An English Holiday
An English Holiday
( Short Version of 'Summer Vacation 2001' )
"Am I given to understand," asked the doctor assigned to us by the U.S. Embassy in London, England "that you have no record of immunization with respect to measles, mumps and rubella?"
"That is correct."
"Might I enquire why this is so?"
"You might."
"Well?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I was waiting for the actual query."
I was in the final stages of being granted Permanent Residence in the United States four years after my employment had been transferred to Phoenix from Edmonton. Rather than extending my U.S. work visa every so often it had seemed an easier proposition to apply for a 'green card' allowing my family and me permanent residence south of the 49th parallel.
Of course, applying for U.S. permanent residency meant that a wealth of forms had to be filled out. And anytime a wealth of forms is filled out, human error is likely to step in. Despite my having dual citizenship, the legal firm employed to process my application had studiously ignored my Canadian citizenship in favour of my U.K. citizenship and I was now obliged to attend a residency interview at the U.S. Embassy in London rather than at the U.S. Consulate in Montreal. Unfortunately for me, part of the residency interview required that I present past records of immunization. I had no such records and had now been sent to a local clinic to receive the inoculations.
"Well?"
"Well, my father is a doctor and when I was a small child living in Britain he simply brought his little black bag home on occasion and jabbed me with the necessary. No doubt records of these inoculations exist somewhere, but I do not possess them."
"Employed under the auspices of the NHS, was he?
"I believe so."
"Poor chap."
"Doubtless that is why we emigrated to Canada."
"Unfortunately, without documentation proving you were the recipient of these inoculations, you must receive them now. Otherwise you cannot proceed with your residency interview.
"Will it hurt?"
"Yes."
"I don't like needles. Is there another option?"
"No! Next, please!"
The nurse prepared what seemed to me the largest needles in her inventory.
Feeling much like I had wrestled naked with a hedgehog and lost, I leaned against my wife for support and, with our children in tow, we wandered back to the Embassy.
The rest of the interview process was painless and eventually we were each issued an oversized envelope, stamped officiously in bright colours over every possible seam, and told on no account to open them until we arrived at our stateside port of entry. Now that the official part of our visit to Britain had been dispensed with, we were free to spend the remainder of our time inflicting ourselves upon unsuspecting relatives.
We boarded a train for Colchester at the invitation of my Aunt Norah, who had just returned from sunning herself in Majorca. "Please do come up to Bures," she said, without any notion of what she was in for.
Bures St. Mary is situated directly on the Essex-Suffolk border in East Anglia, with the picturesque River Stour dividing the village neatly between the two counties. Although quite small, Bures has not failed to contribute its share in the annals of British history.
An important wool trading center in bygone years, the village boasts a 13th century church containing the remains of John Constable's aunt, whose name I can't recall. It doesn't matter I suppose, though I've always wondered why people and institutions cling to any thread of fame, no matter how nebulous. Constable's dear departed auntie can't be much of a tourist draw, although I'll readily admit history becomes more alive when one encounters small unexpected details like that.
The church also contains a wonderful 14th century chestnut effigy of a crusading knight, purportedly that of Sir Richard de Cornard. This is one of only two remaining wooden medieval effigies in Suffolk. Sadly, during a mid-17th century Puritanical tirade aimed at protecting the residents of Bures from the liberal excesses of Roman Catholicism, Cromwell's New Model Army hacked up the effigy with their swords.
Today the vandalism continues unabated, though in more modern form. Not long before we arrived, local hoodlums broke into the church, damaging part of it in the process, and guzzled the sacristal wine. Vandals really should learn to appreciate the history around them instead of acting like Philistines. Personally, I coveted the effigy and would liked very much to have transported it safely home with me, propped it up in the corner and used it as a drinks trolley.
Norah's was a splendid little cottage with a wonderful garden in the back, the centerpiece of which was a splashy frond-covered pool containing an elusive frog. "We want to see the FROG!!!" was Norah's introduction to the children. I considered trotting down to the church and praying fervently to the Almighty on repentant knees to please, if You never do anything for me ever again, produce the damn frog!
