Calling all Hawaiians, New Hampshirites and Vermonters

I have a list of the 50 US states. Whenever we see a car licence plate from another state, we cross that name off the list. (I know. Hours of fun for all the family.) After nearly five years, there are three remaining states: Hawaii, New Hampshire and Vermont. So if you're from New Hampshire or Vermont, and are planning an across-the-continent road trip (it could happen, you might be fed up with your autumn colours), please get in touch. I could design you a route that passes nearby me, and we could rendezvous. All I need is to see your licence plate.

As for Hawaii, well, you were always going to be a challenge.

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My son's take on living in America

Gosh, that's a boring title. Sorry.



Anyway, 14-yo entered a competition for expat kids. The challenge was to make an audio-visual presentation about your life in a different culture. He wasn't short-listed as a finalist. If you want to see the entries that were, you can go to this facebook page, and vote for a winner in each of the two age categories.



I thought his was rather good, though, so I'm sharing it with you. The images are all from our own camera, and I think it really does give a little flavour of what our life is like here. (Apologies for the picture quality.)

State fair

In this post, I’m taking part in a blog party 'Around the World in a Day' at Happy Homemaker UK.



When we first arrived here, my oldest went into fourth grade, just at the point when the class was learning all the states in the US. This involved being able to place them on a map, and knowing their postal abbreviations and capitals. This was a rather daunting task for him, to say the least, so I said I’d do it with him. It was something of a challenge for me too, since my geography of the US was so bad that I didn’t get much beyond knowing that California was on the west coast, New York on the east, and we were somewhere in the middle. So we plodded through together, and now, if I’m ever on your pub quiz team, I will be able to help out with the location of all the states and their postal abbreviations (so many beginning with M, it’s just crazy - you darn Americans, you should have set a cap on the number of states allowed to begin with the same letter). I’ve forgotten all the capitals, though. Sorry.

So now my second child is in fourth grade, and has been through the same exercise. I didn’t volunteer to do it with him, but instead came up with a suitable bribe, and the deed was duly done over the course of a few weeks. But they’ve introduced a new project since oldest learned his states. Each child picks the name of a state out of a hat, and then has to research that state, and put together a report and a scrap book. I remember oldest doing a scaled down version of this (he got Wisconsin), but it’s since really blossomed into a magnum opus. The children wrote to the relevant state tourist office in class, so the first task was to intercept the brochure which arrived and not chuck it in the bin with the other junk mail. The report had to include a rough draft as well as a final copy, an outline (I never did quite understand what this was, but it involved writing in bubbles), and a bibliography citing at least three different sources. The scrap book was to supplement the report, with illustrations and… oh heck, you all know what a scrap book is.

Hurrah for the good luck with which 10-yo picked Colorado out of the hat. It’s an interesting and picturesque state, and we’ve been there, which surely helped. So, following the suggested format, Husband and I helped 10-yo put together a report about Colorado’s geography, history, flag, emblems, state government, famous people, main industries, places to visit, sports teams, and ‘fun facts’. You might know that Colorado has the highest mean altitude of all the states, but I bet you didn’t know that Colfax Avenue in Denver is the longest continuous street in America, or that Colorado is one of only two states in which all the water in the state flows out of it and none flows in. (Brownie point to anyone who can name the other one.) We helped him cut out pictures from the tourist office brochure, draw maps, and stick in photos of our own Colorado experiences.

Then last week, the children hosted The Second Annual Fourth Grade State Fair. (Yes, the Second Annual one… I don’t make this stuff up, you know). The school gym was duly decorated in red, white and blue, and each child had half a long table on which to display his or her scrap book and report, and any items that represented the state in some way. They were allowed to offer food items (this being America, where the policy ‘no snack left behind’ is in full operation). And they were to dress in an appropriate costume. Thus it was that 10-yo borrowed some ski goggles, and donned his snow boots, his winter coat and a woolly hat, and brandishing a couple of ice axes that I hardly even knew we possessed (maybe I really did marry an axe murderer by mistake), declared himself an ice-climber. His half of the table displayed a pair of hiking boots, a few boxes of ‘Celestial Seasonings’ tea (one of the biggest herbal tea companies in the world, which started with one Coloradoan gathering and drying wild herbs), and a little glass vial of iron pyrite, the substance known as ‘fool’s gold’ which we had panned from a stream when visiting an old gold mine on one of our trips (and which 10-yo insists is actually real gold). The food he offered was potato chips (crisps, to you Brits), because they grow a lot of potatoes in Colorado. By a stroke of happy luck, I just happened to be in a health food shop a few days beforehand, and spotted a brand called ‘Boulder potato chips’, which hailed from Boulder, Colorado. How clever was that?! (and they were even on special offer).

