Travels with Myself

A classic advertisement said, "You're not getting older, you're getting better." I don't recall what it was selling-- face cream? Hair dye? But I am here to attest that it is true, in some ways at least. 

In September I clicked along the railroad tracks of Europe, most definitely doing it better than I did back in  my youth.

It all started with a wedding: our nephew married his beloved, and the extended family gathered in the heart of Tuscany to celebrate with the couple and their friends. A joyous occasion indeed. The icing on the cake for us was getting to spend three precious days with our children, plus girlfriend, in an 'agriturismo' villa perched on a hillside overlooking acres of vines and distant olive trees, only a 30-minute dusty, bumpy, scenic drive from villa to wedding venue (the rental car guy told us that in Tuscany people are too busy making wine to pave their roads). Eldest son found and organized the accommodation; those parenting tables are turning. We arrived from three corners of the globe-- Toronto, Vancouver, and Utrecht--to converge on Rome. It had seemed too precarious a plan to work but it did.

All together now (Castelnuovo dell'Abate, Tuscany)

After we dispersed I found myself on my own with no obligations and the continent beckoning. The last time such a thing happened was decades ago in my student days.

I had Europe at my feet and chose to keep it there, staying on the ground: my ticket to ride then as now was a train pass. Then, I had a student Interrail card in the shape of a small paper booklet good for nearly unlimited travel for a month, a laden backpack, a small stack of travelers checks, and no one to answer to. 

Traveller's cheque on display at the British Museum

Back in the student era, my idea was to spend as little money as possible. Competitive thrift seemed to be the order of the day. We undergrads reconvened after our holiday travels and told tales of touring Roman ruins and Notre Dame and bragged about the cheapest places to stay and sneaking an extra--usually stale-- roll from the continental breakfast service to save for lunch along with an apple or tomato from a greengrocer. I don't know why I was so miserly. I was not poor; my parents were not mean. I set out from the University of Sussex for a three-week backpacking trip across Western Europe in December and January of my year abroad with three hundred pounds in traveller's cheques and my rail card. I came home with much of the money untouched, having gone hungry some of the time and sleeping in a few appalling hostels. I remember I skipped a visit Versailles because it was too expensive. Once I nearly found myself marooned for a night in the Milan train station and was rescued through the unutterable kindness of strangers. I really was supremely lucky. Some of the time I traveled with friends, other times on my own, partly by choice and partly by misadventure. I look back on various terrible decisions I made and shudder in shock and awe that I did not suffer any worse fate than occasional cold, hunger, and discomposure. 

This journey could not have been more different. I purchased a senior Eurail pass rather than a student one--and first-class at that (not much more expensive)--in digital rather than paper form, good for 5 days of travel in a month, requiring more thought and planning. I carried a credit card instead of cash. Add a mobile phone with travel plan, and voilà, I was ready to ride, armed and far less endangered than last time.

I still found occasion to chat with kind strangers. And I still was not extravagant-- my tastes are not extravagant, I guess--but nor did I go hungry and or inhabit grimy hostels. I lived well and had fun. I ate wonderful food and imbibed delightful drinks both caffeinated and alcoholic. I sampled the ice cream at every destination. I visited castles and markets and towers and museums and took boat rides and though I travelled solo, I also spent time with friends. I loved every single city on my itinerary: Rome, Venice, Salzburg, Prague, Berlin, Utrecht/ Amersfoort/ Amsterdam/ Den Haag (the Netherlands is small).

 

As easy as ABCDE

Rome's Forum where a seagull stole my ice cream cone

Ice cream, ice cream, everywhere. Luckily.

My suitcase and I traversing Venice

Friendship in Venice 💝

Train life

Salzburg from on high

🔎 Mysterious: Prague public library

Prague: Kafka's head. It moves, but I can't get the video to upload.

