It's a Journey...with lots of rest breaks.

Following the path, Alnwick Gardens 2009
Originally uploaded by Nancy Dunne

I was writing a post for the other blog for which I am a writer, Touring Old Blighty, and came across the photo I've used for this post. There is a lot going on at the moment here at the Lettuce HQ. Some things I can discuss (my job, our plans to return to the US next year, Daisy's never ending love affair with custard cremes, thank you Simon!) and some I can't. The Hive of Angry Bees that live in my head have reached a fevered pitch over the past few weeks, and I found myself doing the only thing that I could do to calm them yesterday. I did nothing.

Seriously. The only strenuous exercise I undertook was lifting the laptop off the floor in the sitting room and placing it in my lap. My destination of choice? The two-seater with a view of the telly. Sorry, let me translate that for my American readers...I was on the loveseat watching TV. Simon joined me for part of my slugfest, then took on his own slugfest in the backyard with actual slugs. I hope he relocated them to new postcodes but in reality he probably just shoved them under the fence into the neighbor's back garden.

Right, back to my original point, why I chose this photo... This was taken at Alnwick (pronounced Ann-ick) Gardens in Northumberland last summer during my vacation with my inlaws. I took it because there is a photo in existance of Simon in the same spot a few years prior with considerably less greenery around him. Looking at it now, I not only am reminded of how much can change in a short time, but struck by how in the photo as in real life, the path draws me along to the end. The stresses, the problems, the issues (Ihs-shoos, innit?) are like the vines that continue to grow up and over the trellises. One day I will be able to look back on them and be amazed at the journey I've had.

I just have to remember the rest breaks.

Happy June, y'all.

The Dunnes, minus one
Originally uploaded by Nancy Dunne

In typical English fashion, the beginning of June has come in with a drizzly annoying rain to accompany it. You know, the kind of rain that means you can't really hang out washing. The kind that turns my hair from carefully straightened to a home perm circa 1980 in a split second, that kind of drizzly rain.

Not much to report, really. It's now been a year since I lost my Hunky man, and a year for Daisy as an only dog. Mills is still enjoying his own personal climbing frame, aka our stairs. The house remains on the market, and we've done some DIY (with much more to go) in the hopes of actually getting someone in the door that wants to buy it.

There are plans afoot for a move back across the ocean, but with the uncertainty of the house sale they're going to have to stay afoot for awhile longer. Eurovision was last weekend and was marvelous, wonderful, and totally kitchy as it always is. The UK's entry was abysmally out of tune and awful, and came in dead last. Better than nil pointe, I suppose.

On the 22nd we took a fantastic day trip to York to meet up with some other Americans. In a way, it made me want to give the UK another try and see if I can be happy here...but at the same time it made me remember what I missed...American accents, shared cultural references and experiences...oodles of advice and reassurance that my experience here has been normal for an expat.

So that's been my May, really. Onward and upward from here, yeah? Ah to be where I was last year, with no job to rule my schedule, but with the knowledge and courage to travel and experience that I didn't have last summer. Eh.