I thoroughly enjoyed the Second Annual Fourth Grade State Fair. It opened with the children singing a couple of songs, my favorite being ‘The Nifty Fifty’, which included a rapid run-through of all fifty states in alphabetical order. Quite a feat of memory and verbal articulation. Then the fourth graders took their places at their tables, and we all circulated round the displays, ‘we’ being the fourth grade parents, and kids and teachers from other grades.

The children were happy and confident, and as you approached their stand, they would readily engage you in conversation and share their knowledge about their state. This is one great benefit that my kids will have received from an education here. They are taught to present confidently and clearly. They have no problem addressing you as you walk up, saying “Would you like me to tell you about Vermont?” or “My state is Hawai’i. Would you like to sample some pineapple?” It will be a useful life skill, and not one we teach in the UK (not as far as I know). I loved the costumes: a cowboy from Oklahoma, a southern belle from Georgia, a scientist from Maryland, the Statue of Liberty from New York State. The snacks were fun and varied: fruit of many kinds, fish sticks, bread, cheese, green jello (looking at you, Utah), Ritz crackers (I thought they originated at the Ritz Hotel in London, but apparently they’re from Maryland), rice krispy cakes (did you know that Arkansas produces half the rice grown in the US?) and various drinks, including milk, which is the state beverage of several states. Who knew?

I loved the enthusiasm of the fourth graders to share the wonderfully random ‘fun facts’. The official state cookie of Maryland is the chocolate chip (yes… some states have official state cookies). In Oklahoma it is illegal to take a bite out of someone else’s hamburger, and you may not take elephants into the downtown area of Tulsa. Also in Oklahoma, women may not gamble in the nude, in lingerie, or while wearing a towel. Good to know.

All in all, it was a great event, an imaginative culmination to the state projects. If I was American, it would have made me proud to be American. As a resident alien (yay), it made me reflect on really how incredible the USA is. What a land of plenty, and variety, and beauty. So much to offer “from sea to shining sea” as the words of America the Beautiful go. You may not know, incidentally, that the words of that song were written by Katharine Lee Bates, after being inspired by the view from the top of Pikes Peak. Pikes Peak in Colorado, that is.

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You know you've been in America too long, when...

... one of your commenters points out that you've said "a whole heap of things", and you don't see what's odd about that.

... you no longer recognise one slice of ham between two slices of buttered bread as a sandwich. It's simply not worthy of bearing the name.

... your 6 year old daughter tells you she thinks you should get braces on your lower teeth. In her life, 99% of teenagers, and quite a few adults of varying ages, have braces, and crooked teeth are a crime against humanity (and, for the record, mine are only very slightly crooked).

... you find yourself telling someone about Guy Fawkes' night, and explaining that it's a "celebration of democracy" (yes, I used those very words), because that suddenly seems like a positive way of describing the rather sinister practice of burning effigies.

... you still hold onto practice/practise easily enough, and humour will always need its u, but centre begins to look wrong.

... you've written 325 blog posts.

The Garage Sale: Part l

Now the weather is warming up, as you drive around, you see small rectangular signs sprouting up in the grass alongside the roadway. They’ve lain dormant all winter, but the arrival of spring brings them out, and they’ll flourish in steady number right through until autumn becomes winter. The size, colour and composition of the signs vary, but the species can be recognized by one common factor: they all have the word ‘SALE’ clearly visible. It’s garage sale season again.

