All good things must come to an end. I know that when we first got our cats, we had the joking conversation about who would take them to the vet at the end, but I don't think we ever truly thought about the reality of either cat dying. In some respects, that makes sense as it feels morbid to do so, but in others, it's also a bit silly as their life expectancy is so much shorter than ours.
So it feels like more of a shock than it should do that we had to have Pollo put to sleep this morning. He had managed to develop two conflicting diseases in different parts of his body which required treatments that would counteract each other. The vet gave him less than a week, so while it feels like an awful decision to make, I now understand better what it means when people say "put them out of their misery". Pollo deteriorated so quickly this week to the point where he couldn't really move or be comfortable, so I feel that, given the inevitable, we made things a little easier for him.
In a way, the death of Hayden, my wife's beloved family dog, just after we arrived in the US has made talking about Pollo with Jake easier. We've decided to discuss the idea of heaven with him, so when we found out on Tuesday that we were going to put him down, we told Jake that Pollo was going to join Hayden in heaven. Jake burst into tears and we cuddled a lot and talked about how much we love our pets. Jake worked out something was up this morning when he found out that his grandparents were taking him and Sophie to daycare, and asked if Pollo was going to heaven today. When we nodded, eyes full of tears, he leaned to give him a pat and a kiss and told him he would miss him. I'm sure we'll discuss Pollo more over the coming days with Jake and how it's important to keep our memories of him alive by talking about him more.
Pollo didn't look great towards the end, and that's not really how I want to remember him, because the skinny emaciated cat he became is not what my memory says he was. Even the idea of him being the states conflicts with this memory, which is of him, fat and chubby, on the windowsill in our house in Leeds next to the tumbler dryer, gently snoring behind the curtains. That's the picture I will always have of him in my mind (and indeed that multiple people have sent me when we told them the news!).
So here's to Pollo, thus named because when he first arrived in our house, he hid under everything for the first week like a big chicken. The name also comes from playing "hunt the cat" around the house, where we felt like we were playing Marco Polo with him, calling out to him and hearing him respond in his traditional yowl.
Here's to Pollo who gave us a heart attack on the first day we got him by hiding in our kitchen for 24 hours. We honestly couldn't work out if we had actually got two cats, or if one had some escape despite our best efforts to keep all doors shut. Eventually, my wife found him nestled in a notch in between the top of the fridge and the built in cabinets. I still don't know how he found that space comfortable, or how my wife's hearing managed to work out this unusual hiding spot.
Here's to Pollo who lived in permanent optimism of getting wet food. Anytime that we opened a can of kidney beans, he would come running and meowing and wouldn't stop until you let him sniff it and realise that it wasn't cat food. It was actually one thing that tipped us off that the end was near when we tried to feed him a pouch of wet food and he didn't touch it. He never quite realised that giving him wet food was always our way of getting him to take his meds as he always lick the bowl clean.
Here's to Pollo who took comfort everywhere, and had a special penchant for lying on scrunched up newspaper. Don't ask me how, but he always made it look like a memory foam mattress. He would also fall asleep leaning on things, and my friend Vicky sent me the most wonderful picture of him sleeping on the windowsill (of course!) and smushing his face into her handbag. I'm pretty sure that his head would have stayed that way had we removed it.
Here's to Pollo who will always stay in our family's memory as Sophie's first "word" (She would scream the word KITTAH whenever she saw him) Right from the word go, she has always been obsessed with him, and slowly over time he has got used to her and allowed her to practise "gentle hands" on him. There's a lot of cute pictures of her staring lovingly at him, with Pollo staring back in a "oh just get on with it" kind of look on his face.
Here's to Pollo, half of our first fur babies. He became an integral part of our life in Leeds and everyone recognised his yowl (earning him the nickname Yowlsey). Pollo even changed how people used our house, after he pulled Matt's coat off the radiator and peed on it, which forced us to buy coat hooks to put everything out of his reach. Our phones were filled with photos of him and his sister and to say that he will be missed is a massive understatement.
So here's to Pollo, gone but not forgotten.
Thursday, 26 January 2017
Sunday, 22 January 2017
Football (not soccer!)
I don't think any blog about America from a foreigner's point of view would be complete without at least one post on sports. I've long been a baseball fan and always looked forward to spending a few weeks each summer watching the Red Sox play just about every evening. It was a treat this year to follow them from start to uneventful finish and get to know the players (and even get to a couple of games!).
However, I wanted to write about football (and for the duration of this post I mean what in my head I still call American football, rather soccer which is what I normally mean when I say football). It's hard to avoid given that the season starts around the start of the school year, and just about every boy in my class is a massive fan. Living in New Hampshire means that there's no towns big enough to have their own pro sports team, so you'll find most of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine all support (or pull for as the Americans say) the Boston/New England teams. This means that I've become immersed in the New England Patriots, and can now proudly name more players than just Tom Brady, the quarterback.
Just on that note; there are a couple of kids who support different teams through their dads (one Green Bay, one Philadelphia) and it does make me wonder what Jake and Sophie will do about non-US sports teams (Soccer. Mainly soccer). Will they find their own way and end up cheering for some Premier League side that they see on TV or follow me with my hopeless following of Luton Town (currently struggling in League 2 after many years in the non-league wilderness). It's a sadness that we'll end up going back to the UK over the summer most years when there's no soccer worthy of the name, so the kids' first experience is likely to be the MLS, and I'm not sure it'll be the same without pies and Bovril...
