Like It Is

It’s said the British summer is two hot days and a thunderstorm. We got that right this week. IA sweltering, hot, hot hot. And thunderstorms. And people griping about the heat (as usual), and the humidity and then the rain (because of course there were floods) and then the hail. We just love to talk about the weather! It’s the reason we holiday abroad so much.

There is something really lovely about being back home in England though. For me it’s many little things. The fact that everyone speaks the same way I do, and I don’t get the interested stares and the “where is that accent from?” questions that you do in my wonderful host country. I appreciate people’s curiosity, and I know it comes with the territory of being from somewhere else, but on this trip it was just good not to sound different from everyone else for a change.

It’s the fact that people tend to make eye contact more and really look at you, whether it’s to greet you with a good morning or just to smile. I could use idioms and phrases and not have to explain what I meant by them or use my alternative words. I could say car bonnet and car boot with abandon (yay!) and people wouldn’t give me a strange stare while they worked out what I meant (hood and trunk). They were using the words themselves with equal abandon of course. Sweets are sweets, chocolate is chocolate and biscuits are biscuits.

Good old British humour. I didn’t realise how much I missed it until I was back in it. It was like picking up a conversation exactly where you left off, even though you’d left off some time ago. And it isn’t that Canadians aren’t humourous, not at all. It’s just different. Hard to explain,when you’re in stiches over something seemingly completely silly. It just is.

Catching up with friends… having a laugh. Making new ones.
Catching Wimbledon in the rain. Although I didn’t have time to watch a lot of it, it’s the being able to watch it in “real time”, not quite down the road, but close.

I’m looking forward to being back in my second home! But I have really enjoyed my trip home!