Berlin Wall with friends from Clare Hall 💕💕

My final destination was the Netherlands, where I visited middle child in his new habitat in the charming city of Utrecht. Although I had seen him only two weeks earlier at the Italian wedding, it was such a pleasure to see him again and in situ in his new faraway (I hope temporarily) home. He guided me with grace and confidence and a startling ability to navigate both Utrecht and Amsterdam. I was granted excellent hospitality with a long-time (these days I find myself careful about saying 'old') and very precious friend in nearby Amersfoort. 

Utrecht. The Dom and the son.

Kattenkabinet in Amsterdam

Amsterdam by night

The Hague, outside the Mauritshuis, with sweet friends and son 💜💛💚💙

Then too few days later, on the first of October, I flew across the ocean back to Canada. As a last hurrah, my flight involved a long-enough layover in Montréal to enjoy a sunny afternoon in the old city by the St. Lawrence River. A perfect ending. 

Last stop: Vieux Montréal

Getting older (sometimes) is getting better. 

Salzburg. What would Mozart order? At a guess: 'ein skinny triple shot oat milk latte, bitte'

Venice, last vaporetto ride. Arrivederci, Europe.

"This is Canada!"

Returning home to Toronto after a year in Cambridge has been both a delight and a shock. Delightful: kids, pets, friends, garden, lake. Shocking: bright lights, big city, traffic, road rage. I find myself squinting in the glare of speeding cars and reckless drivers. The anti-cyclist (and anti-pedestrian) mentality and movement have grown even as--perhaps because--the city itself takes gradual steps toward bike and pedestrian-friendliness...ie to get to where Cambridge already is.   

When our family first landed in Toronto 13 years ago the friendliness and kindliness of the denizens impressed us. People stopped to offer help when we looked confused, they chatted pleasantly in shops. "They're so nice!" we marveled. Then we discovered the exception: Torontonians on wheels. Any wheels: riders as well as drivers ("Beware Canucks on Wheels" (2015)). Just yesterday, walking with husband and daughter, I had to dodge a cyclist on the sidewalk heading toward us, at night, no lights. "What are you doing? There's a bike lane right there," I pointed.

"Kiss my ass," said the man as he shot past.

"No, thank you," husband responded.

The aggro amongst street users has definitely ratcheted up. I read the odd snippet of Toronto transit news while in England. Now evidence of my own eyes confirms these reports. Toronto has, bless it, laid on more bike lanes (still not enough), installed more cycling and pedestrian infrastructure (still not enough), and funded more enforcement against bike-lane blockage (never enough). There's a new mayor in office, Olivia Chow, who rides her bike to City Hall. Things are trending in the right direction for cycling...at the mild expense of driver convenience and speed.

Good, say I. And yes I say that even when I am a driver. City driving should NOT be convenient or speedy. It should not be fun. It should be a thing one does as a last resort.

Others disagree and disagree strongly. People in Toronto (and in its suburbs) really like their cars.  They like them large and bulky and prominent and they want to use them to go fast. They're furious. I found this out twice last week.

Son injured his ankle and needed medical advice so, our doctor being away, I drove him to a walk-in clinic. I nosed most of the way in to a tight space right in front of the building and put on my flashers. Husband helped son hop into the building while I stayed with the car until we knew whether he could be seen. A minute later, behind me, a driver honked, her front bumper near my rear one. I wasn't sure why, as there was plenty of room to maneuver around me in the road. Eventually the driver pulled up next to me, blocking traffic, and rolled down the passenger window of her SUV. 

"I want to park there," she informed me. 

"Well, I'm waiting for someone."

"But I want to park. You haven't paid yet."

I stared at her. This young woman was ordering me to move so she could put her car where mine was.

"I'll be another few minutes," I repeated. 

"Then you should pay," she snapped, as though expecting me to drop coins directly into her palm.

"There's a grace period," I told her. "Ten minutes."

"I never heard that."

"Check the website," I said. (I am pretty sure I'm right. In any case, with luck the annoying woman will waste at least ten minutes googling it.)

"And you're idling," she accused.

"You're right." I turned off the motor and switched on the radio. "There you go." She drove away. I could practically see the huff in her exhaust.

