There’s no place like home sweet home

I grew up in what I now realise was a very picturesque part of the world. When we used to go on family trips, my mother would encourage me to look out of the window and stop reading. “Look at the lovely view!”

I had no interest in lovely views at that time in my life, and just wanted to be left to read my Enid Blyton book and make myself carsick. “meh, another green field,” was my thought.

However, after living in Utah, I have a lot more appreciation for England’s scenery- my drive home from the airport passes woods, rolling farmland, stone cottages, red pillar boxes, people in wax jackets walking their border collies, ladies in skirts on bicycles, ponies being ridden down the street, and a cricket match if you arrive on a Saturday afternoon. It’s very pastoral and lovely, and I take a deep breath, enjoy the bluebells and luxuriate in the knowledge that, for the next little while, no-one is going to ask me where I’m from as soon as I open my mouth.

I’m not saying that I grew up in an episode of “All Creatures Great and Small.” (That was set in Yorkshire, not Somerset). Besides the cows, vicars, and village halls, we had glue-sniffers, a pot-smoking school bus driver (yes, on the way home from school) and people complaining to the Yatton Mercury about how the Guy Fawkes fireworks frightened their budgie, the council needs to put a stop to teenagers and their loud music, the country is going to the dogs, and everything was much better during the War.

But it’s beautiful. And coming home with no jet lag was joyous, as was dinner in a nice local pub with rhubarb crumble and custard for pudding.