Happy July 4th weekend to all.
What a difference a year makes. A year ago, I drafted (but did not post) a blog that I cried over. Here is a portion of it:
I’ve been looking at houses for sale in the Cotswolds. It’s an idyllic little corner of England, in the U.K. and I’ve been going online to check out available properties in villages with names like Bourton-on-the Water, Chipping Campden, Bibury.
That’s because for the first time since I arrived in New York in the Fall of 1978, I feel sick to my stomach every morning when I switch on the TV news. So much going on — and none of it looks like it’s going to end well.
My online search allows me to salivate over photos like this:
And this:
And this:
I figure, it’s not so much an escape, more a return to the womb. I spent three years in the area as a student at the University of Warwick which was, in fact, located in the city of Coventry. However, for most of that time I lived in the town of Royal Leamington Spa — which was about 25 mile ride from the villages of the Cotswolds.
Getting Legless on Scrumpy
So, I know the area — described on the official site of the Cotswolds as one of “villages of honey-colored stone and gently rolling hills and award winning hotels and pubs.” I used to drive to those same pubs on dates and nights “off campus.”
Now, it’s easy to picture myself strolling from my thatched roof cottage to one of these pubs, ordering up a pint of scrumpy (a brand of very rough, potent cider that can render you legless in just moments) and steak-and-kidney pudding (although I’d still leave the kidneys on the side of the plate!!! )
I could also drive to all the book festivals and conferences from one end of Great Britain to the other without ever coming close to the mileage Joe and I covered on one drive from Palm Beach to Long Island in April (2020.)
Sad Yearning
If you’ve been a regular reader of my blogs on this website, you’ll know I came to the yearning to leave my adopted country with a great deal of sadness. In 2016 I recollected my elation at becoming an American Citizen; in 2017, I looked on the bright side of things with a love letter to my adopted country. In 2018, I grappled with what was becoming a daily horror show by focussing on the beautiful land America is. In 2019, I figured things couldn’t get worse.
I was wrong. There was still a pandemic to come, and protests and an election that polarized this country in a way that may well be irreparable
A Pipe Dream
Still, I realized, even back then, that my online search for a cottage in the Cotswolds was nothing more than a pipe dream — an escape from something from which there was no escape. Anywhere in the world.
A close friend and former colleague warned me not to bother coming back. “England is absolutely nothing like it was when you left,” he said. “You wouldn’t recognize it.” And, as for the idyllic Cotswolds, an article in the Washington Post informed me that in 2016 the area was overrun with 38 million day trippers.
Anyway, Joe, my husband of 34 years is American-born and would never move, and my son is American-born, — and the best years of my life have been spent here in the U.S. And, now, I think there’s more good years to come.
Happy Birthday, America !
My wife has been an obsessive watcher of all-things British mystery and police procedural via Acorn or BritBox. I enjoy them as well, but I’m not quite as obsessive. We just finished a Welsh series called Keeping Faith. Those simple, quaint towns are quite alluring. So, I could see how you would pine for the villages of your youth. Very nice post
I love Acorn TV, too. But, yes, unfortunately most of these villages/towns are not what they used to be. Nothing is. My British Bestie and I went to Key West a couple of years ago. I’d been there 10 years before. It was nothing like the place I remembered. So disappointing. Thank you for liking the post.
Coincidentally I also went to Warwick and lived for my first year in Leamington. And I was from Oxford originally (my sister still lives near Witney). So I know the area well. I went to a boarding school near Banbury that was so awful I spent much of my time sneaking off on my bike, riding through the quiet villages on the northern fringe of the Cotswolds, and exploring the dozens of abandoned airfields that were still scattered across the landscape then.
I have now been in New York for many years but my work here finishes soon and I will have to go home. I am not looking forward to it. Your friend is right to advise caution. The Cotswolds have indeed become somewhat overrun; there are a lot of rich residents now and I wonder how much authentic village life is left. Moreover Brexit seems to have divided the country very badly and the atmosphere sounds rather poisonous. Change will come in the end. But it has already begun here. I watched the Inauguration on January 20 and was nearly in tears. Maybe it is best to stay on this side of the Atlantic for now.
It’s all very sad. I hope you find a pocket somewhere in the UK that has not changed for the worse. There has to be one, no???? I wonder when you graduated from Warwick, and what your major was? But, I’m sure it was many years after I graduated !!!!! Anyway, the best of luck with your return and I do hope you stay a subscriber to this blog. Thank you for reading and commenting.
I expect you’re the younger one! I was there from 1976 to 1979. Another world.
I read History and Politics.
Wrong! I graduated in 1971!!!!!