So Long England, 'til we meet again

     Two weeks ago, I packed up the last of my clothes, threw away half finished bottles of ketchup, mustard, chipotle sauce and drove away from the house that had been my home for the past year. It was bittersweet;  I was sad to leave Weybridge but I was looking forward to spending the next two weeks as a resident tourist in London; a farewell tour of sorts, a re-run of the greatest hits  and experiences of the year. 

    Now, at the airpot, as my husband checks in the last of our 9 suitcases (total weight 175 kilos!), I realize that this is it. My year of living in this country - a country with almost 2000 years of recorded history, a country that has a nasty historical relationship with my native land, India yet today counts people of the Indian sub-continent as its largest immigrant community - has come to an end. It was time to recapture how I spent 378 days on this island. I have gained a different perspective on my life in the US by living in a similar yet different culture. I have seen the role of government in taking care of its vulnerable citizens and read about the bureaucratic challenges of a big government. I have watched people foster communities without compromising their personal space, cherish history and natural resources with great pride while adapting technology to make everyday life simple and I have:

• toured magnificent castles at Windsor, Edinburgh, and Hever and  gilded palaces - Buckingham,  Kensington, Hampton Court and Osborne palace and tried, in vain to keep track of English history and numerous families that have made up the English royalty since 1066
• reveled in landscaped gardens and  grand manor houses at  National Trust properties like Polesdon Lacey, Claremont gardens, Gatton Park, Box Hill and  Painshill Park
• participated in the Royal Regatta at Henley-on-Thames, driven through picture perfect villages of warm yellow colored houses in Oxfordshire and marked off filming locations from the Midsomer Murders and Inspector Morse series
• walked in the countryside straight out of a Thomas Hardy novel with hills colored in different shades of green dotted with white puffs of the sheep kept in check by straight drystone walls in the North country and tall hedges everywhere else
• punted on the Cam along the backs in Cambridge, walked in the shadow of the towering spires in Oxford and felt a twinge of envy at the well-dressed scholars of Eton College

• driven my car onto the ferry at Portsmouth and onto a train to go through the Eurotunnel at Folkestone, driven almost 8700 miles in all from the gorgeous Isle of Wight, to the pebbled beaches of Brighton and along the gorgeous West coast of Scotland
• driven on narrow village roads with cars parked on either side, only  to see the oncoming driver pause to let me pass, through roundabouts as small as a painted circle in the middle of the road to a large stretched polygon with five exits, feeling the collective movement of cars flowing through the circle in harmony, and struggled with extremely tight parking spots in parking garages at Windsor and Weybridge
• felt my heart soar with Beethoven’s Fifth played by the Surrey Mozart Players at the ancient Trinity church in Guildford, felt goosebumps listening to Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass’s composition played on India’s Independence day at the Royal Albert Hall and stared in amazement at the glorious mosaics on the ceilings of the St Paul’s cathedral while attending evensong 
• minded the gap on the Tube platforms, walked endless steps through the tunnels and rode up and down deep escalator wells to get onto the streets of London and tried in vain to keep up with the fast walking, extremely fit men and women dressed in their usual  stylish best, no matter what the weather
• experienced theatre in the West end and shopping on Regent Street, ogled at high fashion with unapproachable prices at Carnaby and Mayfair, watched a game of cricket in Hyde park and strolled  in St James’s Park shielding myself from the feral pigeons
• eaten the best Indian food in my life, ever. Period. 
• felt the joys of ordering groceries online to be delivered at home the day after we returned from a trip, and the ease of buying fresh, ready to cook meals, small packaging sizes of produce and single servings of wine in bottles at the grocery stores
• enjoyed many a pints at quaint village pubs and sophisticated gastropubs, indulged in fish pie, fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, roasted lamb, Yorkshire pudding, dainty crustless sandwiches of egg mayonnaise and watercress or cucumber and dill with cream cheese, sticky toffee pudding, Victoria sponge, exceedingly flavorful ales and Gin and the occasional Pimms 
• lived in the art form that is the English garden; whether outside a tiny cottage in Shere, walled gardens at Hampton Court or the profusely flowering and scented RHS Wisely, Savill Garden, Isabella Plantation and Queen Mary’s garden

• hiked the rolling Surrey Hills in the North Downs, stark white chalk cliffs of the South Downs, and the rainy peaks of Catbells Fell in Lake District; looked in wonder at the countless white, brown and black stockinged sheep as well as the Galloways and hairy cows grazing everywhere on this island 
• experienced glorious sunsets, sweet birdsongs of robins, magpies, and finches every evening right outside my bedroom window, and brilliant blooms of labernums, magnolias, peonies, rhododendrons and  horse chestnut blossoms all through spring
• walked on miles of public footpaths through kissing gates and over stiles in meadows, heaths and ancient woods of oak, beech fern and bluebell carpets in spring or buttercups, poppies, cowparsley, foxglove and daisies in summer
• played miniature golf, got scared at Chessington and was transported to a bygone world on the Bluebell railway
• watched proudly as my daughter learnt to canter on a horse and finally conquer her fear of water, and my son sing old English songs and Latin hymns with his school Choir 
• enjoyed the Queens language spoken in its best form, making up my mind to use whilst, reckon, row ( instead of argument), and give you a ring in my vocabulary
• perused innumerable antique stands at the Alexandra palace fair, Sunbury market and Portobello road along with my husband, appreciating the British knack for re-using things till they break, and bought many more used books than I donated at various Hospice and Charity shops
• felt frustrated with the tiny washer-dryer at my flat, rudimentary telephone coverage and unsatisfactory customer service on the phone but experienced excellent personal service in stores in London 
• seen more ducks, swans, dogs and horses in everyday life than I have ever seen before,
• almost drained my credit card buying English pottery at Stoke on Trent
• walked the birthplaces of Wordsworth and Jane Austen and stomping grounds of Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson and Dickens 
• mastered (well, tried to) the Essentials of Cuisine techniques at Le Cordon Bleu in London 
• marveled at treasures from all over the world at the National Gallery, Victoria & Albert and British Museums, learnt about the personal horrors of the Great war at the Imperial War Museum, vintage cars and airplanes at the Brookland Museum, got my fill of old Jaguars and MGs, and brand new Bentleys, Aston Martins and Maserattis on the streets of Weybridge, Cobham and Esher
• participated in a Medieval fair, International fair, flag hoisting and concerts along with the  wonderful ACS Cobham International school community 

And cliched though it may seem, I have made friends with people from all over the world and memories that will last me a lifetime.