortunate coincidence that, in a work force as small as ours, so many people have birthdays in the first half of January.  It would be bad enough if this surfeit of birthdays happened in, say, August, but the opening weeks of the year are the absolute worst time for this to happen.

During December, every other day someone brings in a tin of chocolates or mince pies, and then after Christmas, the excess everyone is trying to get rid of ends up on various unoccupied desktops.  And we just about get through all of that before the birthday glut arrives, playing havoc with people foolish enough to have made resolutions concerning their weight or unhealthy diets.

It has gotten so bad that we are actually proposing to ask management to screen future employees and only offer positions to those who were born between May and September.

But this is the situation I am stuck with, so Burns Night found me checking Google for the location of the nearest Krispy Kreme Donut distributor.  I’ve written about Krispy Kreme before, about my love-hate relationship with them while I lived in the States, and how I was relived to put them behind me when I moved over here, and how horrified I was to find out they had followed me over.

I managed to make peace with the presence of Krispy Kreme; I found they are a bit like the Killer Bees—as long as you leave them alone, they won’t harm you.  I even brought them in to the office as my birthday treat on occasion, making fellow Kreme-addicts out of a number of my colleagues.  And so, this year, I decided to bring some in again, as a special treat (and so I could get a much-needed fix).  The closest store the last time I had bought some was twenty miles away, but I thought I’d have a look to see if any had opened nearer.  One had.  And it was within walking distance.

This is a bad turn of events, indeed.  Not only is this outlet within walking distance, it is in the massive, 24-hour Tesco just across the roundabout in Broadbridge Heath.  So now I have to adjust myself to the fact that, any day of the week, any time of day or night, I am a twenty minute walk—or 3 minute drive—away from Krispy Kreme Donuts.

I’m not sure if my willpower can take the strain.

At least I was able to gorge myself enough on the ones I brought in to work to satisfy my Kreme Kraving, but just for the time being.  I’ll soon be longing for another bite into that heavenly sugar-rush, I can already feel the stirrings, and I hear them, late at night, calling to me…

The first step, they tell me, is admitting you have a problem.

This photo has nothing to do with the post, but I wanted
you to see it to let you know that while you are still in the
throes of winter, spring is already arriving here.
Jealous?

Posted in Cultural Differences: Point-UK, General Randomness | Tagged , , | 27 Comments

Every Cloud Has A Tin Lining

Posted on 20 January 2012 by

It was not looking good for my Tin Jubilee.

My dream had been to see all three of my books out on the first of March 2012, to mark my 10th anniversary of arriving in the UK to stay.  To that end, I finished the manuscript for the final book in the Postcards Trilogy, Postcards From Ireland and sent it off to my publisher.

Now, when I say “my publisher” I mean the micro-publishing company that published my first book, Postcards From Across the Pond.  And yet, I don’t.  There had recently been some acquisitions and mergers in the publishing house (the world of high finance; I’ll never get my head around it) but the new publisher was keen to do business with me.

But then I published More Postcards From Across the Pond myself, just to see if I could do it.  I could.  Great fun.  Now let’s get back to business.

Postcards From Ireland was a hit with the new publisher and they we began to talk business.  The problem was, because of my self-publishing lark, I now had one book on the inside and one on the outside and no way to join them up for a Tin Jubilee get together.  No matter what I did, I would have two books in one place and one in the other.  In the end, I decided to go the publishing route, and see if I could convince the publisher to take on the middle book as well.

It sounded a good plan, but it didn’t work out; the new publisher and I failed to reach an agreement so I decided to publish Postcards From Ireland myself, which left one book with them and two with me.

But then I received an e-mail out of the blue: the original publisher—the one who actually acquired my first book—decided to close down his part of the business, and the rights to my book, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, reverted to me.  So I am now free to self-publish that one as well.

This bodes well for my Jubilee celebration.  I still don’t know exactly how I’m going to play it, but don’t worry, I’ll keep you updated.