Anyway, back to the Patriots. Up until this year, I usually caught one game over the Christmas period when we visited, and I still had my soccer superiority head on, full of stereotypes about too much padding, simplistic game play and too many commercials. This season, I've sat and watched a couple of regular season games and now both post season games (Super Bowl is next!) and the more I watch, the more I'm beginning to enjoy myself. My brother-in-law, who is incredibly knowledgable about all things sport, has been coaching me a little and made the analogy between football and a chess game, where everything is planned out and you're trying to read your opponents to gain an advantage. When you watch the game through that lens, it becomes incredibly tactical. The big blokes pushing each other around suddenly have multiple purposes and the padding is there to protect the necessarily hard tackles that stop a runner and push them back vital yards. You realise that the long touchdown passes of the highlight reels are rare and that the scores are usually made up of much smaller runs and passes.
I'm not sure how long it will take me to get to the same level of interest and understanding that I have about soccer and the Premier League, but it's been an education in sport and a revelation to finally get what all the fuss has been all about. Whether the Patriots win or lose the Super Bowl (or Superb Owl as my friend Linz refers to it), I'll be watching and learning, getting ready for next season.
However, I wanted to write about football (and for the duration of this post I mean what in my head I still call American football, rather soccer which is what I normally mean when I say football). It's hard to avoid given that the season starts around the start of the school year, and just about every boy in my class is a massive fan. Living in New Hampshire means that there's no towns big enough to have their own pro sports team, so you'll find most of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine all support (or pull for as the Americans say) the Boston/New England teams. This means that I've become immersed in the New England Patriots, and can now proudly name more players than just Tom Brady, the quarterback.
Just on that note; there are a couple of kids who support different teams through their dads (one Green Bay, one Philadelphia) and it does make me wonder what Jake and Sophie will do about non-US sports teams (Soccer. Mainly soccer). Will they find their own way and end up cheering for some Premier League side that they see on TV or follow me with my hopeless following of Luton Town (currently struggling in League 2 after many years in the non-league wilderness). It's a sadness that we'll end up going back to the UK over the summer most years when there's no soccer worthy of the name, so the kids' first experience is likely to be the MLS, and I'm not sure it'll be the same without pies and Bovril...
Anyway, back to the Patriots. Up until this year, I usually caught one game over the Christmas period when we visited, and I still had my soccer superiority head on, full of stereotypes about too much padding, simplistic game play and too many commercials. This season, I've sat and watched a couple of regular season games and now both post season games (Super Bowl is next!) and the more I watch, the more I'm beginning to enjoy myself. My brother-in-law, who is incredibly knowledgable about all things sport, has been coaching me a little and made the analogy between football and a chess game, where everything is planned out and you're trying to read your opponents to gain an advantage. When you watch the game through that lens, it becomes incredibly tactical. The big blokes pushing each other around suddenly have multiple purposes and the padding is there to protect the necessarily hard tackles that stop a runner and push them back vital yards. You realise that the long touchdown passes of the highlight reels are rare and that the scores are usually made up of much smaller runs and passes.
I'm not sure how long it will take me to get to the same level of interest and understanding that I have about soccer and the Premier League, but it's been an education in sport and a revelation to finally get what all the fuss has been all about. Whether the Patriots win or lose the Super Bowl (or Superb Owl as my friend Linz refers to it), I'll be watching and learning, getting ready for next season.
Friday, 6 January 2017
Happy Holidays
This post has been on the back burner for a few days now. I had intended to write it during winter break (not Christmas holidays!), but with our whirlwind trip to Toronto and our first family American Christmas and the start of the new school term, time seems to run away from me quickly! However, I wanted to record some thoughts of my first festive season as a US resident.
The war on Christmas
The first interesting thing that you find over here is that despite the majority of people celebrating Christmas, the number of people around here who will wish you Merry Christmas is minimal, with everyone going for the safer and more PC Happy Holidays. Personally, I like Happy Holidays (even though Americans call it a vacation?), but at the same time I can't see how wishing someone who doesn't celebrate Christmas to have a Merry Christmas is going to cause them mental pain; a bit of social awkwardness perhaps, but they're unlikely to slap you or burst into tears. The interesting part is when people use Happy Holidays as a way of making a point, either in sarcasm to show their disdain for being PC, or to show off how PC they can be. In either case, it's interesting to watch and listen to the conversations in not-very-diverse New Hampshire compared to the blanket Merry Christmas in slightly-more-multi-cultural Yorkshire.
Christmas in school
The US believes heartily in the separation of church and state, whilst the UK has no such restrictions. However, I find it interesting again that issues that are only issues because of religious teachings, such as gay marriage, contraception and abortion, are way more contentious over here and are battleground subjects during election campaigns. It also highlights that for all the problems I have with UK politics, the US remains a much more conservative country in a lot of matters (though 2 of 3 states that border New Hampshire have legalized marijuana...).
I digress a little from my original thought process. In my school, there was no Christmas mentioned, only holidays and winter. All the decorations were snow men, Christmas lights and snowflakes. Some classes had twinkly lights up, and my next door neighbors had a Christmas tree, but it was interesting to see everyone very cautiously not talking about Christmas. It made my approach of not discussing Christmas less obvious, and I think it makes it easier for those kids for whom the vacation isn't the most wonderful time of the year.
Proper Adulting
My wife and I often joke about how sometimes we look at each other and realise that we're becoming real adults (someone on the internet talked about it as "adulting" and the phrase stuck with us!). The first time was when someone offered us a six figure mortgage, another was when we found out that we were pregnant each time and a more recent example when we bought a car based on how safe it was and how much storage space it had in it. This year, we reached a new pinnacle on Christmas morning as it was the first time that we had spent it away from either of our sets of parents in our lives. The vicarious excitement of the morning through Jake and Sophie was delightful, as was setting up our own traditions. We still went round to my in-laws in the morning and did the rest of the day as we had done previously, but it felt like another big step of ingraining our lives over here to have our first ever Forbes Wolfson family Christmas by ourselves.
Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree
Our house is big. I still get surprised by it every now and again, like when I'm turning the place upside down to look for a Christmas present that Sophie has somehow squirreled away somewhere very safe. However, I've found a way to reduce the size a bit, and that's to buy an enormous tree. I was sent with a brief to not come back with a Charlie Brown tree, and I definitely didn't! This thing is huge, probably somewhere around 11 feet tall, and about 8 feet in diameter at the base. It looks sparsely decorated in places, even with 10 years worth of decorations, lovingly imported from the UK, hanging all over the place. It's become a comforting presence in the house, and I will miss it when it's gone.
Epiphany is tomorrow, which means we really need to take it down and undecorate it, as Jake says. I'm not sure how he'll feel about that, and I'm also not sure where we put the tree! There's around a foot of snow still in our yard which is likely to be added to in the coming days, and I don't relish trying to drag it out into the woods. Maybe I need to bust out my hacksaw and cut it into smaller bits, but I'm not sure how Jake will feel about that either! In either case, I think it's been a great experiment this year, but we'll go for something a little smaller and more manageable next year.
Lighting the House
One of my favorite things about the festive festive season over here is the way that just about everyone decorates their houses with lights. The sparsely populated roads and lack of light pollution in the sky means that even the smallest set of lights "pops" out as you drive along, and there are some houses that cover themselves top to tail in lights, including lit up moving reindeer in the yard and twinkling candles in every window.
I decided that I wanted to copy this design, and quickly found out how hard/expensive this can be! The first thing that you need is miles of electrical cables. I drastically underestimated how far the trees are from my house (combined with the insistence of labelling everything in feet...I don't have an accurate mental image of 40 feet yet!), so had to go back twice to get more cables. I also found that it is massively time consuming to string lights around a tree in a way that looks pretty in the dark. In the end, I settled on a net version that doesn't look great if you look at it too long, but does the job in passing. I also strung twinkle lights on the awning the garage, and that is my favorite part of the final look. It makes the house look cosy and inviting, and those electric candles that haven't been moved/stolen by Sophie just add to that inviting look. The reflection off freshly fallen snow definitely helps the romantic look, as does the knowledge of the warmth and family that await within.
The war on Christmas
The first interesting thing that you find over here is that despite the majority of people celebrating Christmas, the number of people around here who will wish you Merry Christmas is minimal, with everyone going for the safer and more PC Happy Holidays. Personally, I like Happy Holidays (even though Americans call it a vacation?), but at the same time I can't see how wishing someone who doesn't celebrate Christmas to have a Merry Christmas is going to cause them mental pain; a bit of social awkwardness perhaps, but they're unlikely to slap you or burst into tears. The interesting part is when people use Happy Holidays as a way of making a point, either in sarcasm to show their disdain for being PC, or to show off how PC they can be. In either case, it's interesting to watch and listen to the conversations in not-very-diverse New Hampshire compared to the blanket Merry Christmas in slightly-more-multi-cultural Yorkshire.
Christmas in school
The US believes heartily in the separation of church and state, whilst the UK has no such restrictions. However, I find it interesting again that issues that are only issues because of religious teachings, such as gay marriage, contraception and abortion, are way more contentious over here and are battleground subjects during election campaigns. It also highlights that for all the problems I have with UK politics, the US remains a much more conservative country in a lot of matters (though 2 of 3 states that border New Hampshire have legalized marijuana...).
I digress a little from my original thought process. In my school, there was no Christmas mentioned, only holidays and winter. All the decorations were snow men, Christmas lights and snowflakes. Some classes had twinkly lights up, and my next door neighbors had a Christmas tree, but it was interesting to see everyone very cautiously not talking about Christmas. It made my approach of not discussing Christmas less obvious, and I think it makes it easier for those kids for whom the vacation isn't the most wonderful time of the year.
Proper Adulting
My wife and I often joke about how sometimes we look at each other and realise that we're becoming real adults (someone on the internet talked about it as "adulting" and the phrase stuck with us!). The first time was when someone offered us a six figure mortgage, another was when we found out that we were pregnant each time and a more recent example when we bought a car based on how safe it was and how much storage space it had in it. This year, we reached a new pinnacle on Christmas morning as it was the first time that we had spent it away from either of our sets of parents in our lives. The vicarious excitement of the morning through Jake and Sophie was delightful, as was setting up our own traditions. We still went round to my in-laws in the morning and did the rest of the day as we had done previously, but it felt like another big step of ingraining our lives over here to have our first ever Forbes Wolfson family Christmas by ourselves.
Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree
Our house is big. I still get surprised by it every now and again, like when I'm turning the place upside down to look for a Christmas present that Sophie has somehow squirreled away somewhere very safe. However, I've found a way to reduce the size a bit, and that's to buy an enormous tree. I was sent with a brief to not come back with a Charlie Brown tree, and I definitely didn't! This thing is huge, probably somewhere around 11 feet tall, and about 8 feet in diameter at the base. It looks sparsely decorated in places, even with 10 years worth of decorations, lovingly imported from the UK, hanging all over the place. It's become a comforting presence in the house, and I will miss it when it's gone.
