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Monday, April 30, 2012

4-26-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians – Starter Job #114 (On Holiday with Carrie & Patrick in the English countryside, part 2)



After visiting Brighton in the south, Patrick’s family home in Lincolnshire, then on to Stonehenge with the boys, Carrie and I were on our own.  On to Wales (Aberystwyth), then Liverpool.




For the U.K. road trip with my sister after the guys parted ways with us, I hired a motor -- in the American parlance, I rented a car, a Vauxhall of some sort.  There are some who are wary of driving in a car with me whether English or American. . . but I did just fine, driving on the other side of the road.  Surprised myself. . . it wasn’t that hard getting used to.

Best of all were those roundabouts, some showing up in the middle of the proverbial nowhere.  The countryside was SO lovely, make that intoxicating (and I don’t mean due to staying overlong in quaint countryside taverns or pubs).  Carrie, my sister, and I stayed in a cute B&B in Wales; a sweet old dear, Mrs. Davis was the proprietor.

Driving through Wales, I was surprised at all the how hilly fields, surprised how many sheep abounded.  I thought, from reading DH Lawrence, there’d be coal mines over every hill and dale.  Oh well.  We visited Blenheim castle because we were told we ought to (it wasn’t terribly grand, but notable nonetheless).

The biggest disappointment was actually Liverpool.  The abysmal mid September  rain and lack of the cool, touristy Beatles stuff (it was before they’d capitalized on that, big time) made it a dismal visit.  Carrie and I, bored, left a few days early and returned to London.

I was so glad that my cute, fun sister visited me in England, as she really liked me as well as loved me, and we had a lot of laughs.  My sister, Carrie, was also an Anglophile -- though perhaps not as much of one as I’d been previous to moving to London. . .

Living in the U.K. for eighteen months made me better understand the ways of the Brits. It also pretty much cured me of Anglophilia -- though I do love the sound of language as it passes through their mouths, still!






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