Honestly. I cannot imagine a Canadian not in a car marching up to me and saying "I want your place in line. Move." But put them on wheels, and you get a different story. 

A little later the same day I met a friend for lunch at a nearby café. As we walked along a small street in my neighborhood, she and I watched an enormous blood-red pick-up truck reverse from the road into a driveway. As my friend and I edged along the strip of sidewalk left us by the driver, he started pulling forward, toward us. I lifted my hand to make us visible-- the truck's hood was about as high as my head--and craned my neck to make eye contact. The man rolled down his window to shout at me as we crossed to safety. "Hey! You don't always have the right of way! This is Canada!"

'This is Canada'? What? My friend and I looked at each other and laughed in disbelief.

The driver of the scarlet truck was of course right. It is true; this is Canada. Also it is true that I personally do not always have the right of way. But right then, right there, walking north on the sidewalk of Major Street, I, along with my friend--plus another woman walking south-- most certainly did have both the right of way and extreme vulnerability. What the driver had was a bloody big pick-up and a Y chromosome. 

Again, he might be a perfectly nice man when parted from his vehicle.

Or possibly not. Several months ago I read about a group of people deliberately blocking a bike lane newly installed on an iconic north-south Toronto thoroughfare, Yonge Street. Grown men and women had actually taken time out of their day to stand in an active bike lane in a city, forcing cyclists into traffic, in an effort to make cycling less safe and thus less popular. 

This is Canada?

Scotty, beam me up. Or perhaps just beam me back to Cambridge.

Who knows what comes next. My belief is that bike-riding will help save the world and that personally-owned cars will soon go the way of the dodo. The fact that the luddites amongst us are reacting so strongly against this change is perhaps an indicator of its eventual success. But the divisiveness in the meantime is scary and unpleasant and, I believe, profoundly un-Canadian. 

There are also signs of hope (the new cycling mayor of Toronto for instance) and, even more powerful, signs of humor:

Toronto's 'Crosswalk Referee' 

This too is Canada. 

Maybe it will help. 

And maybe the dodo will come back.

Laundry lore

We are back in Toronto, busy unpacking and setting our house to rights, a project that I fear may take us forever. We have too much stuff, a situation made clearer by our year of living sparely at Clare Hall. 

We managed perfectly well without the detritus that fills our space here at home. Clutter, I guess it could be called, or memorabilia. As we unpack and organize, I find myself tossing things out left, right, and center. Flip-flops bought in Tanzania now chewed by the dog? Cozy sweater from Edinburgh's Greenmarket pocked with intransigent stains? Harris Ranch mug with a chipped rim? Begone. 

The kids and the pets have made the cut. We're keeping them. It is very lovely having most of them close, and all of them nearer time-zone-wise (for the moment). And there are certainly some inanimate possessions with which we have had a happy reunion (books, art, coffee grinder, sofa). 

The  laundry room is one part of the house I am especially happy to return to-- in spite of the Everest-like pile of towels and linens. When I first learned that husband and I would be using a communal laundry facility for our year at Clare Hall, I quaked and hunted for laundry services in Cambridge that offered pick up and delivery. Impossible otherwise, I said to husband. I am way too old to put on shoes and coat and traipse through corridors in the cold and wet to wait my turn for a machine. 

Barefoot laundering

The reality, as so often, proved less daunting than I feared. Getting to the laundry room in Clare Hall did  not demand rain gear; the route was covered. We rarely waited for a machine. Even when we did, the experience was convivial; sharing facilities with people you know and like has its pleasures. Nonetheless, washing clothes involved planning and time management and being dressed. One delight of returning home is the ability to do laundry unshod and unclad at any time of day or night. 

But home laundry was not always so easy. When I first moved to England, way back when, I was shocked to discover that most washing machines lived in kitchens, under the counter, next to the tiny fridge, in exactly the spot where the (nonexistent) dishwasher should have lived. 

"Why is the washing machine in the kitchen?" I asked my friend and housemate, Kate. She was bemused by my question. 

