It is not every day that I have cause to pull my copy of The Riverside Chaucer off my bookshelves. In fact, it is so little disturbed that I can clearly see the colour fading from its spine and outer edges at the left and top sides – undeniable evidence that it has not been…
V is for Vitamins
This is not a very serious blog post. In fact I’m not sure how well this – in my mind – totally hilarious episode will translate to the written word. But here we go. Last week Child 3 and I were over in Edinburgh for Spring Break (Easter Holidays) and staying with my mum (mom)….
S is for Sweet Onions and Shallots
There she weaves by night and day A magic web with colours gay. She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay To look down to Camelot. She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott….
C is for Cilantro
Sometimes it’s the small capitulations that signify the beginning of the end. Who said that? Nobody. But I feel some famous smart person must have said something pithy in this regard once upon a time. Today felt like that to me. Today was the day that I texted child 3 that I had just bought…
R is for Roy G Biv
What the… I hear you say in the U.K. Roy G Biv?? What on earth is that?? But everyone in the U.S. (I bet) knows exactly what this is. Yet we have lived here for 8 years now and I only found out about this phrase YESTERDAY! It came about like this: Child 3 and…
U is for Ugly Sweater
Once upon a time in the US there were Christmas sweaters worn by sad Dad characters like this one: That’s Chevy Chase in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation from 1989. By the turn of the century, even the love interest could wear a Christmas sweater, as demonstrated by Colin Firth in Bridget Jones’ Diary in 2001:…
T is for Thanksgiving
So I am a week late with this but I have been mulling over a few aspects of Thanksgiving, perhaps because of my new perspective as a US Citizen. Thanksgiving was not mentioned on the list of 100 facts about the USA that we learned off by heart (and are already sadly forgetting) in order…
M is for Mailbox
Cue music… I used to say post it, now I say mail it, I used to say postman, but now I say mailman, I used say post office, but now I say… um… hang on a mo. Cancel the music. What do I say nowadays? Actually I still say post office. In one of the…
O is for One Hundred Days
So Donald Trump may be trying to suggest that the one hundred day mark of his glorious administration is not a big thing (can’t imagine why!) but I am here to tell you that it is. My evidence? This… This is Child 3’s creative way of marking her 100 days in first grade. Since she…
P is for Pocketbook
Here’s a funny thing about bags. In America it seems like lots of people don’t call handbags, handbags. They call them pocketbooks. Which is odd. As child 3 so beautifully put it… “I would have thought that a pocketbook was some kind of book you put in your pocket.” But no. It is a handbag….
S is for Showing
Quick note to self. Stop calling that thing when people come and look at your house which is up for sale a “viewing”. That, I have learned, is a British thing. Instead, call it a “showing”. Because if you persist in calling it a “viewing”, all your American friends will be able to think of…
H is for Hooker and S is for Sideburn
Here are two men that I just recently learned about from Child 2: On the left is Ambrose Burnside. Burnside was a Civil War officer with a bit of a checkered career: at one point being conspired against (according to Wikipedia anyway) by the man on the right, Joseph Hooker. But that’s not what is…