Epiphany is tomorrow, which means we really need to take it down and undecorate it, as Jake says. I'm not sure how he'll feel about that, and I'm also not sure where we put the tree! There's around a foot of snow still in our yard which is likely to be added to in the coming days, and I don't relish trying to drag it out into the woods. Maybe I need to bust out my hacksaw and cut it into smaller bits, but I'm not sure how Jake will feel about that either! In either case, I think it's been a great experiment this year, but we'll go for something a little smaller and more manageable next year.
Lighting the House
One of my favorite things about the festive festive season over here is the way that just about everyone decorates their houses with lights. The sparsely populated roads and lack of light pollution in the sky means that even the smallest set of lights "pops" out as you drive along, and there are some houses that cover themselves top to tail in lights, including lit up moving reindeer in the yard and twinkling candles in every window.
I decided that I wanted to copy this design, and quickly found out how hard/expensive this can be! The first thing that you need is miles of electrical cables. I drastically underestimated how far the trees are from my house (combined with the insistence of labelling everything in feet...I don't have an accurate mental image of 40 feet yet!), so had to go back twice to get more cables. I also found that it is massively time consuming to string lights around a tree in a way that looks pretty in the dark. In the end, I settled on a net version that doesn't look great if you look at it too long, but does the job in passing. I also strung twinkle lights on the awning the garage, and that is my favorite part of the final look. It makes the house look cosy and inviting, and those electric candles that haven't been moved/stolen by Sophie just add to that inviting look. The reflection off freshly fallen snow definitely helps the romantic look, as does the knowledge of the warmth and family that await within.
Tuesday, 29 November 2016
Thanksgiving
So our first Thanksgiving as a family has come and gone. I felt a little disingenuous telling people at work that it was my first Thanksgiving in America, but given that the first one was 13 years ago when our relationship was but a few months old, and I hadn't realized the significance of the dates that I had bought the tickets for, I still think I get to count this year as my first.
The actual day ran as I thought it would. I spent the morning cooking stuffed mushrooms and an apple crumble (got to bring something British to the table, and I wasn't sure how well crumpets and marmite would have been received) and we went over to my wife's parents place for an afternoon of family, food and fun.
It was delightful to see Jake as a play leader with his cousins; most family get togethers previously have seen him stick closely to me or my wife, even with the temptation of similarly aged playmates nearby. However, this time, from the moment we got there, he ran off and started playing, even leading the charge to go outside and run around in the cold. Maybe it was that he finally felt comfortable around them, or maybe it's because we spent 6 months at their house so he felt at home there, but in either case, it was great to see him so confident around other children, and we're looking into ways to get the cousins together again.
Sophie was a cheery delight as always, and as she's getting her walking under control, it's great fun to watch her toddle around. She's much more sociable than Jake was at this age, and is happy being passed from person to person with her big hair and even bigger smile always attached to her face. She seems to have developed a lot in the last couple of months, which may just be her age, or in part due to her new day care, but she's definitely entering toddlerdom with enthusiasm, playing games and doing things because she finds them funny. Whilst 2 kids is a lot of work sometimes, there are days, like on Thanksgiving, that we are able to bask in their joyfulness and simplicity.
Every year (up until a couple of years back) we held a Thanksgiving party in the UK for our friends. What started out as a small dinner party to stop my wife feeling quite so homesick in her first year in the UK evolved into a big house party that brought our friends back to Leeds from the far flung corners of the country that they had moved to. The food moved from a full turkey dinner to a bring your own dish pot luck, so it was strange to see a very set menu (turkey, ham, mash potato, stuffing) that is the apparent staple of New England Thanksgiving. My offer of a chicken pot pie was shot down as being the wrong food, which opened my eyes to the deep-rooted traditions that American holidays seem to have. Having said that, I will never turn a good meal, even though it was missing Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes...maybe for next year.
The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving were always tough in our household, as my wife would always get homesick (to a greater or lesser extent depending on how things were going) as she knew the rest of her family were getting together for this big set piece celebration that she wouldn't be part of. After a few years, she wouldn't even call in to the party as she didn't wanted to be reminded of her absence, so our UK Thanksgiving was always a welcome distraction. This year, it was my turn to feel homesick. It was quite unexpected, and took a couple of conversations between me and my wife to work out what was making me feel sad and grumpy. I think it took so long because there is no party going on that we were missing out on, and life back in Leeds would look and feel very different if we were to move back. I'm also incredibly happy here with the life that we are forging for ourselves, so I think homesickness is the wrong word. Maybe wistful nostalgia is a better definition, as thinking and remembering Thanksgiving past brings to full light the fact that for all the positives of being here, we left a lot of good strong friendships behind, and that it takes a long time for new friends to become old friends (to quote my mother). The world is made smaller through Facebook, Whatsapp and email, but there is something lost in not being able to see each other real time, going round for dinner or just hanging out. The age and the strength of our friendships will mean that we will find ways to make them work, but I think my brain associates Thanksgiving with seeing friends old and new and I miss them.
Homesickness also feels like the wrong word because it implies that home is still the UK. I don't think I've yet to work out where home truly is, or whether it has to be in one place only, but home definitely revolves around my wife and Jake and Sophie, so home is here. Saying I'm homesick makes it sound like we're just here on a long vacation, and while our plan was always to move back to the US at some point (even though many people didn't think it would ever happen!), now that we're here, there's no plan to return to the UK permanently any time soon. So maybe it's that I'm missing the important people in our life as we adjust, and that maybe each November will be tough. But I'm thankful for our time in the UK and for our new life here in New Hampshire and the friends and family that we have there and here. They have helped make us the family that we are today, and for that I am truly thankful.