It is said that Britain is a nation of shop-keepers (I never understood why), but truly America is a nation that loves to buy and sell. I suppose the nearest equivalent to the garage sale in Britain would be the car boot sale, and that’s the perfect illustration of how much less comfortable British people are with the boundaries of their homes being crossed. An Englishman’s home is indeed his castle (so we’re a nation of shop-keepers in castles?), and if we want to sell our stuff, we take it to a disused airfield or similar large open space, and put it on display on tables. Sitting in our fold-away chairs alongside lots of other people doing the same thing, we enjoy anonymity and safety in numbers. Not so the Americans. They’re quite happy to sit on their own front driveway, with strangers picking over their goods and chattels, or in their garage if the weather is bad, or even to hold the sale inside their house.

There are three levels of domestic sale (as far as I’ve been able to work out). The first is the yard sale, which really might be just a table of goods, with a hopeful child sitting behind it, aspiring to make a few cents from their cast-off toys and their mother’s unloved crockery. Then there’s the garage sale, which is the same sort of idea, but on a bigger scale. There will be a few tables of bits and pieces, and probably some pieces of furniture and larger items. Of course what has happened is that nobody wants to say they’re having a yard sale, at least not on the sign, because it sounds less worth a visit than a garage sale, so now everything in these two categories is a garage sale. (It’s the same principle behind retailers only ever selling food or drink in the sizes regular, large, or absolutely blooming enormous, because who wants to buy a small?) The original distinction has been lost, though people do still talk of ‘yard sales’.

Then, further up the sale scale, there’s the estate sale. The estate sale happens when a house is being emptied out, after a death, or a downsizing, perhaps. If you see a sign to an estate sale, you’re talking big items: furniture, electrical goods, household items, and so forth, with probably a large amount of smaller stuff in there as well. An estate sale will always involve going inside the house, so it’s a good opportunity for snooping neighbours as well as bargain hunters.

You never know what you’re going to see at a garage sale. It really is the case that people put out everything and anything. Typically there are clothes, crockery, glass-ware, vases, toys, games, Christmas or Hallowe’en decorations, chairs, tables, lamps, suitcases, rugs, books, garden tools. You name it. At one estate sale, I saw an old printing press for sale, and a pair of leather lederhosen. The range of the quality is as varied as the range of the items themselves. Some of the stuff is brand new, in unopened packaging. Some of it is chipped or bent or dirty, and frankly you can’t imagine why anyone would want it for free, let alone pay money for it. I’m not exaggerating when I say that at one sale (the printing press and lederhosen one, actually), the bathroom cupboard was open, and there were half-used packets of cotton buds for sale, and pots of face cream (I’m assuming unused, though they weren’t sealed – I didn’t investigate too closely).

This being America, if there is buying and selling going on, there is room for a middleman. So there are small local businesses who will run your estate sale for you, and these build up certain reputations. Round here, if you see the pink sign for an 'Estate Sale by Helen', I’m told it means that you can rely on the items there being high-end and good quality – but pricey. Others have more of a reputation as being good for a bargain. I’ve heard, though, that it’s a mixed blessing getting one of these businesses in. Yes, it saves you the hassle of running your own sale, but they retain the right to bring unsold goods from other sales into your sale. So your house becomes the showroom for other people’s wares. Though I suppose it’s swings and roundabouts, because your stuff in turn might be taken to do the rounds elsewhere.

Garage sales always seem well-attended. There’s always a line of cars parked outside the house, and a steady trickle of people heading in or out. At week-ends, a garage sale will typically open at 8.00am, but on week-days, I’m told they open up at 7.00 or even 6.30. The good stuff goes early, they say, but of course it depends what you’re looking for. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure… Or meat... Or poison.

I haven’t been to many sales. Occasionally, I’ve stopped at one in the neighbourhood, and given the kids a dollar to spend on a toy for fun. I once saw a glider (swing seat) as I drove by a sale, and stopped to buy it – something of a bargain at $20, though it did need some attention. I’ve walked round a few just because I was initially rather intrigued by the phenomenon, and wanted to see what they were like. I also wanted to pick up some tips and get the confidence to run our own garage sale, which we did last year on 31st October, Hallowe’en, and which I’ll tell you about in the next post.

