Month: January 2014

A Romantic Night on the Village

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 1 Comment

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 This was originally going to be a blog about coffee and tea, and how the expectations British people have about coffee in America, and Americans have about tea in Britain, are often disappointed by reality. However, I am discovering, as writers must often do, that my blog is not cooperating. It simply will not behave and do what I tell it to do, and so it shall be abandoned for this week, and instead I shall tell you about what I suppose could be called my husband’s and my date night last evening. Continue reading →

Treasures from Home

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 5 Comments

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Last evening my husband and I arrived home to discover a notice had been shoved through our mail slot advising us that we had a box waiting for us at the village post office. Such excitement! Such joy! I am, of course, talking only about my reaction. My husband took the impending arrival of the box of goodies from “home” in stride. Husbands can be slightly aggravating that way, I have found. A box full of treasures has arrived a full five days before the post office in the US estimated it would, and all he can say is, “They always do come more quickly from that direction.”

The thing is, he knows what is in the box. So do I, for that matter. For him, sensible man that he is, that means there is no surprise or mystery about this package waiting for us at the post office, and therefore no glamour or excitement. When it comes he will be happy, but in the meantime there is no reason to get all worked up about it. We were expecting it. It has arrived safely. Well done. Now what’s for dinner? I, on the other hand, would like to spend several minutes at least discussing the box and the contents all over again, talking about how exciting it will be to open it, speculating again on how much my mother and step-dad must have paid to ship it here (a lot, I’m sure), and in general building myself up into such a state of anticipation as to be nearly impossible to live with. Continue reading →

The Happy Wanderers

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ Leave a comment

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In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. ~ John Muir

“I’ve come up to ask you to go for one of our old-time rambles…” L.M. Montgomery

We are walkers, my husband and I. There are few things we’d rather do on a free weekend than throw a picnic lunch in a rucksack and strike out on foot through forest and field. You might say that makes us both a cheap date. Be that as it may, the times we spend together walking in both companionable silence and deep conversation have been some of the happiest we’ve spent together. Continue reading →

Riding the Bus

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 3 Comments

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The medium-sized city where I used to live had excellent bus service…or so my husband has told me. I have to take his word for it because in the twenty-one years I lived in that area I never stepped foot inside a single one of the city busses. I’m your typical American. I had a nice, shiny car with a heater that blasted heat in the winter, an air conditioner that blasted frigid air in the summer, and a stereo at my fingertips that blasted whatever kind of music I wanted blasted, whenever. Why would I ride the bus when I could travel everywhere in splendid, comfortable isolation? Continue reading →

The National Trust

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Oh, to be in England now that January’s there!

 The correct line from Robert Browning’s famous, oft-quoted poem is actually, “Oh, to be in England now that April’s there.” Perhaps Mr Browning was more than happy to be far away from this part of the world during the dark, rainy months of winter, but for those of us for whom spending the winter in Italy is not an option the shorter days and colder temperatures do not stop us from enjoying many of the wonders that the U.K. has to offer. A large proportion of those wonders are all covered under the umbrella that is the National Trust. Continue reading →