The actual day ran as I thought it would. I spent the morning cooking stuffed mushrooms and an apple crumble (got to bring something British to the table, and I wasn't sure how well crumpets and marmite would have been received) and we went over to my wife's parents place for an afternoon of family, food and fun.
It was delightful to see Jake as a play leader with his cousins; most family get togethers previously have seen him stick closely to me or my wife, even with the temptation of similarly aged playmates nearby. However, this time, from the moment we got there, he ran off and started playing, even leading the charge to go outside and run around in the cold. Maybe it was that he finally felt comfortable around them, or maybe it's because we spent 6 months at their house so he felt at home there, but in either case, it was great to see him so confident around other children, and we're looking into ways to get the cousins together again.
Sophie was a cheery delight as always, and as she's getting her walking under control, it's great fun to watch her toddle around. She's much more sociable than Jake was at this age, and is happy being passed from person to person with her big hair and even bigger smile always attached to her face. She seems to have developed a lot in the last couple of months, which may just be her age, or in part due to her new day care, but she's definitely entering toddlerdom with enthusiasm, playing games and doing things because she finds them funny. Whilst 2 kids is a lot of work sometimes, there are days, like on Thanksgiving, that we are able to bask in their joyfulness and simplicity.
Every year (up until a couple of years back) we held a Thanksgiving party in the UK for our friends. What started out as a small dinner party to stop my wife feeling quite so homesick in her first year in the UK evolved into a big house party that brought our friends back to Leeds from the far flung corners of the country that they had moved to. The food moved from a full turkey dinner to a bring your own dish pot luck, so it was strange to see a very set menu (turkey, ham, mash potato, stuffing) that is the apparent staple of New England Thanksgiving. My offer of a chicken pot pie was shot down as being the wrong food, which opened my eyes to the deep-rooted traditions that American holidays seem to have. Having said that, I will never turn a good meal, even though it was missing Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes...maybe for next year.
The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving were always tough in our household, as my wife would always get homesick (to a greater or lesser extent depending on how things were going) as she knew the rest of her family were getting together for this big set piece celebration that she wouldn't be part of. After a few years, she wouldn't even call in to the party as she didn't wanted to be reminded of her absence, so our UK Thanksgiving was always a welcome distraction. This year, it was my turn to feel homesick. It was quite unexpected, and took a couple of conversations between me and my wife to work out what was making me feel sad and grumpy. I think it took so long because there is no party going on that we were missing out on, and life back in Leeds would look and feel very different if we were to move back. I'm also incredibly happy here with the life that we are forging for ourselves, so I think homesickness is the wrong word. Maybe wistful nostalgia is a better definition, as thinking and remembering Thanksgiving past brings to full light the fact that for all the positives of being here, we left a lot of good strong friendships behind, and that it takes a long time for new friends to become old friends (to quote my mother). The world is made smaller through Facebook, Whatsapp and email, but there is something lost in not being able to see each other real time, going round for dinner or just hanging out. The age and the strength of our friendships will mean that we will find ways to make them work, but I think my brain associates Thanksgiving with seeing friends old and new and I miss them.
Homesickness also feels like the wrong word because it implies that home is still the UK. I don't think I've yet to work out where home truly is, or whether it has to be in one place only, but home definitely revolves around my wife and Jake and Sophie, so home is here. Saying I'm homesick makes it sound like we're just here on a long vacation, and while our plan was always to move back to the US at some point (even though many people didn't think it would ever happen!), now that we're here, there's no plan to return to the UK permanently any time soon. So maybe it's that I'm missing the important people in our life as we adjust, and that maybe each November will be tough. But I'm thankful for our time in the UK and for our new life here in New Hampshire and the friends and family that we have there and here. They have helped make us the family that we are today, and for that I am truly thankful.
Tuesday, 22 November 2016
Swimming
One of the many changes that moving our whole lifestyle to another country has brought about is the ability and desire to make other changes to our lives. Yes, a lot of it feels the same, like cooking family dinners and working in schools, but the option of doing things differently feels much more real now. For example, I now live less than a 10 minute drive from the trailhead of my favorite hike, and have already been to the summit half a dozen times since we've been here. Hiking was something that was never on our radar in the UK unless we went to the Lake District.
All of this ruminating on change brings me to swimming. I always talked about how I used to swim competitively as a kid (up to the age of 16) and indeed I'm still in touch with some of my swim club buddies on Facebook. I've religiously carried around all the medals that I won during my youth (now all knotted and tangled) and more interestingly my PB book which my mum kept for me, with all of my best times. I toyed with the Leeds Masters a couple of times, but our lifestyle never seemed to suit a return to swimming, and our behaviour patterns as a married couple got a bit more set as time went by. I still maintained a dream somewhere of going back to the pool and working on my PB (for a year or so, my password for non-essential accounts referenced my 100m freestyle goal)
When we moved here, I started looking for ways to get back into shape. I had used the parkrun 5k runs in Leeds as a way of maintaining my fitness and keeping in touch with friends (indeed, Facebook keeps prodding me with memories of me and Jake in a running stroller), but after Jake was too big and we had Sophie, I found finding time for exercise to be tricky. The idea of swimming came back to me when Jake picked up my box of medals and asked me about them, so I told him about swim meets.
A bit of online research later took me to Great Bay Masters, and the glory that is Amazon provided a new pair of swimming shorts (no more Speedos for me!) and a good pair of goggles. Thus armed, I went to my first session at the Jenny Thompson outdoor pool in Dover one Sunday morning. I didn't realise it's a 50m length (my least favourite kind of pool) and that this was a serious swimming team. I think I lasted around 1500m before I couldn't take it any more, and my poor muscles ached for days after, especially those that hadn't had a serious workout since 1998.