"Where else would it go?" she shrugged.

Certainly not next to the dryer, which, like the dishwasher, did not exist in most houses (back then more so, but still even now). In Britain, I discovered, laundry is sent to try you. Convenience is less valued, to the extent that a desire for it is regarded with some suspicion. Laundry remains (in my experience) very much the province of the woman in the household, and cynically I cannot help but sense oppression. I may be wrong. (But I may not.) I also detect some brainwashing. My female friends often seemed to argue against their own best interests. 

'Clothes that dry in sunshine smell so much fresher,' I would hear other mums say. Sunshine? What sunshine, I wondered, as friends abandoned trolleys full of groceries at Sainsbury's in order to race home and remove bedsheets from the clothesline ahead of a downpour. Reliable sun is a rare commodity in that green land. And what about the excrement of passing birds? Plus it takes forever to peg clothes, linens, and towels to a washing-line, where they dry hard as boards, requiring aggressive ironing -- another favourite time-consuming British (women's) pastime in which I declined to partake.

The first household appliance my husband and I jointly purchased was a dryer, at my behest. However I consented to a condenser-dryer, a device I have only ever encountered in the UK, which rather than being vented to the outdoors, collects moisture in a plastic tank that needs to be removed and emptied every couple of cycles. Yes, yet more work. We kept ours in a tiny upstairs room while the washing machine (of course) lived in the kitchen, necessitating an awkward upward trek clutching a basket of heavy wet laundry. 

These condenser drying contraptions are only slightly less evil than the combination washer-dryers that satanic manufacturers foist on hopeful, unsuspecting consumers. Kate and I briefly shared one. It worked fine as long as you only washed one item at a time. I exaggerate, but not a lot.

My mother-in-law had a large house with plenty of unused space-- in fact there were whole rooms kept locked and untouched-- but still her washing machine (a washer-dryer) resided in the kitchen. She did own a separate full-sized dryer but it crouched at the farthest, darkest end of the detached and unheated garage. This placement necessitated toting a heavy basket of wet clothes from house to garage and then either slithering between the garage wall and the parked car, or first moving the car out to the driveway. It seemed to me that she had said yes to that dryer only grudgingly, while ensuring that doing laundry still constituted hard labour. The British way. Stiff upper lip and mustn't grumble-- which means there must be something about which not to grumble. 

I recalled this little laundry history because of a piece I read recently by Kirsten Bell, an American who has turned an ethnographic eye on UK laundry culture. Kudos to Kirsten. When I read her article I laughed until I cried. Yes, I thought. She has nailed it (or perhaps clothes-pinned it). After I closed the tab I stood and walked, unshod and pajama-clad, to my laundry room where I moved the wet towels from the washer into the dryer and filled the washing machine with sheets. 

Now to unpack one more box before bedtime...

They're multiplying

Getting there

 PS My research on laundry services in Cambridge did not go to waste; I shared it with a friend living in a different college, one with apparently very inferior laundry facilities. He was grateful.

Winding down and packing up: 'Farewell to England!'

Our Year of Living Academically is coming to an end. Next week we say goodbye to Cambridge and hello to Toronto (at least if our tickets are valid. We have doubts. But that's another story).

The boxes have arrived and the suitcases have been pulled from storage. Their mouths gape open, hungry for our possessions, which seem to have increased in orders of magnitude from the four pieces of checked luggage we brought from Canada. Books, boots, bits and bobs; it all adds up. Now we need to organize, pack, ship, and cry. I'm not quite as overwrought as Byron in his poem ("Heart-broken and lorn, I resign/ The joys and the hopes that thou gavest") but I certainly have emotional moments.

Byron in the Wren Library, Trinity College

As I pack, I run through a litany of memories and think of what I'll miss about living in Cambridge.

Clare Hall

Well, everything. 

• Our home from home, flat 17, Clare Hall
• Casual conversations daily in the dining hall on subjects ranging from Bach's obsession with numbers, to advances in material science around hip replacement, to views on brotherhood from the perspectives of anthropology and of classics, and so on--- all before dessert and coffee. 

