Homesick

Occasionally I get homesick. I like Belgium a lot, but sometimes I just need an injection of Englishness. Watching BBC Breakfast just isn't enough somedays. On days like today, when the wind is blowing and the rain can't decide if it wants to be hailstones or not, I imagine that England is basking under a warm sun and I want nothing more than to walk the country lanes near my home with my dog. Of course it's pissing down there too, I don't know where my walking boots are and my dog died over a year ago! Something happens when you leave your Homeland, you start to have selective memory and most of that is made up. My minds eye sees England as a melange of old black and white movies, usually starring Kenneth Moore or Ian Carmichael, where people are 'awfully' pleasent to each other and men smoke pipes. Add Dads Army, The Good Life and Steptoe and Son into the mix and a liberal dollop of those documentries about Britain that the BBC do so well and it's apparent to everyone that, growing up, I watched far too much tv! I don't think I'm the only one to stereotype Britain through the television programmes they watch. There is a running joke in my fiance's family about the tv comedy called Keeping Up Appearences and an old language teacher, when I talked about my home in England, asked jokingly if it was like Midsomer Murders. I haven't seen Midsomer Murders but I took a guess and said that my village was indeed like Midsomer Murders. Funnily enough I've not spoken to him since...