I think I surprised our coach when I came back the following week given how miserable I must have looked getting out of the pool the first time. Despite one bad case of sunburn (who knew you needed to wear sun cream when swimming outside in 30 degree sunshine!), I managed to make a few appearances over the tail end of the summer, but started to pick up my game once school started. I'm now training twice a week (for the most part) and have even invested in a pair of fins as they seem to get used in just about every session.
The biggest shock that I've had is how bad my stroke was. When I was a lifeguard in New York in the PBE and PKE, I took advantage of a local swimming coaching course, part of which taught us how to do each stroke "perfectly". I've been using this as the basis for coaching a lot of my friends and family, but in the intervening 13 years, strokes have changed and my coach at Great Bay has worked with me on a lot of different bad habits and ideas that were slowing me down. I remember returning to swimming for a while, only for a familiar shoulder pain to stop me after a few sessions. With my stroke corrected, my shoulder pain has gone and I can feel myself becoming fitter and stronger with each passing week.
I had forgotten how much I love the sensation of my body moving quickly through the water. Whenever I've been splashing around in a pool or lake, I always feel at home in the water, but it wasn't until we started doing short sprints that I realised how good it feels and the thrill of trying to beat a time (whether it's set by yourself or a coach). I've managed to get myself down to just under 14 seconds for 25 yards on a good day, so we'll see if I can keep that pace up over 100 yards!
The next big meet is on 10/11 December, and I'm still trying to work out if I want to enter or not. It's a long way away in Massachusetts and the timing means that I'd be swimming in mid-afternoon, leaving my wife with the kids for the majority of the day. I may wait for something closer to home to re-enter competitive swimming, but when I do, keep your eyes on here for my progress!
All of this ruminating on change brings me to swimming. I always talked about how I used to swim competitively as a kid (up to the age of 16) and indeed I'm still in touch with some of my swim club buddies on Facebook. I've religiously carried around all the medals that I won during my youth (now all knotted and tangled) and more interestingly my PB book which my mum kept for me, with all of my best times. I toyed with the Leeds Masters a couple of times, but our lifestyle never seemed to suit a return to swimming, and our behaviour patterns as a married couple got a bit more set as time went by. I still maintained a dream somewhere of going back to the pool and working on my PB (for a year or so, my password for non-essential accounts referenced my 100m freestyle goal)
When we moved here, I started looking for ways to get back into shape. I had used the parkrun 5k runs in Leeds as a way of maintaining my fitness and keeping in touch with friends (indeed, Facebook keeps prodding me with memories of me and Jake in a running stroller), but after Jake was too big and we had Sophie, I found finding time for exercise to be tricky. The idea of swimming came back to me when Jake picked up my box of medals and asked me about them, so I told him about swim meets.
A bit of online research later took me to Great Bay Masters, and the glory that is Amazon provided a new pair of swimming shorts (no more Speedos for me!) and a good pair of goggles. Thus armed, I went to my first session at the Jenny Thompson outdoor pool in Dover one Sunday morning. I didn't realise it's a 50m length (my least favourite kind of pool) and that this was a serious swimming team. I think I lasted around 1500m before I couldn't take it any more, and my poor muscles ached for days after, especially those that hadn't had a serious workout since 1998.
I think I surprised our coach when I came back the following week given how miserable I must have looked getting out of the pool the first time. Despite one bad case of sunburn (who knew you needed to wear sun cream when swimming outside in 30 degree sunshine!), I managed to make a few appearances over the tail end of the summer, but started to pick up my game once school started. I'm now training twice a week (for the most part) and have even invested in a pair of fins as they seem to get used in just about every session.
The biggest shock that I've had is how bad my stroke was. When I was a lifeguard in New York in the PBE and PKE, I took advantage of a local swimming coaching course, part of which taught us how to do each stroke "perfectly". I've been using this as the basis for coaching a lot of my friends and family, but in the intervening 13 years, strokes have changed and my coach at Great Bay has worked with me on a lot of different bad habits and ideas that were slowing me down. I remember returning to swimming for a while, only for a familiar shoulder pain to stop me after a few sessions. With my stroke corrected, my shoulder pain has gone and I can feel myself becoming fitter and stronger with each passing week.
I had forgotten how much I love the sensation of my body moving quickly through the water. Whenever I've been splashing around in a pool or lake, I always feel at home in the water, but it wasn't until we started doing short sprints that I realised how good it feels and the thrill of trying to beat a time (whether it's set by yourself or a coach). I've managed to get myself down to just under 14 seconds for 25 yards on a good day, so we'll see if I can keep that pace up over 100 yards!
The next big meet is on 10/11 December, and I'm still trying to work out if I want to enter or not. It's a long way away in Massachusetts and the timing means that I'd be swimming in mid-afternoon, leaving my wife with the kids for the majority of the day. I may wait for something closer to home to re-enter competitive swimming, but when I do, keep your eyes on here for my progress!
Wednesday, 9 November 2016
Elections
Yikes. 2 months since my last post. So much has changed since the start of September that I need to update this blog before the year that it was intended to mark runs out. However, with the results of the US election now in, I want to get down some of my thoughts and feelings as a way of dealing with them.