The Postcards Trilogy — together at last

Posted in The Books | 10 Comments

The Advantages of Marriage

Posted on 14 January 2012 by

My Tin Jubilee is in full swing now, in fact, it is rapidly coming to a close.  Ten years ago I was preparing to make myself homeless and jobless in order to fly 3,000 miles to another continent trusting the promise of a woman I had only known for six months that, once I got there, she would take me in.  I arrived in the UK on 1 March (she did take me in) and 28 days later, I married her.

So the 28th of March, in addition to marking the official culmination of my Tin Jubilee Celebrations, is also my 10th wedding anniversary which, among many other advantages and obligations (I think she might be expecting a card or something) means that, for the past decade, I have never had to worry about running out of milk.

This is strange because my wife doesn’t even drink milk, yet she always knows how much we have at any given time and, more importantly, whether or not we need to buy any.  We’ll often be out for a walk in the evening and my wife will say that we need to stop at the offie on the way home to pick up quart of milk.

(ASIDE: We do buy milk in quarts and pints here, even though it is illegal.  The EU has decreed that we MUST sell milk in metric units, so we have containers with volume labels reading “2.272 Liters,” but we still say, “half gallon” because it’s easier than saying we need 2.272 liters of milk.)

But liters or pints or gallons, she always knows.  And when I make note of the fact that we just bought a half gallon, she’ll say, “Yes, but you’re working from home for the next two days and you drink a lot of it, and we’re having a tuna bake for dinner tonight and that will use a pint so we’ll need an extra quart to get us through the week.”  And when I say that maybe we should get half a gallon, instead, she’ll say, “No, you’re travelling for work two days next week and we’re having dinner with my parents on Sunday night so we won’t use any then.”

I did a Google search for “Milk photos” and this came up,
it’s not my fault.

I find this amazing.  If you see me wandering around the town center and run up to me to ask, “How much milk is in your fridge right now?” I will not have any idea.  More telling, if you wanted to know when I was next having dinner at my in-laws, I wouldn’t be able to remember that, either.

This isn’t to say that, while I was single, I was always running out of milk, but my life was more ordered then—I didn’t travel for work, I never went to my in-laws for dinner and I therefore tended to use a set amount each week.  And if it started to smell a bit funny, I’d stop at the convenience store on the way home from work and pick up a quart.

Those days are behind me, however; for the past decade, I have not had to think about milk—how much we have on hand or how much we might use during the upcoming week—at all.

Admittedly, as marriage perks go, this is pretty far down on the list, but that doesn’t make it any less appreciated.

Posted in Cultural Differences: Tie Game, General Randomness | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Once We Were Herftones

Posted on 7 January 2012 by

In the manuscript for Postcards From Ireland, I talk a bit about cigars because, as the opening line points out, Ultimately, it was all because of the cigars.  Without cigars, I would not have gone to Ireland, I would not have met the woman who would become my wife and I would not have moved to England.

Writing that story was an exercise in nostalgia, but not simply due to reliving how I found love among the leprechauns, it was also due to recalling those days when I was involved in the cigar culture.  Cigars are still apart of my life but, back then, they were a huge part; this blog (or, to be exact, the web log it grew out of) was originally a chronicle of my cigar-related adventures.  It was, believe it or not, a magical time.

I don’t go into that era very deeply in the book, because I didn’t think it would be of great interest to the average person, but it was nothing short of astounding.  My then girlfriend, who I now refer to as She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, used to dabble in cigars.  She and her college buddies used to go to a cabin in the Adirondacks and spend the weekend smoking cigars around the fire, so we revived the tradition and found it very satisfying.

After a time, we discovered a few people at work who were also cigar smokers, and then we started haunting newsgroups (for you youngsters, that was the precursor of Facebook and Twitter) and invited some of the local members to meet up with us.  We all got along like a house on fire (and judging by the smoke we produced, you would think the house really was on fire), so we began having regular meetings.

Incredibly, this same thing was happening simultaneously in other cities throughout the US and even in other countries.  Eventually, these individual groups began hosting cigar exchanges, where members of other cigar groups would come to the host city for a weekend of organized cigar-related events, including cigar dinners, visits to regional landmarks, raffles and tours of local cigar shops.

It was an enchanting time, the sort of thing that happens so spontaneously and so perfectly that you know you are involved in something special.  I don’t recall ever wishing it would go on forever, or worrying if it would end, we were just all caught up in the moment.

