A Bit O' Blarney

“Put on the Kettle”

[While we’re no longer in Ireland, we’re still blogging from the Blarney.]

Landing in the UK: At the end of October, we said farewell to Ireland and took a ferry from Dublin to Wales. We thought the Irish Gaelic language was a challenge until we landed in Wales and drove through the town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (not a keyboard glitch), which translates to “St. Mary’s church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the fierce whirlpool of St. Tysilio of the red cave.” Uh, is someone pulling our leg?

London Ho: After exploring a wide area around London, we ended up right where we started our search, in Richmond (on the outskirts of the city toward Heathrow). It’s a nice walkable town on the lovely River Thames with easy access to other parts of London. Americans know it for its association with the show “Ted Lasso”. Even though AFC Richmond is a fictional team, a lot of the show was filmed in Richmond. According to our inside source (our empanada lady), production for season 4 starts later this month. We will be fact checking our source.

While Ireland still has one foot in the old world, London is at the opposite end of the spectrum. We exchanged our country cottage for a city flat. Instead of narrow country roads with mirror-crunching rock walls, we have crazy 5 or 6-exit roundabouts where cars jockey for position like it’s the Indy 500.

We’re also learning “Bri’ish” slang. One noteworthy expression is “a Sharon & Tracy”, a disparaging term to describe certain women who are considered to be unintelligent, impolite, vulgarly dressed, devoid of taste; use improper English; and have loose morals. Ouch. Tracy??

Friendly Faces: One nice thing about living in England is that Eric and I both have longtime friends/former colleagues here: my Intuit friend Jenny and Eric’s Cubic friend John. John and his wife May are Brits who lived in Canada but moved back to Bristol, England. They gave us a warm welcome and a great locals’ tour of Bristol and Bath. 

John and his good mate Brian also took us to a rugby match and gave us the proper rugby experience. We went to Twickenham Stadium across the river, considered to be the home of rugby, capacity 82K (twice the size of Petco Park). England played Japan in the Autumn Nations series. I think I was brought along to play the part of a Japanese fan. I was only outnumbered about 82K to 1, but it was all surprisingly cordial. When the Japanese team scored a point, the Brits applauded: “well done, you”. John says all the aggression in rugby is left on the field, where it frankly looks like mayhem, a cross between dogpiling and chicken fights, the kind of roughhousing you’d get in trouble for as a kid. 

We also got an unexpected visit from Donna, another Cubite who worked with Eric and John on team Canada. She was on a business trip to Salsbury, home of Stonehenge, 90 minutes away. When we heard Donna was “in town”, we dropped everything to meet her for dinner, which was lovely. Dinner and Stonehenge, a brilliant combination.

Across the Pond: We made a brief trip to New England in December for the memorial service of Eric’s Uncle George (age 93). We joined the cousins in celebrating George’s life. We were also delighted to see my niece Aspen and her partner Lake in Massachusetts. It kinda felt like we were still in England, though, with British town names like Wilton, CT, and Northampton, MA. 

Christmas and New Years: Needless to say, we were beyond thrilled to see Annika and Peach for Christmas. London really knows how to do Christmas, so we had a great time with Christmas Carols at Royal Albert Hall and quaint cottages in the Cotswolds. Though we weren’t sure what to expect, we attended a “Christingle” service on Christmas Eve. A Christingle is an orange wrapped in red tape, decorated with dried fruit or sweets, with a candle on the top 🍊🕯️, which symbolizes the light of Christ bringing hope into the world. The service was more oriented toward kids, but it was still a neat cultural and spiritual experience. We celebrated Christmas “at home”, eating scones, opening our Christmas crackers, and donning our paper hats. Later we went for tea and then walked to Buckingham Palace, where we discovered there were no guards💂. Apparently, they take Christmas Day off. Hmm, seems like an opportunity for a Christmas caper. 🤔

My nephew Daniel and his wife Mya joined us for New Year’s Eve. The six of us had a grand time celebrating together with fondue (a From family tradition), ice skating, and fireworks. It’s hard to beat Big Ben ringing in the New Year and the spectacle of fireworks over the Thames. 

We missed my sister-in-law Anne; she made an unexpected visit to Birmingham, England, over the holidays to see her mum, who passed away a couple days after Anne arrived. We remember Edna fondly.

The Larger Community: Eric and I always intended to volunteer in our Irish community but never made headway with our efforts – partly due to lack of connections and formal structures in our small rural community. For the last six months, I’ve been volunteering remotely with an organization in England called Clean Sheet, which helps people break the cycle of crime, prison, and reoffending. Lots of inspiring untold stories there. It was nice to finally meet my working partner in person.

We are already almost half-way through our time in London and know our next three months will fly by, with visitors and travel already on the books. We head back to Ireland in late April/May to visit our Irish friends and sell our car. While we have things to look forward to here, we feel the gravitational pull west. We’re looking forward to seeing family and friends and being home in San Diego, where my friend Jenny says the weather just has better manners!

We hug you tightly! 

Eric & Sharon

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