Reestablishing oneself in another country, albeit the country of one’s birth, is a process that can best be described as three steps and two steps back. The two greatest challenges have been sporadic access to the Internet and the UK credit companies failing to recognize our excellent US credit ratings. In this day and age of globalization you would think that the latter wouldn’t be an issue but it is. My UK credit rating is more like someone who is nineteen than someone of my mature years. Apparently, I have to establish three months of UK credit before I’m allowed to do anything. And this impacts the ability to access the Internet. Before the Grumpy Vegan even arrived in Southampton on the Queen Mary 2 I knew that I would obtain a Blackberry straight away so that I could email and call people internationally. But my juvenile UK credit history did me in. I’m making do with a cheap phone that allows me to only make expensive calls within the UK. So frustrating.
But there’s good news. This weekend the Grumpy Vegan and his human and feline companions move into our new home–a 9 foot wide, centuries old house in the middle of Hastings Old Town. Heavenly, it’s midway between a pub with excellent vegan food and an extensive, well-organized used bookstore. What more could one want? Well, actually, there’s the launderette across the street and further down the road an organic market and bakery. We take occupancy of our new office space on August 1. Slowly but surely, the pieces in the jigsaw puzzle of life are being put together to make a picture of a new life in Hastings.
Meanwhile, we’ve taken some time out to do some quintessentially English things. For example, we went to the Hampton Court Flower Show on the River Thames just outside London. It was packed with people and exhibits from azaleas to zinnias and much else besides. There were complete gardens as exhibits and displays of vegetables. It what seemed like a dream we came across a corner of the show whose perimeter consisted of various food stalls while in the middle, surrounded by happy gardeners clustered in groups on the tables and chairs eating, on a small raised gazebo a male singer in an evening jacket serenaded us with ballads normally heard sung by the likes of Frank Sinatra.
We also went to a recording of BBC’s Just a Minute, a radio quiz show that’s been running for some 40 years. The contestants, who are usually comics but are sometimes actors and politicians, have to speak for 60 seconds on a given subject without hesitation, deviation and repetition. It was a lot of fun and I’m sorry to say such entertainment could only happen in Britain. If only the world were as silly as we are.
