moving

The Wild Rover

Dear me, I apologize for my short but unexplained absence. As I mentioned in my last post, spouse and I were moving away from London permanently, so last week was a bit overwhelming what with packing and cleaning and goodbye-ing, and I’m afraid I let my blogging go. Sorry! Not that things are quite settled yet–June promises to be relatively hectic in its own right, with visits to family and weddings and other excitement.

What a ragtag bunch of gypsies we are! Photo taken by my mom in Ireland.

What a ragtag bunch of gypsies we are!
Photo taken by my mom in Ireland.

And all this packing and cleaning and goodbye-ing has had me thinking a lot about moving. This certainly is not the first time I’ve moved in my life. Not by a long shot. My father is a sailor and my mother is a piano teacher, and both parents’ careers proved to be relatively mobile throughout my life. I was born in Florida, but when I was two we moved to Colorado for a few years, then back to Florida, then to Ireland for a year, then to North Carolina before finally winding up back in Florida again. Some stays were longer than others, but every few years my family would pack all our belongings in our station wagon or a UHaul, and move somewhere different.

As a kid I hated moving. I hated having to throw out half of my toys and books and clothes every few years. I hated having to say goodbye to my friends. I hated having to start at a brand new school and navigate a whole new social minefield as an outsider. I hated when distance and time transformed my old best friends into some people I used to know. Moving was always emotionally overwhelming, and I dreaded the inevitable day when my parents would once more announce, “We’re moving!”

read more…

Leaving London Cookies

 

Rainy day cookies.

Rainy day cookies.

Let me tell you a secret about London: the weather is terrible. I know, I know. This is hardly a secret, you think at your computer screen. Everyone knows that. But I’ll tell you why it’s so bad. It’s not because it rains most days, and the sky is usually a flat expanse of dark, unrelenting gray, or because it’s cold nine months out of the year. Those things are all true, but that’s not why the weather is so awful. No, that would be too easy. The weather in London is so unbearable because sometimes it’s actually quite nice.

Yep. Approximately seven days out of the year London gives us glorious, warm days with cloudless skies and cool breezes. Everyone goes outside and picnics in the park and throws around rugbys and plays with their children. And for those seven days you find yourself forgetting that for the other three-hundred and fifty eight, the weather is, to put it kindly, pure shit. 

read more…