Our cigar group called itself The Herftones—being a combination of the music group The Nowtones and “herf” which is the cigar-world term for smoking cigars.  Our annual cigar event was called ASHCAN—Albany, Saratoga Herf Crawl and Nosh—and we even had a Long Island chapter where we went every summer for ASCHANOLI, or ASHCAN on Long Island.  The other city’s cigar crawls had equally tortured acronyms, such as HITS, the Buffalo chapter’s Herf In The Snow, and SALT, Syracuse’s herf event that I can’t recall the translation of.

At a Herf Event in Boston. Don't let the size of the group fool you; this is merely a fraction of the people who attended. Also, though this photo is 100% male, we had a surprising number of women in our ranks. The small suitcases many of us are carrying are called Herfdors, and they are filled with cigars.

This went on for years.  But the important thing (or the thing that is relevant to my new book) is that this activity was directly responsible for my going to Ireland (you’ll have to read the book to find out how), and going to Ireland was directly responsible for me moving to England.  No cigars, no England, and no Postcards From Across the Pond.

I left the US while the Herftones were still going strong, and in a way I am glad I did.  Shortly after I left, the no smoking regulations came into force, which made organizing cigar crawls much more difficult.  Eventually, they stopped, and then even the local get-togethers faded away.

Now, those of my herfing buddies who still continue to smoke cigars, are pretty much like me—solitary herfers who continue to enjoy a solitary cigar (“Thought in the early morning, comfort in time of woes, peace in the hush of twilight, balm ere my eyelids close”—this is what a cigar provides, as Kipling points out in his epic ode to cigars, The Betrothed) but rarely, if ever, do we meet up with other cigar aficionados for a proper herf.

But solitary as our herfing now is (what, I wonder, is the sound of one man herfing) we can, as we muse on the soft blue veil of the vapor, know that for one, brief, shining moment, we were Herftones.

We even had shirts made; the oval logo on the left breast reads, "Herftones"

Posted in Cultural Differences: Point-US, Out of time, The Books | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Happy Birthday to Me

Posted on 3 January 2012 by

You’ve been waiting for it, and now it’s here!  No, not the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, or the official launch of the London Olympic Games hype, or the year of the Mayan Apocalypse—2012 is my Tin Jubilee Celebration, and I’m kicking it off today.

Today (or tomorrow, if you got here early, or last week, if you got here late), the 5th of January 2012 marks the 10-year anniversary of Postcards From Across the Pond.  (We will, of course, celebrate other milestones throughout the year, such as my actual arrival in the UK; the blog was started when I was still in the US.)

Ten years is quite an age for a blog, and in that time, the blogging world has changed dramatically; well, first it was actually created, then it changed.  In the early days, I maintained Postcards on a website using HTML; it wasn’t until after the publication of the first book that I moved—at my publisher’s insistence—to a blog, and that didn’t happen until November 2008.

I suffered a brief and frightening flirtation with WordPress during my early months, but scurried back to Blogger with my tail between my legs after only a few weeks.  In June of this past year, however, I made a second attempt and managed to establish a beachhead, and eventually a full-blown blog empire, in WordPress.

Since publishing the first book and abandoning HTML, I have published a second Postcards book, and have recently completed the manuscript for the third—Postcards From Ireland, the final book of the Postcards Trilogy.  You’ll be hearing more about that in the coming weeks, but for now, I offer the very first post on the Postcards From Across the Pond web log (that’s what we called ‘em in those days, sonny).

I think this maiden post is remarkable for a variety of reasons: first, that I was able to locate it after all this time and, second, that three books actually resulted from what—to be kind—was a less than auspicious beginning.  But, of course, back in those days, having a website was still rare enough that, simply having one made you stand out; scintillating posts weren’t altogether necessary, as you will see:

The Original Postcards Logo

05 January 2002

Preparations:

This is, without a doubt, the most drastic undertaking of my entire life.  For all that, I think I have it fairly well under control.

There are so many variables and so many things to co-ordinate, not the least of which is disentangling myself from my civil service job where I have been working for the past quarter century.  After that much time, your life becomes so pervaded by the ‘culture’ of civil service you begin to take it all for granted.

