glad to see February

There's something nice about the end of January. Some of that could be because the rain let up today, and it's been sunny all day. We've been here four months now--half of our stay--and are both really missing our friends and homes. I had a little melt down the other day and exclaimed to Mary, I HATE driving here! The roads have no shoulders, and often a stone wall along the edge...and then cars park on one side so I feel like I'm playing a game of chicken with approaching traffic--who's going to go? Is there room for both cars to be on the road at the same time? In the villages, the centre line is little more than a hint that you might want to stay on your side of it (when I remember which side that is!--well I only once have driven on the wrong side and that was in the grocery store parking lot--Mary was very calm in telling me to get on the other side.

Anyways, I am dreaming of those nice big North American roads, believe me.

...Mary's shoulder has been bothering her so she went to the doctor and got a referral for physiotherapy. At first we were impressed with the Health Service, that physio would be covered. However, after a week of waiting, she called the physio at the hospital who said they hadn't received the referral yet...so she called the doctor's office. Well, they MAILED the referral--which took about 10 days...then the physio was going to MAIL a letter to her, telling her she could call to make an appointment, and who knows how long that was going to take. So I guess it is not a perfect system by any means--I guess they hope you're going to spontaneously heal in the meantime, or just get used to the pain, or die or something :-)

In the last little while I have several times been talking to English people who've asked me if I'm American...when I say, no Canadian, they say, oh I'm sorry--like they've greatly offended me by assuming I'm American. They don't seem to much like Americans here, I must say...I was reading some column in the paper that suggested to Americans that if they wanted to be welcomed, they should go into a pub, wave their American passport in front of the barkeep's face and demand a free pint. (obviously, a sardonic comment!) In honour of my many American friends, I did say to someone, well, I find the Americans to be very friendly whenever I visit there, but it didn't seem to be a very welcome comment.

Mary and I didn't make it to Stonehenge yet--we ended up going out on Saturday last week for a walk that was supposed to be a stroll and ended up being a very vigourous three hour slog through the mud. It was beautiful--a canal, an old church, the ruins of a castle, a manor with gorgous gardens--but we decided one walk a weekend was enough. I got a book of walks in our area so we are heading out on one tomorrow. If you don't hear anything of us for several weeks after, send a search party to Wellow, Combe Hay or Twinhoe--we'll be wandering around there, trying to figure out which stile we're supposed to be climbing over!

We're heading to London Feb. 13 so Mary can work in the British Library, and I can meet with some London colleagues. It'll be nice to go somewhere new, though finding our way around London is probably as daunting in its own way as our hikes. Did you know there are 60 million people living in Britain (or old blighty, as I heard someone refer to it as?) That is a LOT of people!

Hope to have some pictures to share again soon--meanwhile, stay well--for our Vancouver friends, hope the snow has melted.

Karen