Will we stay?

  It's grey in Austin today and currently 55F with showers and a cool breeze. It's March and the clocks went forward yesterday but we are still stuck in a what has been long Texas winter. I look longingly at the leaf covered pool reflecting the milk white sky. We haven't swum since the beginning...

When is too soon?

Introducing Luna - our new dog! Actually, I have a confession to make, she is not that new. Beloved Dougal died on Sunday 16th September and we got Luna from the shelter the next Saturday the 22nd September . We only waited that long because I didn't get back from the UK till the Thursday...

At last an alive Armadillo

it is my third year in America and finally I got to see a live Armadillo! It was just walking across our road and then down into the shrubbery. It is not the first Armadillo I have seen here. Sadly I have seen many dead ones on the roads. Like badgers in the UK it...

Missing the Queen of Christmas

My mum was the Queen of Christmas. Starting in November with the making of aromatic brandy, cinnamon, raison Christmas puddings and ending in January with sweeping up the needles from the always impeccably decorated real Christmas Tree hung with twinkling lights and glinting baubles with the pine cone 'Nissa' hidden in the centre. For a...

My beloved dog Dougal died in his sleep last night

I'm back in the UK. Tuesday is the one year anniversary of my mum's death. We had a simple ceremony by her woodland grave today with family and a few special friends. Afterwards we all have lunch back at my parent's house. As I am eating I get a message from my husband who is...

I luv vintage

Mother daughter shopping time in University district Austin. Fun times with teenage daughter! She browsing clothes, me taking photographs in this cool distinctive 'keep Austin weird' shop I luv vintage. Want to buy a magazine with Madonna or Brittany Spears on the cover, a bow tie, a haywain shirt, 1930's evening gown, neon coloured swim...

Waves

Waves of grief homesickness and nostalgia as my son leaves another school

How do you feel?

This is not some deep reflection on grief or the weird alienation that even after two years sometimes hits me as an expat in Austin - an aerial freeway? A drive through donut shop? Turning right on a red light? Post on a Sunday? None of these things seem real. But they are here. No...

Looking for the positive

I am sitting on my bed, with the bedroom door shut, hiding from, but also listening to, the Insurance Adjuster Outside talking to my husband about the damage I caused to the garage and most of its contents. I sit ignoring the glorious honey rays of sun as it gently slips away and instead I...

Flowering a death

I missed Jill's funeral yesterday. Not that I had had much enthusiasm for a third flight back across the Atlantic for a funeral in less than 6 months. But I did want to be there to share the grief. To say goodbye. But in the end, as many expats find, the cost, distance and organization...