‘Enjoy the pale crooked-teethed women’
‘There are no garden salads where you’re going’
‘Good luck with the warm beer!’
These words weren’t comforting and were very ill-timed, given to me just weeks before I departed to England for the year. That my English friends, is what the Aussies think it’s like here. It might sound absurd to you. It certainly does to me having now lived here for a year. But the worst news in all of this is that I’ve turned English and there’s nothing you can do about it.
English accent. English clothes. English haircut. A tweed jacket!
I had to submit when I found an affordable and very well fitted tweed jacket in my beloved town of Brighton on the Southern English Coast. The same place I’ve partied and made a whole bunch of friends at. Oh, Fat Boy Slim? Lives there and throws the occasional beach party when he pleases. It’s no music festival amongst a few cosy hills up in the midlands of England though. That’s just across from Liverpool, the home of Everton FC where you can watch them play in the Premier League. Not quite feeling like that this week though so might pop down to London and see U2 play at Wembley. Actually, the West End and a world class musical is calling me instead. No problem about work tomorrow, I’ll jump on a high speed train from Paddington and get off in Taunton, Somerset less than two hours later.
That is England. My England. Did I mention its twenty pounds and one hour to Amsterdam by plane?
This evidence confidently stands alone. As for the English clothes and accent, I’ve probably got some explaining to do. I’m going to blame the accent on my natural instinct to adapt to my surroundings and hence conform with the society within which I’m living. Or maybe, I like the accent.
The clothes. They’re my choice. I buy them, and plenty of them because they’re cheaper and better fitted. I also generally like some of the native English fashion tendencies more.
The haircut. Well most would argue I already had an English haircut before I left so that’s not so much of an issue.
Finally, my Australian friends’ opinions on the women, beer and food of England? Bollocks. The women; cultured, well spoken and properly dressed. That’s in the upper reaches in which I’ve mostly been socialising. The beer; heavy and fresh from Lager’s to Cider’s that are brewed in my own home county of Somerset. The food; suitable to the climate is all I’ll say, but by no means as horrible as I’d expected. Black sausage though? Seriously people?
‘The long and short of it is,’ as my recent English stage character, Lord Clive Tregonwell would say, that I like England and there’s nothing you can do about it. Just have some faith that my survival instincts will kick in when I arrive back in Australia in just over two weeks. Might be best to draw back my English tendencies then. Given the connection I’ve established with them in the last year that will be harder than it sounds though. Just two weeks left before leaving and I’m already helping the days pass as slowly as possible, not readily welcoming the day that I leave at all.