• The dining hall. Being cooked for by creative chefs. Mushroom stroganoff for lunch! Thai curry for dinner! Soup every day!
• So many people at Clare Hall and beyond who have become friends and inspirations.
• Proximity to old friends who knew me back when, who knew my children as babies, whose life histories are part of my own.
• Weird though it may sound, the NHS, which served us very well when we needed it most.
• Weird though it may sound, the climate. 
• The dozens or hundreds of concerts and lectures and seminars (who knew historiography could be so intriguing?) advertised on laminated posters affixed to railings and posts: Cambridge's local internet is the inter-fence

• The River Cam.

• Riding bikes in a city where cycling infrastructure works. 

• The people who stay here. 

Neighbours 

• The people who visit.

• The swimming pool.

• Springtime in college gardens.

• Location, location, location: an hour to London, two to Brighton, three to Durham (well, four with the ever-present roadworks)
• East Anglia: north Norfolk--Walsingham! Cley!--and rural Suffolk, their coasts, pockets of Essex and Cambridgeshire. Sky and more sky.

Lavenham, Suffolk

Cley-next-the-Sea, Norfolk

• Trains
• Walks and runs along fields and paths, from right outside our door

• Not living in a big city. Turns out I'm not a big-city person. It's taken me a while to realise.
• Europe on the doorstep.
• The timezone advantage that has let me write in the mornings and work in the afternoons.
• The people. Again.
• This year-long adventure à deux  ♡

On the other side of goodbyes, of course, will be the hellos. What I am looking forward to in Toronto:

• Reunion with our kids (until they dissipate, leaving us in the empty nest--unlike this past year, when we left them)
• Reunion with the dog and two cats (a very close second to seeing the kids. In fact... no, I won't go there)
• Reading the paper in bed surrounded by the dog and two cats
• Settling back into our galumphing old house 
• Reclaiming my houseplants (thank you to everyone who kept them going)
• Wrestling with the scraggly neglected garden (hint to husband: how about a new garden bench for our anniversary?)
• Connecting with friends and neighbors and colleagues in real life (hey folks, please can we go for a coffee? An ice cream? A cocktail? Soon?)
• Greater proximity to my North American family; seeing many of them next week for...
• ...middle child's graduation ceremony!
• Cooking meals (though not the associated washing up). So many new Nigel Slater recipes to try, plus the Alice B. Toklas cookbook.
• Dining and drinking on restaurant patios unassailed by cigarette smoke.
• Living on a continent with a Pacific coast. 

Bridge over the River Cam 
July 2022

This week the farewell gatherings come thick and fast, punctuating the packing up. There will be tears before leaving for sure, but also bright hope for return. In the meantime, I believe I've ordered enough Sainsbury's own-brand tea to see us through the transition to Toronto. 

Thank you, Clare Hall, for everything. À bientôt. 

Full moon from Flat 17 

 

One alarm, two birthdays, and three Seders

Our cooker here at Clare Hall looks benign, even encouraging. It has a shiny black glass surface and uses convective magic to make things in pots hot. The oven has several knobs with runic symbols. 

But looks are deceiving. 

A watched pot never boils, they say, but ours do in the split of an instant, followed by water spluttering over the sides and the whole stovetop shorting out. We have to switch it off at the wall, wait, wipe, and start again--that, or eat crunchy pasta. The oven, meanwhile, is good at making smoke. Yes we have cleaned it (although possibly not well). We could ask for repair or replacement and for sure the ever-ready Clare Hall maintenance staff would come to our assistance, but instead we have taken it as a further sign that we are not meant to cook this year. Luckily, we rarely have to; the buttery provides most of our meals and we forage for the rest in pubs, cafés, or Marks and Spencer.

