So, Long Time…No Blog…

Not only did we not continue to update our theses progress (or, in my case, not even start), but we seem to have just deserted you, forcing you to actually read productively, catch up on current events, and possibly even flip through an actual book.  I’d like to say we had good reason to completely abandon this project, but that would only be partially true. Partial because we really only had about two or three months of good reasons to be away, not four. My bad.

What was so pressing as to take us away those first few months? Well just the completion of two theses, another move across the Atlantic, many welcome-home-type events, this little wedding thing, a honeymoon, more packing and more moving which all resulted in an eventual squatting phase, where I continue to find myself to this day. Again, or partially squatting as Kevin is actually contributing to society through a nine to five. Those of us not particularly contributing in the same way, which of course includes Clovis the cat, languish at the Lake House surrounded by the beauty of nature and an increasing itch to fulfill something, or accomplish something, or make something of something, ect.

One way to accomplish such goals, if only in the short term, include firing this puppy back up and rounding out our time in England. So, it was 2010, it was summer. Hit with limited funds and the annoying obligation to complete a thesis, our traveling took a heavy hit. Well, a hit in my book, meaning that we did not “get off the rock” (my expression for leaving Great Britain) and instead soaked up as much cold and grey summer as we could in the good old GB before moving back to America. Actually, playing around in some of England’s best destinations was no joke and a fantastic excuse to clock some more train hours before returning to the land of awful public transportation. And after a year living in England, that’s really saying something.

But I digress, let’s focus our attention on what I call the lost summer. Lost because it was not actually summer but some early Spring/late Autumn monstrosity, complete with the need to wear warm gloves in August in order to fetch milk down the street. In our current cold spell my desire to find some hole in the ozone somewhere while burning my toes in the sand has only increased. During the lost summer we traveled to Stratford-Upon-Avon, Durham, Heathersage, London, Oxford, Bath, and Brighton. Kevin also went on a testosterone-fest-weekend to Whitby. We experienced the World Cup, England-style, discovered new parks in and around our neighborhood of Crookes, and took a final train ride to Coinsbrough Castle to visit Kevin’s thesis site. We wavered between being tired of England and being nostalgic. Missing home but not wanting to leave the new home we had made. Personally I miss the crazy, drunk man who sang sweet songs, I liked to think just to me, across the street from my window, next to the bus stop.

I’ll work to fill the gaps in our travelogue, sift through my thoughts and feeling towards our time abroad, and deal a bit with my reverse culture shock (seriously America, what is Bridalplasty?! And I’m OK I that I STILL have no idea who Justin Bieber is.) But bear with me, I’m a bit rusty.