Blog
April
Saturday 2nd April 2022
I’ve not written a blog for 2 months. To be honest, I haven’t written much in the past 3 months. Life, or to be more accurate our move, had caught up with me. I have moved a lot in my life—back and forth from one US coast to another 3 times, up and down the US east coast 1 time, across the Atlantic 4 times. In Portland Maine alone—5 moves. In Minneapolis—4. Sometimes the moves were because I was changing a job or looking for a job; sometimes because I wanted…
January 2022
Monday 3rd January 2022
As I write this, snow is continuing to fall at quite a rate at my home on the Eastern Shore. Having spent most of my life living in states (5) bordering Canada, snow is nothing new to me. In fact, I really love it, especially when I don’t have to go anywhere in a hurry. I can write a lot about snow—how light it feels when it settles on your face, how hard it can feel when hit by a well-packed snowball, how quiet it is when it muffles the sounds of a city, how beautiful it looks as the world becomes monochromed with softened edges. I’m enjoying watching the snow outside as I search…
November
Thursday 4th November 2021
It’s been a little over a week since our container was delivered to our door and our furniture and roughly 200 boxes were unloaded. We’re all unpacked now and gradually getting our house in order. Writing has temporarily taken a back seat but I will be back at it very soon. But this doesn’t mean the writing has stopped. I can unpack a box and work through details of the plot…
October 2021
Sunday 3rd October 2021
We're waiting for our ship to come in…literally! We packed up our house and moved to the USA from the UK in late June. Having done this ocean-crossing move 4 times now we expected to see our household goods no later than the end of July. We hadn’t counted on a container, ship, and berthing shortage. Fortunately, we were able to buy a bed, couch, and a TV, and a very kind neighbor has lent us an outdoor table and chairs, so we have managed. The house is a breeze to clean…
September 2021
Wednesday 1st September 2021
Ahh September. A month for beginnings. We’re beginning to settle into life in Maryland, still living with a couch, a TV, a bed, and an outdoor table and chairs on loan from a dear neighbor. The container with our goods has finally left our UK removal company’s warehouse and is sitting on a dock—in a UK bay—waiting to be loaded onto a container ship due into a nearby port in the USA at the end of September. I’m trying not to think about the fact this…
August
Sunday 1st August 2021
Well, we made it. After all the pre-move pitfalls (read June’s BLOG if you’re interested in the details) we made the trip from the UK to the USA. Halfway through our BA flight, the air hostess handed us a slip of paper from the New York Center for Disease Control telling us regardless of having had to take a Zoom Covid test conducted with a doctor and having the signed paperwork to prove it and having proof of having been fully vaccinated we still needed to quarantine for 10 days. Yikes! We were meeting family in Maine the…
July - on the road again!
Friday 2nd July 2021
Note to self: don’t make an international move during a pandemic. Unfortunately I didn’t get the memo until after my husband and I had packed up and sold our UK house, bought a house in Maryland (over the internet) and just a week ago were halfway over the Atlantic with our dog. This was the first chance…
June
Thursday 3rd June 2021
I missed April and May—wanted to finish Taking the Sun and then we got busy! As I write this I am sitting between two tables laden with stuff to be packed into boxes and eventually loaded into a container for yet another trip of our belongings across the Atlantic—4th time! After over a year of discussing the pros and cons of doing this, we are planning to move to the USA. We both have dual citizenship (UK and USA) and some would say we are fortunate to have the choice as to which country to live in. But sometimes having lots of choices can be the…
March 2021
Monday 1st March 2021
It might have escaped your notice, but I didn’t do a February Blog. I was ‘on a roll’ finishing up my latest book, Taking the Sun, and doing a blog seemed like an interruption. This lockdown in the UK…
January 2021
Friday 1st January 2021
A new year. I’m hopeful we can keep all the good things about 2020 and never revisit the bad. My list of the good—clear, blue, pollution-free skies; hearing bird song and not traffic noise, helping to support folks in our village; learning to plan meals ahead and become a better cook; making time to sit outside and enjoy the sun, read, and listen to music; reacquainting myself…
December
Wednesday 2nd December 2020
I flipped the calendar over to December and other than eating a chocolate from my Advent Calendar the day was lost on me. I was busy and forgot all the jobs I should have done on the first of a month--writing my blog, giving my dog her monthly flea and tick pill, weighing myself—the day came and went like any other. It wasn’t until the middle of last night I realized it was 24 days till Christmas! And then I began remembering Christmases past… First there were the childhood memories of growing up in Geneva, New York, where the best sledding hill around…
November
Sunday 1st November 2020
I didn’t do a blog for October. I was feeling quite agitated by the end of September and couldn’t seem to focus my attention. September is usually a ‘traveling month’ and this year it was not going to happen. After much deliberation, my husband and I decided to head to Scotland—a much-needed trip. The empty…