The Great Outdoors

Do you ever start writing a comment on a blog, and before you know it, you've rambled on so much that you've pretty much written a blog post on the subject?

I've just done that on Nappy Valley Girl's blog. I'm enjoying reading her blog, because she's just moved from Clapham Common to Long Island, and it's full of her early impressions of American life. I can hardly read a post without exclaiming in her comments box "oh yes, I remember that feeling so well!". It also makes me realise how far I've dug in, in three years. Things that strike her as unusual are just part of life for me now, and it takes someone else to point them out for me to notice. She surprised local American friends recently by offering them milk in their tea. I remember doing that. Now I don't, and what's more, I don't even think about it. These things become second nature.

Anyhoo, Nappy Valley Girl was cogitating today on why Americans don't seem to go outside when it's snowy, or even cold. When you're bringing up small children, it seems an essential part of a day to take them out into the fresh air, come hell, high water, or bad weather. But only if you're British.

I was commenting along my usual lines of "oh, I've wondered the same thing!" and found I'd written so much on the subject that, if I just added a tiny bit more, I could repeat it all on my own blog and call it a post. Which is what I've done.

I started off by saying I thought it was just a cultural thing. We Brits have a deep-seated feeling that fresh air is good for children, and that going outside at some point in the day is essential. The Americans don't. Simple as that.

But then I decided that actually, there's more to it than that. I think it's a reflection of a deep cultural difference between the adults. We Brits love our outdoors. We are a nation of gardeners. We like a sunny day because then we can be "out". If we go on holiday, we like to see the scenery of where we are. Our own countryside is sacrosanct.

It's just not the same here. I once tried to explain to a woman who asked me what I missed about the UK, that I missed walking down a street, walking the kids to school, going out and about at the week-ends... that it made me feel disconnected from the "real" world. I said "For example, you could easily live a life here where you literally NEVER went outside some kind of built environment. You leave the house by car from your integral garage. You can run your errands at drive-thrus. Everywhere here has convenient parking lots, so you don’t have to walk to get anywhere. Indeed you physically can’t do that. You could live without ever seeing the outdoors except for the parking lots you walk across."

She looked at me as if I was on another planet, and said "What's wrong with that?"

My guess is that this is one reason why the fear of climate change tugs at the emotions of Brits more than a lot of Americans. We would really mind if our countryside changed. For most people round here, it's a rather remote problem. If the planet warms up a little, your air-conditioning bill will be a bit higher, but it won’t significantly affect your life. No big deal.

I don’t want to get pious here, but I can’t help feeling that it’s important for us humans to be conscious that we belong to the natural world, and not the other way round. There’s a big wide world out there, and we are very small in it. How do your kids learn that, how do they come to feel that, if you don’t take them outside?

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

We are back. We had a golden summer. Cousins played happily with cousins. I had my fix of old friends. We went to lovely beaches, the North York Moors, enjoyed old haunts, discovered new ones. Walked down streets – such a different thing from going to the mall. Walked along leafy country lanes that I have known since I was pushed along them in a big Silver Cross pram, kicking my younger brother for leg space. Went to the christening of my blogson. Husband and 11-yo had a day at Lord’s. Realised we’d been away too long when I said “there’s the pub”, and 4-yo piped up from the back of the car “what’s a pub?”

And blogging. Hm. Didn’t do much of that. Didn’t have internet access, you see. Had to go to the public library. Cramps one’s style a bit. Hadn’t planned to go silent for three months, but it sort of happened. Sorry.

It was good to go home. I had been worried that it would be unsettling for us all, make us unsure of where we fit in these days. But the opposite happened. It helped. The children made sense of which cousin belonged to which aunt and uncle, and if we needed evidence that blood is thicker than water, it was there to be found in the way they got on so easily. Links to places and people were still strong, but didn’t seem to evoke the same sense of loss. We fitted in here, there and everywhere more easily that I could have imagined. The familiarity was comforting. Most of all, we just didn’t think about it too much. I had been worried that the trip would make us homesick, but no. At least not for now. It made Britain seem more reachable, just a flight away, the Atlantic really just a big pond.