However very occasionally we do buy some items that need heating up. Recently we visited the charming Suffolk town of Bury St. Edmunds on its market day. The market sold the usual suspects-- fruit and veg, bread--and also some non-traditional things: insurance, flooring, wild game. At the wild game stall husband and I sampled some boar sausages and venison burgers and decided to bring home a four-pack of the burgers. That night we made our best guess as to which symbol meant 'grill' and set the burgers beneath the element, carefully propping open the oven door. 

Bury St. Edmunds' Saturday market

Smoke came out. Lots of it. I put the extractor fan on high, threw wide the windows, opened doors. We knew that even a slice of burnt toast could trigger the smoke detector which then sets off the fire alarm for the whole complex of twenty-one flats. I rang the Porters Lodge and spoke to one of our favourite porters, Brent. "I think we might be about to set off the fire alarm, " I told him.  "It's pretty smoky in here."

Brent laughed genially and offered reassurance. Five minutes later when I retrieved the burgers, plumes of smoke issued forth and the shriek of the alarm filled the air. Fortunately it was still early-ish in the evening (sometimes we don't get around to cooking dinner until after most people have gone to bed). I called Brent. "Sorry, sorry."

"I'm already on my way," he said.

In the two minutes it took him to reach us, I stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, Juliet-like, and called to the assembled crowd, "Friends, neighbors, Clare Hallers! It's all good! No fire, just smoke!" Brent arrived, did his check, laughed again, and left us to eat slightly cool venison burgers. They were delicious. The teasing from our neighbors only lasted for a day or ten.

When Passover arrived early this month, we were lucky enough to have three Seder invitations. Given that in a typical year there are only two nights of Seder (in the Diaspora anyway), we felt ourselves blessed. Also cursed, because what could we contribute to the shared meals? We knew better than to attempt to cook for multitudes given our track record (and our cookware), so we provided charoset, the second most delicious Passover food (following matzo brei IMHO)-- made of apples and walnuts and sweet wine and cinnamon. No deciphering of runic symbols was required, nor any heat. 

Some of our fellow Clare Hall residents have successfully mastered their ovens. We benefit in the form of baked goods. Husband's birthday-- several days after mine, and a big one--brought us cake from kind neighbors including Abby Rasminsky's strawberry masterpiece and the Shmuelofs' delightful fairy cakes.

Cake

More cake

Surprise party. Happy birthday, husband

We have found such lovely friends here. Six more weeks in Cambridge. It will be very hard to leave. 

Snippets from Mothering Sunday

Mother's Day card auto-generated by florist who clearly does business in the 1950s

Last weekend in the UK we celebrated Mothering Sunday, which reminded me of the little things I've learned during my transatlantic travails. A few bullet points:

1) In the UK, dishwashers require dishwasher salt in order to clean properly. I have no idea why. No one I've asked has any idea why. There is a hole on the bottom of each machine into which one pours the salt crystals. Then you screw on the lid and hey presto, clean dishes. A couple months later the crockery starts emerging smeary and sticky and you realise it is time to add more salt. When we arrived at Clare Hall last summer we just thought it was a budget dishwasher and lowered our expectations. It took many weeks beforeI remembered the salt trick. 

Just add salt

2) Mother's Day in the UK used to be called Mothering Sunday though nowadays it seems to have capitulated to global Hallmark forces and switched to American nomenclature. However, it continues to be celebrated on the third Sunday in March, rather than the second Sunday in May as in North America. Yes, yes, it's a card-and-flower-selling made-up holiday, but ignore it at one's peril (I hope my children are reading this). After years of living in England, I finally learned to buy a Mother's Day card in March so I could send it to my mother, in California, in May. I pat myself on the back for remembering this year. (I hope my mother is not reading this so as not to spoil the surprise.)  

3) Twice each year daylight savings happens or un-happens. It does not happen or un-happen on the same date east and west of the Atlantic. For two weeks, or sometimes one week, the normal time difference is suspended. It is an hour less or an hour more. At the moment, for instance, only four hours--not five--separate me in Cambridge from my colleagues and two of my children in Toronto; there are seven hours rather than eight between me and my parents in Los Angeles and our eldest child in Vancouver. In the autumn the same thing occurred but in reverse. Springing forward is harder than falling back: I keep missing or nearly missing meetings or classes or conversations, whereas in the autumn, I was turning up an hour early. The problem is vastly exacerbated now compared to Back in the Day, because now there is Zoom. Many more opportunities to be late.

