Simple Pleasures
Summerrrrtiiiiime and the livin' is easyyyyyy....There is something about this picture that makes me miss my people. When I say "my people" I mean Brits, Northerners, normal folk. The type of people who get my humour. The type of people who take a plate covered in a filthy tea towel to the chippy for their tea. People to whom I don't have to repeat myself 5 times before giving up and rephrasing myself with words that they understand or slow enough that they get what I am trying to say. I still have my accent, sometimes more than others but as a necessity for work purposes, enunciate better and pronounce my "R's". When I have been drinking or after a recent conversation with a fellow Brit, it can be hard for simple Yanks to follow me.
Back to the picture though, I found it on a hometown website, uploaded by a member of the lady's family and I swear, had I simply come across this picture, with no knowledge of where it was found, I would say that without a shadow of a doubt, this auld lass was from my part of the world. I'm not making fun of her, she reminds me of my Grandma. Here she is, willing to be photographed looking completely unglamourous, curlers in, feet up in her ratty old slippers with holes in and smoking a ciggie in her back yard whilst catching a few precious rays of sunshine. For all we know, it could be a man in drag.
I don't mean to offend any non Brits with this post. Sometimes you just need to be around your own for a week or two until you get sick of the misery and the moaning and the long faces. This picture just aroused something in me (not sexually you sick bastards) and made me miss my family.
D.C. Warmington didn't help with his beautifully written post about his lawnmower either. It made me long for the English summer. Beer gardens, kebabs and the smell of curry carried like a feather on the evening breeze.
Fuck the airlines and their outrageous fares......
Back to the picture though, I found it on a hometown website, uploaded by a member of the lady's family and I swear, had I simply come across this picture, with no knowledge of where it was found, I would say that without a shadow of a doubt, this auld lass was from my part of the world. I'm not making fun of her, she reminds me of my Grandma. Here she is, willing to be photographed looking completely unglamourous, curlers in, feet up in her ratty old slippers with holes in and smoking a ciggie in her back yard whilst catching a few precious rays of sunshine. For all we know, it could be a man in drag.
I don't mean to offend any non Brits with this post. Sometimes you just need to be around your own for a week or two until you get sick of the misery and the moaning and the long faces. This picture just aroused something in me (not sexually you sick bastards) and made me miss my family.
D.C. Warmington didn't help with his beautifully written post about his lawnmower either. It made me long for the English summer. Beer gardens, kebabs and the smell of curry carried like a feather on the evening breeze.
Fuck the airlines and their outrageous fares......
20 comments:
i know that feeling from my expat days...i'm sorry, sugar *hugs* watch some bbc on cable :D and close your eyes and pretend you're listening at the widow to people outside! (we always had huge phone bills when we lived overseas)
Could you rephrase that please?
Yes she looks like my people too, you can just tell,remember when talking to foreigners speak loudly and slowly and then all language barriers are broken, then whip them into action an old trick I learned fighting the wogs for the Empire.
The airlines are just fucked up with what they charge. It takes about the same amount of time to fly from Boston to LA as it does to London but they'll charge you twice the price in fees for the latter. Bastards.
I'm homesick too. But I don't miss the people in CA as much as I miss the landscape and the way people drive. That's right... people in CA are much more pleasant to meet on the roadways than New Englanders. Who stops on a freaking highway onramp?! And turns in to oncoming traffic...? I'll tell you who, every freaking body in New England! Addle pated idiots.
widow=window (damn, i realy shouldn't type when under the influence)
Mr Waring: I realise this won't be much use to you, but there's actually quite a good chip-shop in Harlem.
I know this because I once had fish 'n' chips there.
You could hop on a Greyhound.
Dammit Eddie, you swore when I let you snap that photo that you'd never put it on the internet.
Savannah - Not much time for TV unfortunately but sometimes it makes it worse. I go thru these spells from time to time. I made my bed tho....
MJ - Y-O-U C-U-N-T. ¿Entiendes?
Knudsen - I knew you would understand.
Fresh Hell - It's just the summer fares that kill me. I know it's the law of supply and demand, but they could add planes to bring down the cost. They just don't. Not in their best interests. Airlines and Oil Companies. Masters of profiteering.
Bock - I have yet to experience travel by Greyhound. I did use National Express once to go to Southampton. Using that as my yardstick, I will never have the pleasure of travel by Greyhound. Very reasonable fares though...
Twindowlicker - I guess that makes me a liar.
and cheap sun tan oil and "bar-b-qs" and kids crying and dogs barking-ah this is england...
¿Qué?
Mr Waring
Thank you for the compliment; if I'd known my mower was going to upset you I'd have kept silent.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as the bores say, but it's true. The sepia-tinged Britain of your memory bears only a shadowy resemblance to the horrorshow bequeathed to us by the Antichrist Blair and his mincing acolyte, Broon.
However, I do find Americans a bit slow on the upstake sometimes, and the English (not British) sense of humour does not travel at all well.
Which I why I remain at "The Firs" and have vowed never again to let my shadow darken Heathrow.
The sunbed in that picture is exactly the same as one my Gran had.
Such a sad post though, I could never live overseas, shit, I've just got back from helping my parents move 30 miles away and I broke my heart leaving them this morning.
i personally find her sexy.
Suck it up and act the white man, lad.
There, did that make you feel more at home? :::grins wickedly and runs:::
The Souse Sparrow has trained me well.
Er, that should be Spouse Sparrow.... Although he is soused at the moment, so I guess my Freudian slip was showing.
Mutley - Sounds just like here, except here it's year round with the sun tan oil and bbq's.
MJ - Yeah, you read it right.
DCW - You are welcome. It didn't upset me. I've taken off the rose tinted spectacles now anyway. Mutley put things into perspective for me.
Ellie - My grandparents had a caravan with curtains from that fabric. It was about the same size as Father O'Rourke's.
Raffi - Welcome. She is on a par with many of your older Armenian ladies, minus the black clothing and the beard.
Sparrow - Thanks for the dose of reality. Your husband strikes me as someone who has his priorities straight. Get pished first and deal with whatever comes next. I like a man with values.
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
etc etc.
Comfort food from yer youth lad go to a brit food shop and get some prawn cocktail crisps or some Hob knobs.
I have some leftover pork scratchings I'm not planning to eat.
oh go boil up a steak or something. geeze.
hey, i like facial hair on a woman, especially when it's thicker than my beard.
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