Living the Life of Filey

If I've not said it before, I'll say it now, I love living in Filey.  I feel at home here.  I have always loved small towns, quiet places and this town suits me to a T.  Sure, there're no UA or Century (UK translation: Reel or VUE cinemas) just down the street, there's no Target  or Raley's or even a large Tesco (though there is a Tesco).  If we wanted to do any major shopping we'd need to go to Scarborough or Hull, the two closest cities.  But I don't mind, we don't do much major shopping and we go into Hull once a month anyway.

But Filey is a small, quiet seaside town and I have come to realize that I am eminently suited to Filey living.  Our neighbors probably remember historical events dating back to the 40s though I am sure a good number of them were doing the sock hop in the early 50s.  And I love the fact that Mark & I are probably the youngest couple in our part of the neighborhood by about 50 years.  Love it.

But there are other things I love about living here and here's one: laundry.

We have a washing machine in our borrowed bungalow but no dryer, but we don't need one.  The backyard is eminently suitable for drying clothes.  Mark put up a line when we first moved in and the sun and the wind make the perfect dryer.  Just today I was taking down dry clothes, putting up wet clothes for drying when I smelled the dry clothes.  They smelled clean, as they should but they also smelled of the ocean.  It's been overcast all day but the wind has been gently blowing off the North Sea all day and though the sun hasn't been out to help the wind dry the clothes, they are getting dry.  And now the clothes smell of clean soap and the ocean.

There are few things that smell as good as something clean but add the bracing scent of sea air and it opens up memories.  Just one scent of the laundry reminds me of happy days with my family.  I remember a picture, in particular of my sister, my brother and I wrapped up in a blanket with the Pacific behind us.  It was a cold, cold day on that beach.  We'd been in a parade with the Sacramento Youth Band just earlier that day and it had been hot, the Benicia parades were always hot, but it was cold on the beach and either Mom or Dad caught a picture of the three of us bundled against the cold.  It was a good, fun day.  And just one scent reminds me of those good days.  It reminds me of happy times with my family.

So yeah, I like doing laundry, I enjoy putting it up on the line and I enjoy taking it down, folding it and putting it away.  I like the memories they give me.  I like the memory of being a young child and playing outside while Mom put white sheets on the line in the backyard of our house on Village Wood Drive.  Those were happy days and happy memories.

Which is one more reason I love living in Filey.

Home

In two days I will have been away from home for 12 months.  That's 365 days, five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes (you know the song) since I've been home.  It will have been the longes time I have ever been away from home.

It's not always been easy.  When I first arrived in England I had to learn to use the crosswalk all over again.  People drove on the wrong side of the street, I had to look right first then left and the road systems made no sense at all.  I felt like someone who had been picked up and dropped in a crazy land and I wondered how I'd adapt.

And then I had my first experience in a grocery store and I nearly had a slight panic attack- this wasn't Raley's, it didn't look like Raley's and I wanted at least the grocery section from Target!  Food was strange here and I encountered the daunting tasking of finding something as simple as a bread I liked.  I didn't recognize any of the brands and I still haven't found Oroweat's Potato Bread.  I don't think it exists here.  And the eggs, I was shocked when the Gunton took me from the refrigerated sections to get some eggs.  They were brown and on shelves.  What was this place?

I posted Culture Shock of the Day on my facebook page until one by one, they were no longer a shock and they became normal.  I eventually stopped looking left then right when crossing the street, I got my UK driving license and I learned to drive on the left as if I had been doing it my entire life.  I still get confused at times which side is the driver's but then... you can't toss out a lifetime of experience so quickly.

I am now living in a seaside resort town off the coast of the North Sea in North Yorkshire and I love it here.  I no longer have insane cravings for Mexican food since I can find tortillas and refried beans.  I can do the rest myself.  I no longer notice that people speak differently than me and I find it hard to decide if someone is driving on the 'wrong' side of the road when I watch something on TV.  I have settled into the Yorkshire life, and I really like it here.

And it makes me think of Home.  I've had some bad moments of home sickness, none more so than on Boxing Day when I was around people I didn't know and who weren't making a huge attempt to make me feel as if I were a part of their family.  I wanted to go home, so we did.  I was so upset I couldn't even talk to my mommy, even though she was the only person I wanted to talk to.  But I got over it and life moved on.  I had my Gunton, and the cats and, if I missed my dog, well, I had my Gunton and that's good enough.

So now I'm facing a year away from home and my year long MA program is coming to a close and I am coming to the realization that I might have to go home when my visa expires on Jan 23, 2013.  This gives us one more round of birthdays and holidays before I'll have to go back to CA and I don't like it.  I don't want to leave my Gunton.

But I miss home.

I get constant emails from Chili's about their latest coupons and I think about how much I miss Chili's.  Mom & my sister go to Denny's a lot and I am reminded how much I miss Denny's.  And Pizza, oh, I do miss Lamppost Pizza.  Nothing here even hopes to compare.  I just miss everything that's familiar and reeks of Home.

And yet, I am home.  I am reminded of that scene in Fiddler on the Roof where the one daughter is leaving her family to be with the man she loves saying that with him, she is home.  That scene has always made me cry.  There's nothing overly foreign about England anymore.  I understand the roads, and am comfortable on them.  I am fully confident going into any grocery store and I know where to find my eggs, cheese and I know the difference between the different labels of milk.  I know what kind of bread I like and I know that just because this bread is £1, doesn't mean it's not as good as the one £2.50.  I also know I don't like the taste of the bread that's £2.50.  Yorkshire has become to feel like home to me.  If I am here next year I have every intent on going to the festivals for Yorkshire Day and if I were to raise children here, I'd be happy knowing they'd be raised (not permanently) in Yorkshire.  I want to see the day when I walk my children down to the beach from our house just because we live a 10 minute walk from it.  I can see a life with us, with children here in England.

But as much I might love it here, I am a Californian and that is never going to change.  I can't wait to go Home, but I hate to leave the one I have here too.

The 20th marks a year since I've been in England, a whole year, 12 months, 365 days, 525,600 minutes.  And tonight we're going to have a lovely dinner of pork tenderloin, fried potatoes, corn, salad and garlic bread washed down with ligonberry mead that Mom & I made a few years back to celebrate since we'll be in Hull all day thursday and might not get another chance this week.

But no matter where Home ends up being in January, I've still got my Gunton and really, that's good enough for me.