This, too. The balance has tipped. We knew deep down all along that this our American chapter would be not wrong, just different, and not forever, but we decided that we would live from the outset as if it were, putting down deliberate roots, holding loosely to home ties, living our thought lives as well as our physical lives here in the Midwest. I never fooled myself, but I gave it my best shot, carefully and with effort. Our summer changed that. We’ve started thinking and talking about the return strategy. Too much, probably. We did some forward planning, a bit vague at this point, but at least the direction is decided. We’ve done the uphill climb, we’re now on the plateau. I know the downhill may be some way off, but I’ve allowed myself to acknowledge it exists. That is a good feeling.

A golden summer with silver linings.

Different things

Over the past few days, I have been collecting a list of things that will be different about life when we’re in Britain. They are pretty random, so I will just spew them out, although I have made at least a little attempt at organizing them. They are in three categories. Three categories – come on, that’s pretty good. I mean, it’s not the kind of intelligent analysis that would get me to be where someone like Matt Frei is, but three categories is three categories. Don’t knock it.

Things that will be different

• There will be reassuring white lines at road junctions, so that I will know where I am meant to stop the car
• Stop lights will not swing about on their wires in the wind in that alarming way
• The meat aisle in the supermarket will be mostly chicken with a small section of beef, rather than mostly beef with a small section of chicken
• Children won’t call each other “dude” (or perhaps they will; we’ve been away 18 months and this could be a new fashion for all I know)
• Everything will seem very small, especially cars and houses. A friend of mine laughed when I told her we have an air hockey table in our basement playroom: “you have a playroom large enough for an air hockey table?”. I didn’t tell her we could fit 3 or 4 in that room, and that we have a choice of other rooms where it could go. And that our house is not abnormally large for a family of five
• Children in a park won’t ask their parents for an underdog (which is surprising, given we’re meant to be a nation that always likes the underdog)
• A grill will be something you put meat under, not on top of

Things I will miss

• A big fridge
• The lack of traffic
• Not having to spend time planning the hunt for a parking space
• Thunderstorms
• Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in a box (which, annoyingly and humiliatingly, is much, much more delicious than homemade)
• Mixer taps that actually mix the hot and cold water
• Seeing exotic food in my local supermarket (cactus leaves, buffalo meat) – or will Cadbury’s chocolate fingers and Wall’s chipolatas seem exotic now?
• Knowing it will be warm enough every day to wear flip flops (I find the relentless heat hard to cope with, but I do like flip flops)
• People asking me where I’m from and saying they love my accent

Things I definitely will not miss

• Obscenely large portions in restaurants
• Drinks served 75% ice 25% liquid (am I the only one who likes a drink to be something you can drink? am I the only one with teeth sensitive to cold?)
• When I order milk from a children’s menu, the waiter asking “white or chocolate?”
(Of course these first three are entirely hypothetical, since we won’t be eating out at all. Given the cost of living in the UK, we will be existing on bread and water – oh, but at least it’ll be delicious bread, not the compacted cotton wool that is marketed as bread over here.)
• Commercials on tv – their number, frequency, length, quality and medical content (I think that covers the gist of it)
• The word “ornery”, because I just can’t quite get the nuance of what it means – one of those words which has a dictionary definition, but whose usage depends on undefinable knowledge
• The word “flakey”, for the same reason (and is it “flakey” or “flaky” – I can’t even spell it)
• Chiggers
• Four-way stops (don’t get me started)
• Children saying “can I get…” instead of “please may I have…”
• People asking me where I’m from and saying they love my accent (and yes, that’s meant to be in both lists - I’m a bit complicated on this one. Sometimes it’s nice to be different and have an immediate talking point, sometimes it would be nice to blend in a little more.)

An accent post

Now, here’s a “Not wrong, just different” classic. I think you may have to dig deep on this one. We all like to think we’re liberal-minded, open to cultural variation, happy to embrace difference. Have you ever thought about accents, though?

