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.