The money isn’t great, but it has always been comfortable, and lately it has been very good.  The job, for the most part, is at my convenience, thanks to liberal holiday, personal and sick leave.  I have, for my entire adult life, had excellent health benefits, a good dental plan, eye care and a host of other perks.

All of that is about to change in ways I cannot even imagine.

I have never been unemployed before, and the thought is frightening.  Not only will I have to find a new job, but I’ll have to do it in a strange culture.

There is also the unsettling thought that this is all irrevocable.  Once I quit, once I move out of my apartment, once I get on that plane and head for the UK, there is no going back.  Well, I could go back, I suppose, but I’d have no job, no place to live and no money.

Does all this give me second thoughts?  No.  Pause for thought, yes, but not second thoughts.

Despite the problems in selling my car, getting rid of all my stuff, trying to wade through the red tape of immigration and tax laws and the daunting thought of having little money in a culture where the cost of living is much higher than it is here, I have the deep conviction that I am doing the right thing.

In my mind, I have only two choices; continue to live in America and finish out my life working at a cushy and undemanding job or accept the hardships inherent in such a move and build a life with a woman who is deeply in love with me and who I love dearly.  When looked at that way, the choice is obvious.

And so I spent the day sorting through my stuff and making multiple trips to the dumpster.  I arranged to sell my furniture and worked out a plan to get rid of my car.  I studied the tax laws and checked into my financial situation.  All in all, things don’t look all that bad.  Not yet, at least.

Right now, everything still seems surreal and England seems very far away.  What I have to hang onto is the knowledge that, when I am there, I feel at home and happier than I can ever remember being.  For now, that’s going to have to get me through.

Posted in Cultural Differences: Tie Game, Out of time | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Changing Views

Posted on 27 December 2011 by

This post should have been called “Changing the post because it’s already the 27th of December and I still haven’t replaced my Christmas-themed blog yet” but that was too long and, as luck would have it, the topic I pulled out of the “Blog Topics to Write About When You Can’t Think of Anything Else” jar happened to be the changes that have taken place in Ireland since my life-altering trip there ten years ago.

This is relevant because I needed to do something to get The Santa out of the first slot…, I mean, because I just recently completed another rewrite of Postcards From Ireland—the hilarious, must-read chronicle of a portentous trip to Ireland (that’s what I’m expecting my publisher to call it, anyway)—and as part of the writing, I spent a lot of time going over the photos I took on the trip as well as traveling to some of the locations via Google Maps ™ ©

I wasn’t able to travel to a lot of the location I had visited during that trip because, as you’ll see when you read the book (you are planning to buy the book, aren’t you?) I was lost—both physically and metaphorically—much of the time. However, I did manage to locate the Killarney Court Hotel and find my way into Killarney from there.

The Killarney Court Hotel

Killarney’s town center wasn’t drastically changed, and O’Connor’s pub was still where I remembered it to be, but the outskirts of Killarney have changed dramatically, and not for the better.

This is the view I had from my hotel window back in August 2001:

View in 2001

This is the same view (from the road) now:

View in 2011

I suppose I shouldn’t be disappointed, or surprised; progress happens whether we like it or not (mostly not) but to cover up that stunning view with a gas station and mini-mart is simply criminal. I suppose they could justify it by observing that stunning views are ten-a-penny in Ireland, but if you don’t start looking after them, you’ll soon find them all concreted over and sprouting Tesco Supermarkets, McDonald’s franchises and betting shops.

Ireland

And that would be shame.

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The Santa

Posted on 23 December 2011 by

Okay, here’s my other Christmas poem; that should hold you until Boxing Day.

My favourite season and my two favourite poems welded into one; what more could I ask?

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The Santa

By Edgar Allen Moore

Once upon a yuletide dreary, while my brain with sleep was weary

and sugar plum fairies danced in children’s heads beyond the bedroom door.

Not a creature here was stirring; mamma in her kerchief was worrying,

I in my winter’s cap was touring presents lying on the floor.

Train set, race cars, aircraft carrier and a purple dinosaur;

all in pieces on the floor.