When we moved to Scotland from the south of England, people were intrigued to know if our children were picking up a Scottish accent. “Ooh, how lovely!” they would say. Then we moved to America, and when they see us, people will no doubt be intrigued to find out if our children have picked up an American accent. “Ooh, how lovely!” they will say. Or not. Now I’m not a gambling woman (not with money, anyway), but I would lay a large sum on a bet that we will not get that reaction once. In fact, before we came, a few people told us stories of their friend/sister/cousin who moved to America/Australia/Canada and their kids lost the accent when they came back home within weeks/months/days. It seems a reasonable thing to assume that a fellow Brit will share a dislike of an American accent, and also that it is ok, even in these politically correct days, to say so. Perhaps I could have a bit of fun, and pretend to my friends that I am charmed by my kids’ new accents. “Such cute intonation – we’re so thrilled for them” I could say, and watch friends’ faces as they struggle to work out if I’m being serious.

I don’t think there is any way to justify our attitudes to accents. I mean, it’s not as if an accent could be evolutionarily superior, is it? The soft lilting tones that we so admire in a Scot didn’t serve his cavemen ancestors any more useful purpose than the nasal elongated vowels of his American counterpart. I’m trying to think how one could argue that case. The caveman Scot was naturally better at imitating the subtle sounds of wild birds, and was thus better equipped to hunt them down and feed his family on nutritious poultry. The caveman American was better at warning his family of impending danger, because his loud holler carried farther. Hm. Not very convincing either way, is it? I think we just have to accept that when it comes to accents, we are all very insular and deeply prejudiced.

Or course it works in our favour here. We all know that the Americans just love the English or Scottish accent. At one point in my life, when it was a vague possibility (only a vague one) that I might move to New York, my friend there was very keen on the idea, on the basis that if I shared an apartment with her, and used my voice on her answerphone, her social life would take a dramatic turn for the better. It’s jolly spiffingly splendid to be on the receiving end of some positive discrimination, for something that comes for free. It’s not as if I have to work at my accent, or practise it, or pay for it. It’ll have to do me instead of cosmetic surgery for the duration of our time here. It’s not quite right, though, you have to agree. (Not quite right, but not so wrong that I didn’t shamelessly use my accent to avoid a ticket when a policeman on a motorbike pulled me over for having out of date tags – “oh miy goodness mee, offissa, Eye’m terriblee terriblee sorreee” - but that’s another story).

I must have become more used to the accent here than I realize. I went to see a high school production of Oliver recently, and after a few minutes, I began to wonder why the actors were all putting on odd, slow, stilted voices. Then the penny dropped (duuh). They were putting on English accents, and putting them on very well in fact. It must have been exhausting to have to sound so pretentious all the time. Is that what I sound like to them? And if so, why do they find it so attractive? But it will take a less self-interested woman than me to stand up at this point in time and say “Not attractive, just different”.

"Home" thoughts from abroad

In two weeks, we will be on English soil. Retrospectively, I’ll be able to call it a fortnight (did you know that Americans don’t use that word?). I’m excited and looking forward to it, and I know it will be a wonderful time, all 12 weeks of it, but I have to confess to being a little nervous too.

There will be so many good things. Seeing family and friends, time as a family together on holiday, enjoying the beauty of the gentle English countryside (I hope you all appreciate how lucky you are to have it on your doorsteps), seeing the sea. Oh goodness me, so much! It’s a vacation, and I want it to be that, but I can’t avoid the fact that it will also be a trip to the old country. I don’t want to use the word “home”. I’ve spent a year and a half carefully and consistently referring to here as “home”. So when I tell people we’re going to Britain for the summer, and they reply “oh how neat, you’re going back home”, I don’t let them spoil my record. I counter with “yes, we’re going to Britain”. I shouldn’t think they notice, but I have my own personal pc rules.

I don’t need to go to Britain any more. Last summer, I desperately needed to, wanted to, ached to, which in itself was probably a reason against. No, now I fear I almost need NOT to go. I might like it too much. The hermetic seal around my life here, a separate chapter, an interesting interlude, but not real life somehow, will be broken. I’ve invested of myself here heavily and genuinely. I haven’t pretended (well, sometimes a little). But I know deep down that I am like one of those old-fashioned toy clowns that children used to have, round at the bottom and weighted, so that they always bob back upright with a jingle when released by the chubby hands which bat them and hold them down at an angle. I do my best, but I can’t change my centre of gravity.