2016 has been a tough year for me, politically. In June, I watched in despair as lies, fear and frustration ruled in the Brexit vote, and it's only now becoming clear what an absolute mess the whole situation is. None of the key players are still around to be held accountable for their actions, the country has been given a Prime Minister who hasn't been voted for and the entire Brexit process seems to be one unending shambles. The hardest part, I thought at the time, was that there was no one really here who I could explain my sadness to. I'm a hearty believer in unity, so I was always going to be pro European, and the vote to leave it signaled a change in society that I couldn't fathom. It was at that time that I felt a long way from my friends and family, and I'm still not sure I've been able to talk through it properly. People over here were curious, but my conversations would only last a few lines before I could see them ready to move on.
Last night, I again watched in horror as lies, fear and frustration won the US election and I've spent today in a sort of fugue, easily distracted by work, but every now again realizing the situation the electorate has put everyone in. The Brexit part of my brain tries to square things off by saying that it will all work out in the end, and that we need to pull together, but when I look at the Republican President, Senate, Congress and Supreme Court, so many progressive ideals that I hold dear, like marriage equality, universal affordable healthcare and welfare, are in immediate if the rhetoric of the winner's campaign is anything to go by. I thought it would be better here as I'd have people to talk to about it, but today has been hard because I've found myself deliberately not wanting to discuss, at least with anyone who doesn't hold the same passion for change. I think it's that deep sense of loss and sadness at the direction society seems to be taking that hurts the most, and discussing and dealing with that hurt will take a long time to reconcile.
Of course, there is the possibility that the President Elect's statements of being "for all Americans" will be true and he will somehow change into a healing force. I dream that this could be true, but nothing I saw in the campaign makes me believe that he will act in anyone's best interests but himself and those like, and that when it comes to hard tasks like "draining the swamp", fixing the economy, dealing with complex foreign situations or trying to heal the racial divides, he simply won't be up to the task, and won't have surrounded himself with people equipped to do anything but muddy the waters further.
The discussions amongst my friends and family, both in the UK and US, have been those of disbelief, of sadness and of fear for the future. The one glimmer of hope came from an article entitled How do we tell the children which, being a 4th grade teacher and a parent of 2, was one of my major concerns of the campaign. The article is a call to arms to spread the messages of standing up to hate, fighting bigotry, how to engage in productive political discussions and how to build a united community. Among all the pain today, this article gave me hope that all is not lost.
My email signature reads "Every thousand mile journey begins with a single step". A student asked me today at school why I have this on every email I send him. My response to him felt even more pertinent today when I told him that every big change has to start somewhere, and it starts with one person making choices; choosing to unite instead of divide, choosing to teach acceptance over fear, and choosing love over hate. That person is me, and every person who out there feeling my pain. Together, we can do something to bring about a brighter tomorrow and we can start today.
2016 has been a tough year for me, politically. In June, I watched in despair as lies, fear and frustration ruled in the Brexit vote, and it's only now becoming clear what an absolute mess the whole situation is. None of the key players are still around to be held accountable for their actions, the country has been given a Prime Minister who hasn't been voted for and the entire Brexit process seems to be one unending shambles. The hardest part, I thought at the time, was that there was no one really here who I could explain my sadness to. I'm a hearty believer in unity, so I was always going to be pro European, and the vote to leave it signaled a change in society that I couldn't fathom. It was at that time that I felt a long way from my friends and family, and I'm still not sure I've been able to talk through it properly. People over here were curious, but my conversations would only last a few lines before I could see them ready to move on.
Last night, I again watched in horror as lies, fear and frustration won the US election and I've spent today in a sort of fugue, easily distracted by work, but every now again realizing the situation the electorate has put everyone in. The Brexit part of my brain tries to square things off by saying that it will all work out in the end, and that we need to pull together, but when I look at the Republican President, Senate, Congress and Supreme Court, so many progressive ideals that I hold dear, like marriage equality, universal affordable healthcare and welfare, are in immediate if the rhetoric of the winner's campaign is anything to go by. I thought it would be better here as I'd have people to talk to about it, but today has been hard because I've found myself deliberately not wanting to discuss, at least with anyone who doesn't hold the same passion for change. I think it's that deep sense of loss and sadness at the direction society seems to be taking that hurts the most, and discussing and dealing with that hurt will take a long time to reconcile.
Of course, there is the possibility that the President Elect's statements of being "for all Americans" will be true and he will somehow change into a healing force. I dream that this could be true, but nothing I saw in the campaign makes me believe that he will act in anyone's best interests but himself and those like, and that when it comes to hard tasks like "draining the swamp", fixing the economy, dealing with complex foreign situations or trying to heal the racial divides, he simply won't be up to the task, and won't have surrounded himself with people equipped to do anything but muddy the waters further.
The discussions amongst my friends and family, both in the UK and US, have been those of disbelief, of sadness and of fear for the future. The one glimmer of hope came from an article entitled How do we tell the children which, being a 4th grade teacher and a parent of 2, was one of my major concerns of the campaign. The article is a call to arms to spread the messages of standing up to hate, fighting bigotry, how to engage in productive political discussions and how to build a united community. Among all the pain today, this article gave me hope that all is not lost.
My email signature reads "Every thousand mile journey begins with a single step". A student asked me today at school why I have this on every email I send him. My response to him felt even more pertinent today when I told him that every big change has to start somewhere, and it starts with one person making choices; choosing to unite instead of divide, choosing to teach acceptance over fear, and choosing love over hate. That person is me, and every person who out there feeling my pain. Together, we can do something to bring about a brighter tomorrow and we can start today.
Elections
Yikes. 2 months since my last post. So much has changed since the start of September that I need to update this blog before the year that it was intended to mark runs out. However, with the results of the US election now in, I want to get down some of my thoughts and feelings as a way of dealing with them.