.

Ah distinctly I remember it was in the chill December

and the moon its eerie light upon the fallen snow did pour.

Presently I heard a clatter, wondering what was the matter,

straight I spied an elf much fatter than any elf I’d seen before.

Drawn by reindeer in a sleigh this elf drew up outside my door.

Parked and sat, and nothing more.

.

Then this burgundy elf beguiling my wan spirit into smiling

By the jolly countenance and fir trimmed uniform he wore.

“Elf,” I said, “these reindeer brought you, but really don’t you think you ought to

let them go.  If PETA caught you, they’d firebomb your house for sure.

Are you immune from PC zealots?  Tell me why,” I did implore.

The fat elf smiled. “I’m Santa Claus.”

.

Then, me thought, the air grew colder, and my flagging spirit grew bolder,

cheered by memories of my pleasures drawn Christmases of yore.

“Santa,” I cried, “these memories hold you, like angels wings they do enfold you,

Sweet Virginia could have told you: doubters tried and failed before

to bend you to their narrow purpose and make you something to abhor.

Quote the Santa, “Never more.”

.

Be that word our sign of parting, elf or saint, I said, glad heartened.

Whether Coke created or sent by legends from the lusty days of yore,

you remain the true Yule Spirit, Scrooge himself was glad to hear it,

my soul is light, my mind is clear; it sadly was not so before.

But now this light will shine its tiding ever from my bosom’s core

I’ll keep the season evermore.

The Santa

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The Night Before a Politically Correct Holiday

Posted on 21 December 2011 by

Christmas is coming, so it must be time to trot out my holiday poems again.  There must be someone out there who hasn’t read this yet:

A Politically Correct Night Before Christmas (um, I mean, A Holiday)

T’was the night before a Holiday, which one I can’t say

or the politically correct will come take me away.

And I couldn’t decide, for the life of me

if that thing in the corner was a bush or a tree,

when in front of my house a car horn did blare

so I put down my egg nog to see who was there.

A clean-shaven man in a gabardine suit

stepped out of a taxi cab near my front stoop.

“On Driver!” he said, and paid the cab fare

“Are you Santa?” I asked of the man standing there.

“I was once called Saint Nick,” he said with a gleam,

“But lately that ‘S’ word has become almost obscene.”

“I’ve been corrected for certain, though improved, I doubt it,

“Let’s get out of this cold and I’ll tell you about it.”

I offered him cake, and bid him to try it.

“I can’t,” he replied, “You see, I’m on a diet.

“I’m not to have cookies or candy or sweets

“I must set an example for what children should eat.

“Overeaters Anonymous and dentists both feel

“that I need to stay slim and eat healthy meals.

“My clay pipe, of course, was the next thing to go

“The Cancer Society’s lawyers said so.

“My fur suit and leather were found to offend

“militant vegans, so I had to change them

“for a synthetic blend in this neutral color.

“And I shaved off my beard to please one group or another.

“My reindeer all invoked their animal rights

“then the elves unionized and now they’re on strike.

“But I no longer need toys, so they’re free to go.

“Leaving presents in houses; that’s illegal, you know.

“And my name has been changed, it’s no longer St. Nick.

“It’s now Shirley Abdul Jacob Dinosovitch.”

I shook my head sadly, stunned by his speech,

was nothing beyond special interests groups’ reach?

“But you aren’t Shirley or Jacob or Abdul,” I said,

“If you pretend that you are then you’re out of your head.

“These groups want you to act as they think you should

“as if they are the ones who define what is good.

“I don’t have a society, lawyer or cause

“but I do enjoy Christmas, and I want Santa Claus

“the way I remember, a jolly red elf.

“You’re Santa, godamnit, get hold of yourself.”

“You’re right,” he replied, “it’s to myself I belong

“they’ve been holding me hostage to their values too long.

“I’m through taking cab rides, it’s back to sleigh power

“and I’ll offer the elves another dollar an hour.

“Let’s cap this epiphany with a cup of good cheer,

“And for God’s sake don’t give me non-alcohol beer.”

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Coming soon: The Santa

Posted in General Randomness, Out of time | Tagged , | 3 Comments