None of this is new, though, and none of it is rocket science, (or some touchy-feely equivalent of that – I don’t think rocket scientists would be all that hot on emotional analysis, actually). None of you will say “oh my goodness, Iota is going to Britain, and she’s feeling it’s a bit complicated, who’d have thought THAT?” You know me too well. And I don’t mind complicated, really. Not for myself. I do mind it for my children though.

I mind it for 10-yo, who loves it here, has grown into a life which he can’t bear to think of moving away from, and for whom the question “how long will we stay in America?” is threatening and best avoided. I know friends will ask, and I know if he's in earshot I will fashion the answer more for him than for them, pass it off lightly, and not look in the direction of his face as I do so.

I mind it for 7-yo, who is fiercely proud of his Scottish birthright, and occasionally comes home from school with an A4 wax-crayonned Saltire: “we had some spare time in Art, and she said we could draw whatever we wanted”. I mind that the place which retains a hold on him might live up to his expectations, and make it hard to leave. I mind that it might disappoint, and that afternoons with friends of 18 months ago will not be what he imagines.

I mind it for 4-yo, who thinks she remembers Scotland and her little friends, but probably remembers the stories we have told her, the memories we have created for her. I mind that she will adore the beach, and though the coast of Fife even in summer won’t be quite the same as her mental picture of a beach (California), she will flit about in her wellies and warm fleece (I think you can flit in wellies…), enjoying again the freedom and space and openness that I and she used to delight in, and now so lack in our impoverished hemmed-in suburbia.

I mind for us as a family, that we don’t share the same place in our minds when we root around for where we think of as "home" (oh, that word again). I mind for the family we have in Britian, who will have to say good-bye to us again, with a brave face.

Bother. I thought I meant it when I said I didn’t mind complicated.

Trips

I’m off on a trip. A trip? Yes, a trip. A trip to New York, no less. On my own. No husband, no kids. Ah ha ha.

What takes me to New York? Let me tell you. Charlesinparis. For it is he. You can’t have missed his enigmatic comments on my blog. You must have wondered about my mystery man in that most glamorous of locations. Here is the moment of revelation. Charlesinparis is … (drum roll) … my big brother. He and Wifeinparis, along with Twokidsinparis, are spending a week in New York, and I am joining them for the week-end. I am also seeing Friendinsuburbs, who I met in 1987 and see on average about once every 5 years, and meeting her husband and twin 2 year old boys. Now if that isn’t a fabulous week-end for Wifeandmotherinthemidwest, I don’t know what is.

Charlesinparis – I have to tell you about him. In my teens and twenties, when any of my girlfriends came to visit, they would always ask oh so casually "is Charlesinparis around?". Think tall, dark, handsome. Think beanpole. Think daddy-long-legs. Think chiseled features and heavy eyebrows. Think very blue eyes. Think Anthony in The Wiggles in his younger days (he’s the one in blue), but better looking. Think snappy dresser and urban sophistication. Think lightning-speed conversation and rapier wit (in three languages). Think horrendous cheesy puns that you have to laugh at anyway. Think plum-coloured MG. Sadly it is no longer a part of his life (and it was an MGB GT, no less, with spokey wheels), having been replaced by a sensible Renault people carrier. In its day, the MG was lent to him on a long-term basis by a friend. I never understood why anyone who owned an MG would lend it to someone else, let alone someone whose driving position in it would involve their knees being somewhere in the vicinity of their ears. I’m grateful that she did though (yes, it was a woman…), as it provided me with one of my favourite Charlesinparis memories.

It was a hot day in August 1989, my younger brother’s wedding day. Charlesinparis had been best man, made a spectacularly funny speech, and then when it was time to go, he said “hey Sis, come in the MG”. So we set off, open-topped on the open road, him in his smart suit, me in a peacock blue bridesmaid dress, in one of those dreamy perfect balmy summer evenings that we do so well (if a little infrequently) in England, with the setting sun behind us. I know it was behind us, because Charlesinparis said “I haven’t got a road atlas. Where are we, anyway? Sort of north of Bristol somewhere? Hm. Well, we’ll just head east, that’s easy enough, and we’re bound to pick up signs to Oxford or London. The MG doesn’t like motorways, but the Cotswolds are around here somewhere, between here and home at any rate, so it’ll be a pretty drive.” And it was. A pretty drive. A pretty long drive. Difficult to navigate by the sun after dark. It rained towards the end and got cold (it always does in an MG), but Charlesinparis put up the top, we were young and it was fun.