Each morning I would arise early to take a walk in the crisp English country air. There is nothing so peaceful as an English country lane shortly after sunrise. Morning dew covered everything in a damp blanket and traced with heavy wet beads spiders' webs woven overnight on fences. Moles scurried about and one could find traces of their nocturnal activities in the little mounds of earth they left behind. I recognized from my childhood in nearby Norfolk much of the flora and in fond remembrance of that time plucked chestnuts from a tree in order to teach the children the game of conkers.
I plucked a sprig of holly too, skewering my thumb rather painfully in the process, and thought I remembered that the orange coloured berries growing on a particular sort of bush were edible. Later on Norah said that was correct and that they were commonly called bread and cheese berries. That was what they tasted like. One morning I hurriedly remembered that doc leaves grow next to stinging nettles and provide an opportunistic antedote to a pain I hadn't encountered in nearly thirty years.
At the end of my morning walk, I'd wander into a local shop and buy a newspaper and some milk or bread for the children. As this was a small village where everyone knows everyone else, the proprietress seemed inquisitive about my repeated presence, but held her tongue and everything was perfect in the world. With the residency interview over, all anxieties had worn off. There is a lot to be said for doing nothing at all.
During the day Norah would take us on outings in her car. We went to the seaside at the Edwardian town of Frinton and spent a lovely afternoon collecting shells on the beach. Another day we spent wandering the streets of Lavenham. With justification, Lavenham may be said to be the finest surviving example of an English medieval town and ownership of one of the haphazard timber-framed houses there is much sought after.
Norah also took us to Colchester Castle, which William the Conqueror built as the East Anglian counterpart to the White Tower in the Tower of London. Now a museum, inside the castle the exhibits were extensive and ranged from the historic to the macabre. There were Egyptian mummies donated by a local family, early human cremations still in their clay jars, stone and Bronze Age tools and weapons and even a charred piece of the wall that had failed to protect Colchester when Queen Boadicea of the Iceni sacked the town in A.D. 60. Boadicea had done so in retaliation for the murder of her husband and subsequent rape of her daughters by Suetonius' 9th Legion.
Virtually all the exhibits were clearly marked and the attached notices explained a little bit about each one. My personal favourites were two skulls and a severed forearm from Boadicea's sacking of the town, in which it is estimated 30,000 people perished.
During the day when we weren't out exploring, the children played in a playground at the local school. They met some new friends fairly quickly and it was interesting to notice Victoria exhibiting some early Boadicea-like tendencies. She approached a girl about nine years of age who was whizzing back and forth quite contentedly on a swing and ordered her off. "You go on my swing. I want yours," she said in unmistakable military overtones. The girl, five years her senior, complied without question.
Christopher, on the other hand, was more introspect and spent a good deal of time patiently answering questions about America. After I caught a frog hopping through the undergrowth on the edge of the playground, he and some of the children vanished through a hedge into someone's back garden and put the frog into a decorative pond. While I couldn't actually see him through the hedge, I knew he was perfectly safe. I could hear him lecturing knowledgeably about reptiles and amphibians to be found in the Sonoran Desert.
On the way back to Norah's we caught another frog and kept it to put into the pond there. Her frog, it seemed, had chosen new living quarters as it hadn't so much as croaked since our arrival. However, at the 11th hour it at last put in an appearance. There it was on the edge of a lilypad, staring with cruel amphibian eyes at the new and prospective interloper. I hoped the two frogs would get along better than did Christopher and Victoria when sharing a bath at home. Norah said the larger frog might engage the new arrival in territorial combat. I said that was about right and reiterated my hopes.
My own remaining time in East Anglia was spent comfortably sprawled on Norah's sofa reading Sassoon's Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man. I envied Georgie's life of riding to hounds, despite some reservations regarding that sport and my decided lack of motivation to pursue any past-time that involved horses.