4) There are no electrical plugs in bathrooms here in the UK, bar funny little holes meant strictly for 'shavers'. Where to connect the electric toothbrush? The blow-dryer? I don't have a blow-dryer but I do indulge in dental hygiene. 

5) Interrupting while talking. People do that in America. Less so in Canada. I have mostly learned to control myself (my husband and children might disagree. To them I say: moo (family joke)). I have made a new American friend here and we recently went for a walk and a talk. She spoke, I interrupted; I spoke, she interrupted. The conversation progressed in this braided fashion that felt so normal and comfortable to me that I messaged her later to say thank you. I don't claim this style as purely or solely American, but it is definitely not British (or Canadian). Luckily I am bilingual and can manage both with consummate ease (to my family who are no doubt objecting: moo!).

6) Crucial: drive on the left here. Bike on the left here. Drive on the right there. Bike on the right there. Walking: no consensus. Anybody's guess. Prepare to say 'sorry' often.

Thank you, Tracy Ward

Cambridge in February

I had to go to Peterborough the other day. Nothing wrong with Peterborough (it has a lovely cathedral) but there are other places one might prefer to visit whilst living in Cambridgeshire. In this case I needed to go to Stuart House, a government services building where biometrics are done. My biometrics will form part of my request to the Home Office to allow me, I very much hope, to confirm my 'indefinite leave to remain' status in the UK. The lawyer thinks I'm in with a chance. I don't know. I just do what she says.

What I do know is that I have spent an inordinate amount of my life negotiating with immigration services in various countries, including Indonesia, Britain, Canada, and now, again, Britain. I have taken tests and provided fingerprints, been photographed, filled in forms, made spreadsheets, submitted documentation. It's a colossal pain. I understand the rationale; I just don't agree with it. I'm in favor of a border-free world. I know I'm in the minority, but I'm not alone. My thinking is not purely selfish, either; see the Free Migration Project and The Case for Open Borders.  

However. It is, as they say, what it is. If I hope to get my ILR re-instated, I must work within the machine. So off I trotted to Peterborough. Actually I drove; there was a train strike.

I arrived late. I left home later than I intended, because...well, I never know exactly why that happens. Because I got a confusing email just as I was about to depart and had to respond. Because I decided I needed to make tea for my travel mug. Because husband had parked the car far away and I failed to factor in time to find it. Then my phone-slash-GPS fell on the floor while I was driving and I had to pull over on the motorway in order to retrieve it. Basically, I was late because that's the way I roll.  

After three-quarters of an hour I reached Peterborough and jumped off the last roundabout. The clock read 12:29. My appointed time was 12:30. I knew there were car parks in the vicinity of Stuart House and assumed they would be signposted, as indeed they were. However, Peterborough's one-way system and turning signage prevented me from legally entering the one that was nearest my destination. I circled around and decided to risk street parking, which had a one-hour limit. I felt sure I would be at Stuart House longer than that, but needs must. Already three minutes late for my appointment, I flashed my credit card at the pay-and-display machine. It hummed and flickered and said 'declined'. I tried with my debit. Again, same result. I concluded that the thing was broken. I would get photographic proof before abandoning my attempts. Just then a woman rushed up behind me, eager to use the same machine.

"Sorry," I said. "It's not working for me. I'm just going to try this one last time and take a picture in case I have to argue a ticket." 

"Okay," she said dubiously. "My appointment's at half-past."

"Mine too," I said, and we laughed. "Why don't you try?"

Her card was also declined. I was fully ready to give up when she said "Let's use cash," and pulled out a handful of pound coins and 50p pieces. Miraculously, after we took turns pushing various random buttons on the machine, it accepted the silver and spit out a display slip. She handed it to me. "Go on," she said. "Have this one. No point in both of us missing our appointments. Just tell them Tracy Ward is on the way!"

