Ready for a lovely weekend!

Even though it was raining hard, I was looking forward to going somewhere different for a few days after a hectic week of hosting. It would be a time to unwind, negate the responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, and entertaining. For a few days at least, I intended to play the unencumbered tourist, gliding through any visit Frances had planned for us.

Free advice is worth...

“Don’t go to Cambridge in the winter! Or even early spring. Ghastly.” A friend who had gone to Cambridge tried to put me wise. “The wind comes howling down across the fens, the land is completely flat. No protection. Bitterly cold. Winter. Even early spring. As I said, ghastly.” He had shaken his head, looking every inch like a wet bulldog, and offered no further explanation. We went there anyway, hoping the early May weather would turn favorably warm. My friend had been right, the approach to Cambridge was flat. Reminiscent of approaching Dayton, Ohio! Suddenly, it’s there. And so were we.

I'm a Limey Doodle Dandy

When I was about ten years old, I wanted my best friend to be a kid from an American TV show. Whether all of America was like Hollywood, or the other way around, I did not know or care. I just wanted to audition for it. I tried to be more American. I practiced for my role. I chewed gum, which I hated. I wore high top colored sneakers, which we called baseball boots and which got very smelly. I yearned for the blue jeans Mum would never buy me. Too rough, she said, look like a laborer! At least I could see the TV shows and avoid pullovers when I went out to play, even if it meant duckings of cold damp air.

Back to Bleedin' Blighty, part 2

I gazed out of the window at the thick, snot-colored clouds that seemed to go on forever. England. It had to be England. I pulled my face into a grimy crease to speak, but the attendant was on a mission and spoke first, with authoritarian kindness.
“You’ll have to hold your baby in your lap and strap her in. I have to stow the cot.”
“How can I—?” I asked, lamely. But she was gone, mumbling something about landing soon and being back in a jif. A jif, a jiffy, the attendant was becoming a little more English, a little more quaint, the closer we got to London.
Here we go again, I thought. Another so-called vacation.

Black clouds overhead

“Look at it, look at it! Bloody weather! Typical! Typical!” I was ranting now.
Frances was looking displeased, not with the weather, rather with the black cloud that had settled about my shoulders. She told me to lift it. Lighten up. Or at least, smile sardonically. And the cloud would lift and the weather would improve. She really said that. Annoyingly, she was usually right when it came to this cloud business. But I was having none of it. I was tunneling away, deeper and deeper into the darkness of my mood. And that was that. Frances, with Kate in tow, was understandably trying to ignore me, hoping perhaps, I’d go away. But I did not go away.