The last time I saw Charlesinparis was the week-end before we left Scotland for the USA. He phoned one day and said “your birthday’s the 23rd of November, right?” (Wrong – it’s the 24th, but he’s not a details man on this kind of thing.) “That’s a week before you leave for the States, right?” (Right – see, he gets the details which matter.) “Well, I’ve arranged for me, big sister and little brother to come and see you. Book us into a B&B. We’ll take you out for dinner on your birthday, but other than that, you can see as much or as little of us as you like. We’re there for you. We can help out with whatever you want, or we can entertain ourselves and get out of your hair.” So for three days, there they were. They took car loads of stuff to the tip. They played with the kids. They washed bedding (2-yo caught a vomiting bug). They gave me the ideal excuse to go to all my favourite places instead of doing all the sensible house-tidying sort of things I would otherwise have done. They walked with me on the beach. They didn’t mind that I was distracted and odd. They said all the right things about our move (“the Midwest sounds great”).

Every girl should have a Charlesinparis. And from time to time, a Charlesinnewyork.

Visit of the Snow Queen

Here is a guest blog by my sister, who spent Christmas and New Year with us. We had a large fall of snow just before she arrived, which was topped up a few days later and then stayed for the duration of her visit, melting away the day after she left. Hence the name she acquired while here.

I bribed her to write the post with the promise that she'd get nice comments from all my bloggy friends, so please don't disappoint.

"I had never been to America before, and had no idea what the Midwest would be like. Most of the television I watch is American, but none of it is filmed anywhere near Iotaville. If I were to go to New York, I would have an idea about what it would look like as I watch Friends and Sex and the City avidly. Ditto Seattle as I watch Frasier and Miami as I watch CSI. But, with the Midwest, I had no preconceived notions as to what the place would look like.

I had assumed, in a very superior manner, that there would be no history and no culture. The first assumption was completely correct, but I was very favourably impressed by the two museums I saw. They were imaginatively done and fun (especially if accompanied by a small child who dances round the glass cases shouting 'pooperscooper, pooperscooper, pooperscooper' in a loud voice).

What I found difficult to take on board was the sheer size of America. I was thinking that if you lived anywhere in the South of England and wanted to see, for example, Ian McKellen as King Lear, then you could travel up (or down) and see it. This is simply not possible in America, due to the vast distances. Of course, what you should be comparing it with is not England, but Europe. I wouldn’t travel to see any play if it was in Portugal, and this is what the comparison should be.

What also struck me was the confidence and positive outlook that everyone exudes, which I couldn’t decide whether I liked or not. In some ways it was a nice change after all our British negativity, but I did wonder how kind it was to tell children that they could be anything they wanted. “Never give up your dream” seems a very American thing to say. On the one hand, to tell people they will succeed if they keep trying is admirable, but it is totally unrealistic to tell a little girl she can be a top ballerina if she has no talent. Hard work and determination can get you far, but cannot cut everything. Enthusiasm, I decided, is great if it is genuine, and both cultures have something to learn about pitching it at the right level.

I did love the food. Being possessed of the sweetest tooth in the whole world meant that I was in my element with Philadelphia cheese with added brown sugar and treacle (did I imagine this?); ice cream with caramel, butterscotch and chocolate poured on top; and sugar cookies with extra icing. It was probably just as well for both teeth and waistline that I was only there for a couple of weeks. I often think about the Wal-mart shelves, groaning with Krispy Kreme doughnuts, little mince pies with real cream piped on top; and too many cakes to count. I am reaching for the jelly babies as we speak.

Now I am back, I do find I go around saying 'awesome' and 'good jarb' to people. I am certainly going to visit America again."