Good day to you, dearest reader.

I’m reporting from a delightful UK springtime. I’ve already been here a week, but let’s start from the beginning…

Weary and tired from the flight, I chug along on the tube from the airport to London Kings Cross, mentally preparing myself for one of the atrocities that we Brits face with train travel. The dread, sweat and fear as we approach the ticket machine. The cost of it. And it will cost you—no doubt about it. Get ready for a pillaging of your anus. This will hurt—a lot. I mentally pull down my pants and tell them to do their worst - £25 ($30) to get a 1-hour train to my home town. It could be more economical to hire Snoop Dog, a Limousine, accompanied by a Bottle of Crystal instead. You’ve got to hand it to the train companies - it’s genius how they rob people every single day, and what do we Brits do? We lubricate our nethers in preparation. Polite and compliant. Subservient. What we should be doing is rioting like the French! Sitting on the train, the driver announces that this train will be delayed as there is no driver. Another classic. Finally we get going and I nod on and off as the train rolls on, just as we edge nearer to home we’re jolted awake by the driver announcing that we all have to get off at a nearby town as since the service is so delayed they have to make time up to get to Cambridge! I smile. Welcome home, I say to myself. I call mum as I finally hop off at my stop ‘Put the Kettle on, I’ll be home in 10’!

Mum answers the door, and I see her bright pink plaster first. I engulf her, noticing how more delicate she’s becoming with the years, like a fragile bird, her wafer-thin skin and her short arms outstretched, where’s the neck! There it is, there she is, the best smell of warm skin with talc, her short feathery hair tickles my nose. I am so routed in this moment and I am ecstatic to be home.

Mum gets to work immediately: firing questions, not finishing sentences, not taking a breath, showing me letters she wants me to read. We eventually settle into conversation mode and are batting questions and answers like Ping Pong. Once the initial elation has worn off, we drink tea, and I scoff myself with all my favourite treats I’ve missed - chocolate, CRISPS! Crisps! - food of the gods. I ask mum what she’d like for dinner, she shows me a recipe for Sausage pasta, Easy, I do this all the time at home. Mum comes in, lurking like a menacing supervisor on patrol. She pipes up, ‘Those sausages are too white. Are they cooked? I smile and tell her that her front seat cooking comments aren’t needed here and re-route her back to the living room. We laugh and chuckle. I once cooked her a tomato pasta, she loved it so much she said she wanted to cook it herself, I listed off all the ingredients (only 4) and she says ‘I’ll cook that next week’ when I asked her how it went, she said ‘It didn’t taste the same’ ‘Why mama, what did you do? She said she didn’t have fresh Tomatoes, only canned ones; she didn’t use Garlic, and had no Basil. So basically left out EVERYTHING. We still laugh about it today. The loon.

My diet as the days pass becomes utterly atrocious, if awards were being handed out, I’d win the Turner Prize in beige coloured offerings. It all feels celebratory, like its Christmas.

Here’s an inkling of what’s been ingested:

- White Bread (sooooo good, a treat!)

- Cheese Pizzas

- Chicken Tenders

- Crisps (Quavers, Walkers Ready Salted)

- Greggs Sausage Rolls (Pure filth and unacceptable!)

- Cakes (Marks and Spencer, to be honest, essential)

- Biscuits (Custard Cremes and Malted Milks, what can you do?)

- POT NOODLES (Chicken n Mushroom, I am 17 again)

REPEAT.

Share

My plan when I return to America: Green Vegetables, Fish, and prayers.

Mum and I quickly settle into a routine of cocktail hour at 5 pm, a stiff Vodka and Orange and a show called ‘Riveria’ on Netflix. What a beautiful relief that I don’t have to watch a repeat of Heartbeat. Whilst all the action is happening, we exchange glances, make comments, and once an episode is finished, say, ‘Oh go on then, let’s have another one. ’ I’m enjoying the simplistic ways we are spending our days, leisurely wandering around town, sitting in the park and watching the birds, going to a shop and standing looking at the washing detergents comparing prices. We get back home and put the kettle on. Mum asks in short succession:

‘Do you think I need to shave my moustache? ’ Followed by ‘Can you please open a tin of Peaches? ’

She is the gift that keeps on giving.

To be clear, mum does not have a moustache, well not now at least, she’s got a tiny ‘discreet’ woman’s shaver from Boots, designed for those delicate areas. She comments that she doesn’t want a beard like some women her age have. I cry laughing. I then take the shaver and handily use it for my eyebrows. At least mum and I are fuzz-free without any cuts.