Our last morning in Bures was the day I attempted to prove the veracity of Aaron Hill's rhyme; "Tender handed stroke a nettle and it stings you for your pains. Grasp it like a man of mettle and it soft as silk remains." Aaron Hill was an unmitigated liar.
And so it was with some truculence I entered the shop to buy my morning paper. The proprietress was in fine form and bade me a good morning as I crouched among the aisles seeking some pain-relief medication more effective than doc leaves. While I found nothing for my efforts other than a bottle of Tylenol - utterly useless for nettle stings - another woman tiptoed into the shop and with a furtive glance in my direction whispered sotto voce to the proprietress. "Is that one of the Americans staying in the village?"
I cringed. Every time I come to Britain, because of my accent I am often asked if I am American. And while this is an innocuous question - most people are simply curious or just wish to strike up a conversation - the answer usually invites further explanation, which I find rather tiresome.
To be untruthful and say 'Yes, we are American' has the effect of enlivening the inquisitor, much like an unsatisfactory answer did Torquemada during a dull moment. A tortuous series of questions about America usually follows. An answer of 'No, we're Canadian, but we live in Phoenix.' results in much the same thing, with an additional request for clarification on why it is we live in the United States if we're Canadian. Sometimes, when pressed, I respond with an answer, which subjects the curious to such unexpected detail on my origins as to leave them speechless. With a bit of luck anyway.
"I don't know if he's American or not," whispered the proprietress in reply.
"Go on. Ask him then," said the customer. "Be nosy for once in your life."
"You ask him."
"No, you ask him."
"No, you!"
I was beginning to feel like Darryl van Horne in the Witches of Eastwick.
"You ask him. It's your shop."
I emerged from behind a food rack and approached the counter with my paper. Both ladies were smiling sweetly. I smiled back.
"50p please," said the proprietress. I handed over the cash and beetled straight for the door. I didn't make it.
"We were wondering...," said the proprietress, after further urging from her friend, "Are you by any chance American? We heard there was an American family staying in Bures and, well, are you of that family?"
I stopped still for a moment and then slowly and deliberately turned to face them both. They were beaming from ear to ear.
I beamed back. "That's a question I'm asked quite a lot," I said. "I never quite know how to answer. Perhaps you could help. I was born in England of an Irish mother and a Scottish father and lived shortly thereafter in the Outer Hebrides where I began to speak Gaelic. Next I lived on the Scottish mainland just north of Inverness until I moved to Norfolk, which, as you know, is the next county over. From there I emigrated to Canada where I met my Guatemalan sweetheart, had two Canadian children and, feeling the frost a bit too much, picked up sticks for Phoenix, Arizona, USA where I now reside in the broiling heat. Currently I am in Bures visiting my aunt."
The proprietress exhibited all the symptoms of being stunned with a hammer. As I departed whistling "Happy Days Are Here Again" I heard her customer say: "See! That's what you get for being nosy!"
All too soon our holiday ended and we found ourselves en route for Chicago, where we were to de-plane and present our Embassy-issued multi-coloured envelopes. My wife and children blubbed halfway to Greenland after saying goodbye to Norah, whom we couldn't possibly thank enough for having us to stay. I too was saddened and in an effort to cheer up, I purchased from duty-free 6 kilos of Jelly Babies and a very good bottle of Scotch.
We were stamped through customs and immigration in Chicago in good time and were officially granted permanent residency in the United States of America. After re-boarding for Phoenix we arrived home quite late only to discover that in our absence my prize hibiscus had died through lack of water and was lying prostrate on the front porch. Our automatic Rain Dial had reached the end of its warranty life and in accordance with computerized instructions from the manufacturer had given up the ghost two days after our departure. The next day we dug up the hibiscus and instead planted some roses obtained from a local botanical garden. Like the roses, we too were beginning a new life in full bloom.
