TEN.

Yes, I actually live in this beautiful green world!
Early morning sun filtering through ancient trees in a lane just a few minutes' walk from home

 

Today, 4 August 2024, it is ten years since Kevin and I returned to the UK.

Having spent close to two years here in 2008-09, we went back to Australia for a number of reasons, but primarily because we each had an elderly parent whom we wanted to help our siblings support. But in all honesty, as soon as the plane touched down in Sydney I was longing to head straight back to the UK. It took five years before circumstances allowed us to do that.

Kevin insists that when we made the decision to move back to England, we agreed it would be for about five years. My memory of that conversation is that five years was an initial minimum period. 

Anyhoo, here we are, a decade later, with no plans of leaving Blighty anytime soon.

This looks fake, doesn't it?
But no, this is early summer in Wiltshire - lush green grass and fields of rape in startling bloom
(with one of Wiltshire's white horses on the distant hillside)

People here are often agog that I would choose to live in often wet and grey England* rather than in 'sunny' Australia. Of course these are the people who have no concept of the El Niño / La Niña weather patterns, which on Australia's east coast, particularly, can mean month after month of extreme heat with no rain, followed by month after month of rain. And when I say rain, I mean REAL rain - proper deluges, unlike the pitiful drizzle we mostly experience here in the UK. Those uninformed folk also have no real appreciation of how awful it is to suffer through temps in the 30s and 40s for half the year (or more, depending on where you live), rather than just experiencing it for two weeks at an air conditioned resort where the most strenuous activity is crooking one's finger to order another mai-tai by the pool.

* At the time of starting to write this post, Britain has been in the grip of a hot spell, entering our fifth day of temperatures around 30ºC and blazing sunshine all day from 05:30-21:30. Once again I am sitting in a darkened house with the fan positioned about 60cm away.

I've said it many times before, but for those of you new to this blog, I cannot express strongly enough how much I hate, loathe and despise hot weather. Although we've had the occasional summer here when it's been hellishly hot, most years it's a walk in the park compared to life in Australia. We'll get a few days or even a week or two of hot temperatures, and then we're back to civilised temperatures in the 20s. Still warmer than my personal preference, but tolerable for me. And this makes such a difference to my enjoyment of life. 

The gentleness of summer in South West Wales - The Gower Peninsula

Anyway, as regular readers will know, after the massive expense and incredible stress of multiple spouse visa renewals, followed by permanent residency status being granted, I finally became a British citizen back in 2021, right in the middle of Covid. So now I am in the enviable position of being able to choose whether I live in Australia or the UK. I do not take this privilege lightly. I realise I am very fortunate to have the choice.

Instagram post with a screenshot from my virtual citizenship ceremony 
on 8 April 2021

Here's a link to my very first Tunnels of Green post, shortly after we arrived back in Blighty in 2014:

https://tunnelsofgreen.blogspot.com/2014/08/back-in-surrey-at-last.html

Nothing has changed in terms of my enthusiasm for this green and pleasant land. I still regularly look around me and think, with fascinated disbelief, I live here!

And in that moment, all the things that have drawn me to the northern hemisphere since childhood come flooding back. 

It was along these gorgeous, leafy lanes, these ancient woodlands, these green rolling hills that my literary heroes walked. This (mostly) gentle landscape and its folklore are what inspired many of my musical idols. Its great cities with their centuries of history and incredible architecture have seen so many momentous events, helping to shape the history of humankind. Even the ghastly monotony of suburbia, with its endless rows of identical houses, contributed to the frustrated and angry rhetoric of the punk and new wave music that caught my imagination as a teenager. 

Britain's seasons are a glory to behold. The lush, verdant splendour of summer, the gold and scarlet magic of autumn, the invigorating chill of winter, and the absolutely bonkers explosion of growth in spring. And, yes, the rain. I'm still not tired of it.

So it's the beauty as well as the ugliness that stimulate me, the history and the benefits of modern life in a wealthy 'first world' country. I feel so fortunate to be residing here. There's an endless supply of historic buildings, art galleries, gardens and cultural activities to explore. Not to mention the proximity to Europe and especially Norway, of course, making trips to 'exotic' places easy and affordable.

Virginia Woolf's modest yet charming bedroom in her country home,
Monk's House in Rodmell, East Sussex

The Cobb in Lyme Regis, West Dorset.
Jane Austen aficionados will know this was the setting for a crucial event in her novel Persuasion

Ah, London. I have a love/hate relationship with this grand city.
It's dirty, crowded and expensive. But there is soooo much to see!

Just one of the incredible historic houses we've visited in the past ten years
- Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire
(we've been here multiple times)

The Great Parlour, Wightwick Manor (West Midlands).
The house is decorated with William Morris wallpapers and soft furnishings, and is home to 
nearly 200 works by artists associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Right at this moment Britain, like many other countries, is experiencing social unrest from a sadly ignorant and racist sector of the population. In cities across the country, a bunch of misinformed, disgruntled white people are wreaking havoc as they randomly destroy property and cause injury to police who are justifiably trying to keep the peace and protect other people's property. These racist morons want to blame all their woes on asylum seekers and muslims, with this latest spate of violent activity arising from an appalling tragedy where a number of young children were murdered in a frenzied knife attack by a young black man. However he was not an asylum seeker (he was born in Cardiff!), nor is he a muslim. 

Environmentally this nation is in a terrible state, with privatised water companies allowed to give massive profits to their shareholders for decades, all the while failing to maintain and improve infrastructure. The result is that most of Britain's rivers and beaches are unfit for bathing and drinking water in some towns is periodically compromised.

Fourteen years of Conservative Party 'leadership' (*splutter*) has also taken its toll. In their final three years, we suffered scandal after scandal under three different Tory Prime Ministers. However there is a sense of relief that those inept, law-breaking, greedy, corrupt, duplicitous Tories have finally been resolutely ousted in an historic election result that saw the Conservative Party lose 251 parliamentary seats. Labour has inherited a truly dire economic situation and difficult decisions will need to be made; that £22 billion hole in the budget has to be made up somehow. One would hope that their first target will be the tax-dodging multi-billionaires who were best mates with senior Tories, but I'm not so naive as to believe that.

Despite this current state of affairs there does seem to be a moderate sense of optimism. And certainly the UK is not alone in facing the three three significant challenges described above. The world is in a mess.

Looking forward to more of these soon:
A frosty morning here in Frensham - absolute bliss! ♥️ ❄️ 

Australia will always have a strong place in my heart, and who knows whether circumstances will dictate a return there one day. But for now, and the foreseeable future, England - with all its problems, and its pleasures - is home.

Cheers to ten years living in this wonderful country 🥂

Until next time,

- Maree  xo