Tag Archives: Britain
Ave Angliae Mater!
Well here I am. Home. I am officially home. I am now neither Homesick nor Heatstruck (Any ideas for a new blog name, folks? Answers on the back of a postcard…). I am not permitted to complain about the British weather in any way ever again – either directly or implicitly – for the rest …
Tree-Hugging and Forest-Bathing
‘Tree-hugger’ is a vaguely insulting term for those perceived as hippy environmentalists, used fairly indiscriminately to describe pretty much anyone from an animal rights activist to a bypass protester. It’s also an epithet that has come to be associated with Prince Charles following his mid-1980s confessions about talking to his trees and plants to encourage …
Dark Mornings and Grey, Rainy Days
This is, apparently, one of the most depressing times of the year for British folk. The sparkling fairy lights of Christmas are long gone, but the winter drags on – bitingly cold and remorselessly damp. The mornings are dark and, throughout the grey days, the evenings loiter just beyond the horizon, bringing back the night-time …
The Rose-Tinted Glasses
It has been drawn to my attention (by my no doubt well-intentioned husband) that this patriotic expatriate’s descriptions of home are somewhat distorted by sentimentality, and that I fail to present a fair or objective case. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I stand accused of wearing rose-tinted glasses when it comes to my reflections …
The Mystery of Murder
Why on earth are murder mysteries so comforting? They shouldn’t be, really. Given the sinister plotting of so many psychotic villains (which our quaintest British villages appear to be riddled with) and the violent dispatching of all those country vicars, farmers and baronets, murder mysteries should leave us quaking in our beds at night, terrified …
