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 →

Good on Crackers

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 3 Comments

The cow is of the bovine ilk;

One end is moo, the other, milk. ~ Ogden Nash

Since moving to our little village in Wiltshire my husband and I, and our little dog, have enjoyed many beautiful walks through the surrounding countryside.  Our house sits on the very last street before the village gives way to farmland, and the briefest of strolls lands us in fertile green pastures. The joys of the legally protected right to walk on footpaths and other routes, even those that cross private land, is one which I shall cover in a future blog. For now I shall just note that these footpaths give us access to land and scenery that would otherwise be merely glimpsed in a blur from our car windows as we speed past on our way to somewhere else, and they allow us to get up close and personal with the animal which has contributed greatly to my personal happiness over the years – the cow. Continue reading →

Weather

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It rained and it rained and it rained. Piglet told himself that never in all his life, and he was how old – three, was it, or four? – never had he seen so much rain. Days and days and days.

“If only,” he thought, as he looked out of the window, “I had been in Pooh’s house, or Christopher Robin’s house, or Rabbit’s house when it began to rain, then I should have had Company all this time, instead of being here all alone, with nothing to do except wonder when it will stop.” And he imagined himself with Pooh, saying, “Did you ever see such rain, Pooh?” and Pooh saying, “Isn’t it awful, Piglet?” and Piglet saying, “I wonder how it is over Christopher Robin’s way” and Pooh saying, “I should think poor old Rabbit is about flooded out by this time.” It would have been jolly to talk like this, and really, it wasn’t much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn’t share them with somebody.

This excerpt from Piglet Is Entirely Surrounded by Water by A.A. Milne is proof that in Britain even the fictional characters spend a great deal of time thinking about, and talking about, the weather. And why shouldn’t they? For such a relatively small country the U.K. has an abundance of weather. Continue reading →

Divided by a Common Language

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“England and America are two countries divided by a common language.” That quote, often attributed to George Bernard Shaw, but sometimes also to Oscar Wilde, is one of my husband’s favourites. Most of us are aware of the well-known differences – lorry instead of truck, torch instead of flashlight, courgette instead of zucchini. It is when a familiar word or phrase has a different meaning that signals can become crossed. Continue reading →

A Fairy Tale Beginning

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 11 Comments

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A fairy tale. That is what some of my more romantically inclined friends called it when, at the ripe old age of forty-four, I unexpectedly announced my engagement. I was a confirmed old maid, happy to play the role of the fun auntie and content with my quiet little life. I had my family, my friends, my little dog, and life was peaceful and good. I’d long declared myself too set in my ways to ever consider marriage so very few people suspected that the relationship with “my friend in England” had grown and matured beyond that of mere friendship. We had kept it quiet, wanting to give ourselves time without the close scrutiny and speculation bound to come if one and all knew we were more than just friends, until the day came when we discovered we no longer wanted to live thousands of miles apart and travel singly through life. “My friend in England” had become my best friend in all the world and it seemed impossible to continue life without him. And so in the space of a year everything changed. I, who for twenty years worked diligently at changing as little as possible, changed everything. I quit my job, sold my car, sold nearly everything and left family and friends far behind to marry a man from the United Kingdom. Continue reading →