Nebulous Mooch

When people greet each other here they often say, “Are you alright?” I know they say this in the States too. But, in the States it usually sounds like, “You alright?”

The “are” in the beginning of the question really changes the meaning for me. “You alright?” is a causal greeting like, “What’s up?” or “How you doing?” but “Are you alright?” seems like a sincere query about my well-being to me. I still feel confused whenever anyone asks me, “Are you alright?” I start wondering if I look like there’s something wrong. I take a moment to assess my situation. Am I hungry, tired, sick, poor? They don’t want to hear about any of that so I usually just say “Yeah,” in after a pause that took a little longer than it should’ve. I’m usually so confused that I forget to ask the question back to the person in turn. They’re probably thinking, What’s with the crazy American who can’t seem to answer a simple question?

I got this email the other day. I thought it was quite interesting. I hope you enjoy it. I like the fact that it open with “Dearest One.”

We went to some local castle ruins the other day.

On our walks we’ve noticed thorny berry laden bushes by the side of the road. One day my husband asked someone on the street, “Are these berries edible?”

The man looked at him strangely and said, “Yeah. They’re blackberries.”

That’s all we needed to know. We spent a week casing the berry situation. I didn’t want to pick any berries that were right by the roadside. My husband thought that was because of pollution, but, honestly, it had more to do with embarrassment. We found a few spots were we could wonder back off the road and picked berries.

On Sunday we set out with a container to pick berries. Here’s the thing about picking berries just off the road, even though no one could see me, I still felt embarrassed. I just felt like I shouldn’t be doing it. So my husband picked most of the berries while I stood there feeling nervous.

“You’re really embarrassed about doing this,” my husband said to me, when I told him to stop picking berries because I thought someone was coming.

“I’m mortified,” I said.

“The funny thing is I bet you’ll write about this on the blog,” he laughed.

Of course he was right.

“The Lowlands,” I said in a funny voice. I was reading the small wooden sign that hung above the door of a house we were walking by. A woman kneeling in the garden looked up at me and scowled. “I didn’t notice her there,” I whispered to my husband.

Houses have names here. I like to say their names aloud as I pass them on the road. Sometimes I get caught.

Not all houses have names. Houses in the countryside are more likely to have names than houses in the city. Watford isn’t the countryside, but there are still quite a few named houses here. I wonder where these names come from.

My husband has a friend who lives in a house called The Red Admiral. This is a particularly funny name to me because the house is white. Maybe it was red at some time.

When we buy a house I want one with a name. I could always name it myself. I think Rupert is a good name. What do you think?