"I'll wait," I said. "I can't leave you here." Not having any coins myself, I offered her a five-pound note to cover the cost of my parking; she said, "Don't be silly." I liked Tracy a lot. Tracy represents so much of what I love about England. Not just the generosity with money but the generosity in sharing experience. Mucking in together. 

Tracy tried again. No luck; the machine refused her coins and demanded a card. "Let's hit cancel," we decided, which reset the process. At last, at last, the thing consented to accept another one pound fifty and provided a second parking slip. At that point Tracy and I discovered that we were bound for different government offices within the same complex. "Good luck!" I shouted as I ran the other way. 

I went to the wrong door and got re-directed to the right one. It was nearly 12:40. Inside the second portal I found a vast, shiny, high-ceilinged lobby and a short, slim, silver-haired man in a jacket and tie, with a badge on a lanyard around his neck, waiting for me. "You're here for the biometrics, right?" he asked. I agreed.

"You've nearly missed your appointment," he scolded. "And we've got a packed schedule. Can you tell me why you're so late?" 

Uh oh. I was in trouble with the government. I thought fast. "Because I'm always late" did not seem like a good response. "It was the train strike," I began. Everyone has sympathy if it's about the train strike. "So I had to drive the car. And then the pay-and-display machine wouldn't accept my card. But a wonderful woman called Tracy Ward turned up with coins..." 

At that point, Mr. Government interrupted me. "Well, we'll try to fit you in. This way." I hoisted my backpack--which contained my laptop, since I had imagined waiting ages for my turn amongst these putative hordes of people--and followed him.

He escorted me to a small lift in which we traveled up two flights, along a length of utterly empty corridor, into a large white room with big windows and five industrial-style desks. At one of these perched a client like myself, there for biometrics, being served by a round red-faced man. I saw no crowds of milling people waiting to be fingerprinted. I saw no one else at all.

I seated myself at "PET05", as Mr. Government's station was labelled, and waited quietly, submissively, abjectly. It seemed to help. He took hold of my passport and my appointment letter and asked me to pose for a photo against a grey background. "Don't lean back," Mr. G warned. "It's only a screen." I stood very upright. "Now put your right fingers here," he motioned. "Like this." In about ten minutes the whole procedure was over. While he scanned my passport, I had time to read a sign taped to the wall, warning me against using my mobile phone 'in this area'. I saw another sign taped to the desk which said, 'Please use your mobile phone to scan this QR code and provide feedback on your appointment.' I decided to obey the first sign. And then I wrote my signature invisibly with an ink-less pen on a small black box and reclaimed my passport. Mr. Government was all smiles as he showed me out. I asked for the toilets, to which he directed me, and where I found to my delight that the sinks had mixer taps. Some things in Britain are definitely getting better (to wit: "Segregation in the UK").

Mixer tap at Stuart House!

I still had another half-hour left on the pay-and-display ticket, and wanted to honour Tracy's generosity, so I stopped for a sandwich and weak coffee in the 'co-working' space on the main floor. I even did a little co-working with my laptop. When I got back outside, I scanned the street for Tracy and her car, to no avail. I hope her appointment, whatever it was for, went well. I hope she explained to her Mr. or Ms. Government that she was late because of a hapless American woman who could not manage the pay-and-display. Hands across the water, etc. (Or maybe not so much, in these Brexity days?)

Co-working with ping-pong table

Snowdrops and aconites

Back home in Cambridge, I took myself for a sunset walk and admired bunches of white snowdrops and yellow aconites tumbling over themselves in the grounds of Newnham College. (In Toronto, meanwhile, a polar vortex meant it was -19C and snowy.) I very much hope that the good folks in the Home Office agree that I can return to this green and pleasant land again and again. For one thing, I need to look for Tracy. I want to buy her a cup of coffee. A good strong one. Tracy is a part of the Britain that needs no improvement.

Moon over Newnham College