The Great Outdoors
Meeting Colin
MONDAY: Lunch is Waitrose smoked salmon and cream cheese on my local bakery's whole wheat breadcake. As I have no capers at the moment I added a sliced spring onion. I was first introduced to cold smoked salmon in the classic Jewish delis of Los Angeles, and I loved the classic Nova lox and cream cheese served on a decent bagel with sliced red onion and sliced tomatoes. By the time I moved to Seattle my favourite bagel deli also put capers on their lox and cream cheese bagels, which I considered a brilliant addition. But today, as I have neither a decent proper bagel nor capers, I have to make do. Not bad for making do…
TUESDAY: I was looking so forward to a goat cheese sandwich today, but sadly the last bit of the roll of creamy white goat cheese had developed a greenish-yellow sweat, a bit unnatural for creamy white goat cheese. So it's mature cheddar with Dijon and the usual spring onion and red pepper on a large granary roll.
Although I consider myself a diehard city girl I still love nature and all the floral and faunal pleasures of the countryside, the seaside, and the mountains. For the best of both worlds I love encounters with urban wildlife. In the California suburb where I grew up, before all the fields were covered with detached family homes with two-car garages, my brother and I used to be able to go out in the fields just beyond our neighbourhood and catch lizards and snakes, and we'd occasionally spot a jackrabbit scampering through. And our jungle of a front garden was home to plenty of grasshoppers, dragonflies, and butterflies. Sadly, thanks to our entomophobic neighbours who gallantly sprayed their world, along with everyone else's, with insecticides, this wildlife didn't stick around long. By the time I moved away from home to a flat near the beach, the only urban fauna I could hope to bump into was the random gopher popping its head up from the bluff park, or the random feral parrot roosting in a palm tree.
When I moved to Seattle I was overjoyed to find the place teeming with squirrels that, shockingly, I had never experienced in an urban environment. I even called the tree outside our home the Screaming Squirrel Tree because it was populated by territorial squirrels who were always screeching and arguing noisily. After dark my favourites, the raccoons, would emerge along with the occasional possum. When I moved to southeast England I was happy to have a second-story flat overlooking a garden and railway embankment where a family of foxes regularly visited. And when I first moved to Sheffield and popped out to the local shop for a jar of Marmite, I passed a dog trotting nervously down my street, and it wasn't until our eyes met that I realised it was a large fox.
I've been in England for nine years now, but it wasn't until the other night that I finally experienced one of the creatures England is famous for. I had spent the evening at my local pub enjoying my favourite local band with friends while consuming a liberal but not ridiculous amount of Farmers Blonde. As I was walking home down a quiet residential street I spotted a tiny furry being on the pavement in front of me. When I stopped and leaned over to have a look, it froze. I said, "Well, hello there! You're so tiny! Are you a hedgehog?" And the hedgehog, still frozen in its spot, watched with alarm the much bigger Me and finally scurried across the pavement into the closest garden. I had been told that hedgehogs usually curl up into a ball when frightened, so this one, obviously a young one, must not have felt too threatened by my gentle, if a bit beer-scented, presence.
I'm sure the average Brit would laugh at my excitement on seeing my first hedgehog. But like my reaction last summer to watching puffins flying around the Old Man of Hoy in Orkney, I was so excited to see nature like this close up.
So go ahead and have a good laugh. See what I care.
Tuesday 23rd September 2003: Autumnal Equinox
Since I already write about drinking beer and coffee on my own website (coffeebeer.co.uk), this blog will be devoted to everything else I do as an expate in England: mainly not too much. But I do intend to mention Marmite in every entry.
The Equinox has arrived in Yorkshire. Smashed and splattered, to put it more succinctly. After record breaking high temperatures I actually had to turn the heat on this evening. Fortunately with these radiators there is no musty smell with the first heating of the year like there always was with forced-air systems. And the radiators are so calm and quiet and peaceful -- and great places to drape wet laundry. I really like radiators. And I like electric showers, too -- always plenty of hot water. Unfortunately our electric shower is starting to malfunction, causing cold water to spurt out as the pipes whistle loudly and the OVERHEAT indicator lights up. It's almost like having a nonelectric shower, only with a rather scary electrical OVERHEAT indicator.
But I do love the new, fresh, cold air. After having spent six months in SoCal, where the weather varies from brownish heat to brownish tepidness, it's a relief to be back in a place with seasons. Yes, the purple heather on the hills in the Peak District in the summertime, and the tulips and daffodils in the gardens in the spring, and the rich red foliage on the Yorkshire stone buildings in the autumn, and the black ice on South Road in the winter -- and, of course, the Marmite on my Warburton's potato cakes in the morning. (Especially good with a slathering of nut butter.)
And since it's after midnight, and I'm one of those skinny people who awake in the morning so hungry I could eat my duvet, breakfast sounds like an especially good reason to log off for now and go to bed.