2016 has been a tough year for me, politically. In June, I watched in despair as lies, fear and frustration ruled in the Brexit vote, and it's only now becoming clear what an absolute mess the whole situation is. None of the key players are still around to be held accountable for their actions, the country has been given a Prime Minister who hasn't been voted for and the entire Brexit process seems to be one unending shambles. The hardest part, I thought at the time, was that there was no one really here who I could explain my sadness to. I'm a hearty believer in unity, so I was always going to be pro European, and the vote to leave it signaled a change in society that I couldn't fathom. It was at that time that I felt a long way from my friends and family, and I'm still not sure I've been able to talk through it properly. People over here were curious, but my conversations would only last a few lines before I could see them ready to move on.
Last night, I again watched in horror as lies, fear and frustration won the US election and I've spent today in a sort of fugue, easily distracted by work, but every now again realizing the situation the electorate has put everyone in. The Brexit part of my brain tries to square things off by saying that it will all work out in the end, and that we need to pull together, but when I look at the Republican President, Senate, Congress and Supreme Court, so many progressive ideals that I hold dear, like marriage equality, universal affordable healthcare and welfare, are in immediate if the rhetoric of the winner's campaign is anything to go by. I thought it would be better here as I'd have people to talk to about it, but today has been hard because I've found myself deliberately not wanting to discuss, at least with anyone who doesn't hold the same passion for change. I think it's that deep sense of loss and sadness at the direction society seems to be taking that hurts the most, and discussing and dealing with that hurt will take a long time to reconcile.
Of course, there is the possibility that the President Elect's statements of being "for all Americans" will be true and he will somehow change into a healing force. I dream that this could be true, but nothing I saw in the campaign makes me believe that he will act in anyone's best interests but himself and those like, and that when it comes to hard tasks like "draining the swamp", fixing the economy, dealing with complex foreign situations, trying to heal the racial divides, he simply won't be up to the task, and won't have surrounded himself with people equipped to do anything but muddy the waters further.
The discussions amongst my friends and family, both in the UK and US, have been those of disbelief, of sadness and of fear for the future. The one glimmer of hope came from an article entitled How do we tell the children which, being a 4th grade teacher and a parent of 2, was one of my major concerns of the campaign. The article is a call to arms to spread the messages of standing up to hate, fighting bigotry, how to engage in productive political discussions and how to build a united community. Among all the pain today, this article gave me hope that all is not lost.
My email signature reads "Every thousand mile journey begins with a single step". A student asked me today at school why I have this on every email I send him. My response to him felt even more pertinent today when I told him that every big change has to start somewhere, and it starts with one person making choices; choosing to unite instead of divide, choosing to teach acceptance over fear, and choosing love over hate. That person is me, and every person who out there feeling my pain. Together, we can do something to bring about a brighter tomorrow and we can start today.
2016 has been a tough year for me, politically. In June, I watched in despair as lies, fear and frustration ruled in the Brexit vote, and it's only now becoming clear what an absolute mess the whole situation is. None of the key players are still around to be held accountable for their actions, the country has been given a Prime Minister who hasn't been voted for and the entire Brexit process seems to be one unending shambles. The hardest part, I thought at the time, was that there was no one really here who I could explain my sadness to. I'm a hearty believer in unity, so I was always going to be pro European, and the vote to leave it signaled a change in society that I couldn't fathom. It was at that time that I felt a long way from my friends and family, and I'm still not sure I've been able to talk through it properly. People over here were curious, but my conversations would only last a few lines before I could see them ready to move on.
Last night, I again watched in horror as lies, fear and frustration won the US election and I've spent today in a sort of fugue, easily distracted by work, but every now again realizing the situation the electorate has put everyone in. The Brexit part of my brain tries to square things off by saying that it will all work out in the end, and that we need to pull together, but when I look at the Republican President, Senate, Congress and Supreme Court, so many progressive ideals that I hold dear, like marriage equality, universal affordable healthcare and welfare, are in immediate if the rhetoric of the winner's campaign is anything to go by. I thought it would be better here as I'd have people to talk to about it, but today has been hard because I've found myself deliberately not wanting to discuss, at least with anyone who doesn't hold the same passion for change. I think it's that deep sense of loss and sadness at the direction society seems to be taking that hurts the most, and discussing and dealing with that hurt will take a long time to reconcile.
Of course, there is the possibility that the President Elect's statements of being "for all Americans" will be true and he will somehow change into a healing force. I dream that this could be true, but nothing I saw in the campaign makes me believe that he will act in anyone's best interests but himself and those like, and that when it comes to hard tasks like "draining the swamp", fixing the economy, dealing with complex foreign situations, trying to heal the racial divides, he simply won't be up to the task, and won't have surrounded himself with people equipped to do anything but muddy the waters further.
The discussions amongst my friends and family, both in the UK and US, have been those of disbelief, of sadness and of fear for the future. The one glimmer of hope came from an article entitled How do we tell the children which, being a 4th grade teacher and a parent of 2, was one of my major concerns of the campaign. The article is a call to arms to spread the messages of standing up to hate, fighting bigotry, how to engage in productive political discussions and how to build a united community. Among all the pain today, this article gave me hope that all is not lost.
My email signature reads "Every thousand mile journey begins with a single step". A student asked me today at school why I have this on every email I send him. My response to him felt even more pertinent today when I told him that every big change has to start somewhere, and it starts with one person making choices; choosing to unite instead of divide, choosing to teach acceptance over fear, and choosing love over hate. That person is me, and every person who out there feeling my pain. Together, we can do something to bring about a brighter tomorrow and we can start today.
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