winter wonderland

"Welcome to London Heathrow. The temperature outside is currently 0 degrees"...brrrr!

I had tried to prepare myself for the cold. I didn't succeed. It's the kind of cold that takes your breath away as you walk out the door. Where you can see your breath and your fingertips go numb. I love it - it makes me feel alive...once i'm inside a heated fashion store...but it really does look like a winter wonderland here - it's beautiful.

24 hours is a long time to be on a plane but i arrived safe and sound and made my way down south on a variety of transport options...travelling through snow covered fields - it was nice to be home.

Coming back to England for the first time in 18 months has meant a bit of administrative work has had to be done - bank accounts, mobile accounts - that kind of thing. Working on adreneline i thought i'd kill a few birds with one stone by ignoring my jetlag as soon as i got 'home' and heading into town to sort out bits and pieces and liven up the day by meeting Caroline for lunch. Caroline and i met a trillion years ago when i started working in the marketing department of Central Sussex College. Realising immediately (i think we went out for lunch together in my first week) that we were soul mates we quickly went from spending every day together at work to wanting to spend the weekends together too...i miss our lunch time 'counselling sessions' as we called them and seeing Caroline every day - so meeting for lunch in our favourite coffee shop on my first day back seemed only natural...bring on a few more cocktails over the next few weeks!

coming home to an illegal snooze (common travel sense suggests that jetlag can be beaten by staying awake till 8pm on the day you arrive - but what's a girl to do when she can't keep her eyes open) and the promised (AMAZING)weggy roast pork (SO worth waiting 18 months for) i already feel like i never left...

only a few things suggest otherwise....My day has been filled with eye opening experiences. Things i used to take for granted but now realise are a significantly different about england:

1) it's freezing
2) the traffic lights turn orange before they turn green
3) you can buy booze at the supermarket (in fact that would be a good reason to move back...)
4) speaking of supermarkets - you have to pack your own bags at the checkout - unlike!
5) the english can often manage to be unfailingly polite whilst providing appalling customer service
6) the english really do say things like 'ever so nice' (baby boomers) and 'it's well good' (gen y)
7) the english are quite often amazingly trendy dressers
8) there's a reason they are trendy - they have amazingly cool affordable clothes and accessory shops to choose from
9) 2 pounds is not 2 dollars and i would do well to remember that whilst shopping
10) there are so many memories here - most of them good.

till next time...

xx