( Short Version of 'Summer Vacation 2001' )
"Am I given to understand," asked the doctor assigned to us by the U.S. Embassy in London, England "that you have no record of immunization with respect to measles, mumps and rubella?"
"That is correct."
"Might I enquire why this is so?"
"You might."
"Well?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I was waiting for the actual query."
I was in the final stages of being granted Permanent Residence in the United States four years after my employment had been transferred to Phoenix from Edmonton. Rather than extending my U.S. work visa every so often it had seemed an easier proposition to apply for a 'green card' allowing my family and me permanent residence south of the 49th parallel.
Of course, applying for U.S. permanent residency meant that a wealth of forms had to be filled out. And anytime a wealth of forms is filled out, human error is likely to step in. Despite my having dual citizenship, the legal firm employed to process my application had studiously ignored my Canadian citizenship in favour of my U.K. citizenship and I was now obliged to attend a residency interview at the U.S. Embassy in London rather than at the U.S. Consulate in Montreal. Unfortunately for me, part of the residency interview required that I present past records of immunization. I had no such records and had now been sent to a local clinic to receive the inoculations.
"Well?"
"Well, my father is a doctor and when I was a small child living in Britain he simply brought his little black bag home on occasion and jabbed me with the necessary. No doubt records of these inoculations exist somewhere, but I do not possess them."
"Employed under the auspices of the NHS, was he?
"I believe so."
"Poor chap."
"Doubtless that is why we emigrated to Canada."
"Unfortunately, without documentation proving you were the recipient of these inoculations, you must receive them now. Otherwise you cannot proceed with your residency interview.
"Will it hurt?"
"Yes."
"I don't like needles. Is there another option?"
"No! Next, please!"
The nurse prepared what seemed to me the largest needles in her inventory.
Feeling much like I had wrestled naked with a hedgehog and lost, I leaned against my wife for support and, with our children in tow, we wandered back to the Embassy.
The rest of the interview process was painless and eventually we were each issued an oversized envelope, stamped officiously in bright colours over every possible seam, and told on no account to open them until we arrived at our stateside port of entry. Now that the official part of our visit to Britain had been dispensed with, we were free to spend the remainder of our time inflicting ourselves upon unsuspecting relatives.
We boarded a train for Colchester at the invitation of my Aunt Norah, who had just returned from sunning herself in Majorca. "Please do come up to Bures," she said, without any notion of what she was in for.
Bures St. Mary is situated directly on the Essex-Suffolk border in East Anglia, with the picturesque River Stour dividing the village neatly between the two counties. Although quite small, Bures has not failed to contribute its share in the annals of British history.
An important wool trading center in bygone years, the village boasts a 13th century church containing the remains of John Constable's aunt, whose name I can't recall. It doesn't matter I suppose, though I've always wondered why people and institutions cling to any thread of fame, no matter how nebulous. Constable's dear departed auntie can't be much of a tourist draw, although I'll readily admit history becomes more alive when one encounters small unexpected details like that.
The church also contains a wonderful 14th century chestnut effigy of a crusading knight, purportedly that of Sir Richard de Cornard. This is one of only two remaining wooden medieval effigies in Suffolk. Sadly, during a mid-17th century Puritanical tirade aimed at protecting the residents of Bures from the liberal excesses of Roman Catholicism, Cromwell's New Model Army hacked up the effigy with their swords.
Today the vandalism continues unabated, though in more modern form. Not long before we arrived, local hoodlums broke into the church, damaging part of it in the process, and guzzled the sacristal wine. Vandals really should learn to appreciate the history around them instead of acting like Philistines. Personally, I coveted the effigy and would liked very much to have transported it safely home with me, propped it up in the corner and used it as a drinks trolley.
Norah's was a splendid little cottage with a wonderful garden in the back, the centerpiece of which was a splashy frond-covered pool containing an elusive frog. "We want to see the FROG!!!" was Norah's introduction to the children. I considered trotting down to the church and praying fervently to the Almighty on repentant knees to please, if You never do anything for me ever again, produce the damn frog!