Friday rolls around and I am seeing my oldest friend who lives 10 doors down from my old childhood home. Mum moved out in 2012, so it’s been a while since I’ve been around these parts. I have been avoiding it out of my fear of nostalgia. It doesn’t take much for me to overdose on sentimentality, a longing of ‘what was’ and especially in my transient head space, my flimsy sense of self in America. As I walked along and noted all the same small houses, the narrow roads, the memories came flooding back and I realised I had been craving something I didn’t know I needed - a reminder of where I came from, a version of who I used to be, who part of me still is, the old feelings that lay dormant had risen and instead being scared of them they feel so comforting and I embrace them. It has been years since I saw my friend, and I feel so lucky she is still in my life. We natter about old times and growing up together ‘Remember so and so, what are they doing now? ‘Remember when you got hammered on 50/50? ‘Remember spewing behind Dad’s car?’ I couldn’t feel more content in this moment. I am not far away in a foreign land, with shiny new friends. I feel alive, conscious and grateful on the sofa with my oldest friend. We hug on the doorstep, and I walk home and play the Sunscreen song, which always sums friendship best:

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few, you should hold on

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

AMEN SISTER.

This trip home is wild and emotionally killing me in all the best ways. I feel like Kate Bush singing from the hilltops whilst prancing around looking highly medicated and wearing fancy layers.

Saturday night, I am seeing my nieces for a sleepover. I can barely contain my joy at the thought of it but first stop - Cambridge for a day of shopping. Now, I’m in my 40s, and shopping for me is possibly one or two shops, after which I am done. With teenagers? How long have you got? We venture into Primark. On a Saturday. In Cambridge. There are so many people that it is like a football match, people coming in all directions, manically trying to find what they want whilst trying not to trip up on the strewn clothes on the floor. It’s quite the scene, certainly not fit for Jane Austen, she’d have a stroke.

After an hour in Primark, I am already weary, so I say, ‘Aunty needs a Pitt stop’ We munch on bakery items from Greggs (obviously). It has to be beige food; what would my innards say to coloured items, such as vegetables? I daren’t risk it.

After this, we walk through the park and see everyone smiling from the sun, groups gathering to sit down and eat their picnic of shop-bought sandwiches. I couldn’t feel happier and more at home in this English scene:

Now it’s H&M and New Look. There are queues everywhere, a severe lack of till assistants and feeling weary and tired already. I am concerned I won’t have the energy for a girls’ sleepover later. I needn’t have worried, once shopping was done and we’re back in the car home I already feel perked up.

I prepare pizzas and chicken bites for us and we all eat whilst standing up in the kitchen. We settle into a conversation about the Holocaust (oldest niece M loves history and school), and youngest niece, E, who conversely hates school and looks confused as to why we might be discussing this subject, E also has her boyfriend on the phone, not speaking to him, just him dialed in. They can’t possibly be separated for a second. M interjects and says, ‘Come on, put the phone down, this is girls’ night’ to which I nearly inhaled her. She’s 15 going on 80, and I love her and her sensibility with all my heart.

The girls then go full pelt into the drama of everyday school life. Described with urgency like its life or death, ‘Soooo Alice is not speaking to Jay because Jay said something nasty to Alice, Alice tells Sophie and Sophie had a go at Jay and now half the school aren’t talking to him and THEN’ I interject and ask them, as I have always done, ‘Does Aunty need to knee-cap them’? They roll their eyes and grin ‘No, Aunty’.

I tried to keep up. This conversation was also peppered with the following sentences:

‘Aunty, she vapes, but I love her’

‘She’s got bitchy vibes’

‘They egged him on to pull down his pants, can you believe that, Aunty? ’

I am trying to keep a straight face and match the seriousness that they are giving me, but who can cope? I can’t believe they are now humans with opinions, with dreams, with such intense feelings. All I can tell them is that I adore them, I am proud of them, and if they ever need me, for anything, I will be there. I love being an Aunty.

As I said, if I were to have my own, I’d be in jail if anyone looked at them the wrong way. Best not to procreate. Ahem.

Sunday is Mother’s Day in the UK, and I am delighted to be home for it. My sister is cooking a roast dinner - a roast! I’ve not eaten one since last year since Americans don’t offer them, at least not where we live. My plate is filled with VEGETABLES. My stomach will go into shock, but it’s okay because there is more beige food in the way of a Yorkshire pudding. GET IN. Chicken. Cauliflour Cheese. I don’t know where to start so just lift the plate up and stick my head in it.

Gang, that’s all from me this week! I am not sure if I’m writing again before I return home, but keep an eye out regardless. I like it when you’re needy and scratching around, itching for a slice of me. You are the BEST. Have a great week.

HASHTAG GETINMYBELLY