Each morning I would arise early to take a walk in the crisp English country air. There is nothing so peaceful as an English country lane shortly after sunrise. Morning dew covered everything in a damp blanket and traced with heavy wet beads spiders' webs woven overnight on fences. Moles scurried about and one could find traces of their nocturnal activities in the little mounds of earth they left behind. I recognized from my childhood in nearby Norfolk much of the flora and in fond remembrance of that time plucked chestnuts from a tree in order to teach the children the game of conkers.
I plucked a sprig of holly too, skewering my thumb rather painfully in the process, and thought I remembered that the orange coloured berries growing on a particular sort of bush were edible. Later on Norah said that was correct and that they were commonly called bread and cheese berries. That was what they tasted like. One morning I hurriedly remembered that doc leaves grow next to stinging nettles and provide an opportunistic antedote to a pain I hadn't encountered in nearly thirty years.
At the end of my morning walk, I'd wander into a local shop and buy a newspaper and some milk or bread for the children. As this was a small village where everyone knows everyone else, the proprietress seemed inquisitive about my repeated presence, but held her tongue and everything was perfect in the world. With the residency interview over, all anxieties had worn off. There is a lot to be said for doing nothing at all.
During the day Norah would take us on outings in her car. We went to the seaside at the Edwardian town of Frinton and spent a lovely afternoon collecting shells on the beach. Another day we spent wandering the streets of Lavenham. With justification, Lavenham may be said to be the finest surviving example of an English medieval town and ownership of one of the haphazard timber-framed houses there is much sought after.
Norah also took us to Colchester Castle, which William the Conqueror built as the East Anglian counterpart to the White Tower in the Tower of London. Now a museum, inside the castle the exhibits were extensive and ranged from the historic to the macabre. There were Egyptian mummies donated by a local family, early human cremations still in their clay jars, stone and Bronze Age tools and weapons and even a charred piece of the wall that had failed to protect Colchester when Queen Boadicea of the Iceni sacked the town in A.D. 60. Boadicea had done so in retaliation for the murder of her husband and subsequent rape of her daughters by Suetonius' 9th Legion.
Virtually all the exhibits were clearly marked and the attached notices explained a little bit about each one. My personal favourites were two skulls and a severed forearm from Boadicea's sacking of the town, in which it is estimated 30,000 people perished.
During the day when we weren't out exploring, the children played in a playground at the local school. They met some new friends fairly quickly and it was interesting to notice Victoria exhibiting some early Boadicea-like tendencies. She approached a girl about nine years of age who was whizzing back and forth quite contentedly on a swing and ordered her off. "You go on my swing. I want yours," she said in unmistakable military overtones. The girl, five years her senior, complied without question.
Christopher, on the other hand, was more introspect and spent a good deal of time patiently answering questions about America. After I caught a frog hopping through the undergrowth on the edge of the playground, he and some of the children vanished through a hedge into someone's back garden and put the frog into a decorative pond. While I couldn't actually see him through the hedge, I knew he was perfectly safe. I could hear him lecturing knowledgeably about reptiles and amphibians to be found in the Sonoran Desert.
On the way back to Norah's we caught another frog and kept it to put into the pond there. Her frog, it seemed, had chosen new living quarters as it hadn't so much as croaked since our arrival. However, at the 11th hour it at last put in an appearance. There it was on the edge of a lilypad, staring with cruel amphibian eyes at the new and prospective interloper. I hoped the two frogs would get along better than did Christopher and Victoria when sharing a bath at home. Norah said the larger frog might engage the new arrival in territorial combat. I said that was about right and reiterated my hopes.
My own remaining time in East Anglia was spent comfortably sprawled on Norah's sofa reading Sassoon's Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man. I envied Georgie's life of riding to hounds, despite some reservations regarding that sport and my decided lack of motivation to pursue any past-time that involved horses.
Our last morning in Bures was the day I attempted to prove the veracity of Aaron Hill's rhyme; "Tender handed stroke a nettle and it stings you for your pains. Grasp it like a man of mettle and it soft as silk remains." Aaron Hill was an unmitigated liar.
And so it was with some truculence I entered the shop to buy my morning paper. The proprietress was in fine form and bade me a good morning as I crouched among the aisles seeking some pain-relief medication more effective than doc leaves. While I found nothing for my efforts other than a bottle of Tylenol - utterly useless for nettle stings - another woman tiptoed into the shop and with a furtive glance in my direction whispered sotto voce to the proprietress. "Is that one of the Americans staying in the village?"
I cringed. Every time I come to Britain, because of my accent I am often asked if I am American. And while this is an innocuous question - most people are simply curious or just wish to strike up a conversation - the answer usually invites further explanation, which I find rather tiresome.
To be untruthful and say 'Yes, we are American' has the effect of enlivening the inquisitor, much like an unsatisfactory answer did Torquemada during a dull moment. A tortuous series of questions about America usually follows. An answer of 'No, we're Canadian, but we live in Phoenix.' results in much the same thing, with an additional request for clarification on why it is we live in the United States if we're Canadian. Sometimes, when pressed, I respond with an answer, which subjects the curious to such unexpected detail on my origins as to leave them speechless. With a bit of luck anyway.
"I don't know if he's American or not," whispered the proprietress in reply.
"Go on. Ask him then," said the customer. "Be nosy for once in your life."
"You ask him."
"No, you ask him."
"No, you!"
I was beginning to feel like Darryl van Horne in the Witches of Eastwick.
"You ask him. It's your shop."
I emerged from behind a food rack and approached the counter with my paper. Both ladies were smiling sweetly. I smiled back.
"50p please," said the proprietress. I handed over the cash and beetled straight for the door. I didn't make it.
"We were wondering...," said the proprietress, after further urging from her friend, "Are you by any chance American? We heard there was an American family staying in Bures and, well, are you of that family?"
I stopped still for a moment and then slowly and deliberately turned to face them both. They were beaming from ear to ear.
I beamed back. "That's a question I'm asked quite a lot," I said. "I never quite know how to answer. Perhaps you could help. I was born in England of an Irish mother and a Scottish father and lived shortly thereafter in the Outer Hebrides where I began to speak Gaelic. Next I lived on the Scottish mainland just north of Inverness until I moved to Norfolk, which, as you know, is the next county over. From there I emigrated to Canada where I met my Guatemalan sweetheart, had two Canadian children and, feeling the frost a bit too much, picked up sticks for Phoenix, Arizona, USA where I now reside in the broiling heat. Currently I am in Bures visiting my aunt."
The proprietress exhibited all the symptoms of being stunned with a hammer. As I departed whistling "Happy Days Are Here Again" I heard her customer say: "See! That's what you get for being nosy!"
All too soon our holiday ended and we found ourselves en route for Chicago, where we were to de-plane and present our Embassy-issued multi-coloured envelopes. My wife and children blubbed halfway to Greenland after saying goodbye to Norah, whom we couldn't possibly thank enough for having us to stay. I too was saddened and in an effort to cheer up, I purchased from duty-free 6 kilos of Jelly Babies and a very good bottle of Scotch.
We were stamped through customs and immigration in Chicago in good time and were officially granted permanent residency in the United States of America. After re-boarding for Phoenix we arrived home quite late only to discover that in our absence my prize hibiscus had died through lack of water and was lying prostrate on the front porch. Our automatic Rain Dial had reached the end of its warranty life and in accordance with computerized instructions from the manufacturer had given up the ghost two days after our departure. The next day we dug up the hibiscus and instead planted some roses obtained from a local botanical garden. Like the roses, we too were beginning a new life in full bloom.
posted by alex malcolm at 1:41 pm
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