Last Day

It's my last day in Shrewsbury, and I'm going home with mixed feelings. I'll be glad to get back to regular (if something I've only been doing for three months can be 'regular') life, but I've enjoyed my hiatus from cooking/supply teaching/doing work all the time . And yes, I know my busy-ness is self-imposed for the most part, but that doesn't mean it isn't nice to have a vacation. I'll miss Gran a lot, but I've finally lost my naivete and realized why the rest of the family interact with her carefully, if not with downright suspicion. She can be exceedingly loving and generous and interesting, but she can also be mean and vindictive and snappy. I'm more than ever glad I'm on her good side, and (for perhaps the first time) glad that I live too far away to do more than send her regular letters.

Having a worldwide family's a strange thing, since it means that you can be on quite close terms with people you've only met 4 or 5 (or less) times in your life. But there's a lot to be said for genes, since I've found remarkable similarities between myself and people who are (for all intents and purposes) strangers. Lovely, engaging, fascinating strangers, though.

...

PS -- in the continuing tradition of addendums to my England posts, let me mention that anyone wondering as to why there's an obesity epidemic in the UK need look no farther than the fish and 'small' chips I ate last night, which consituted a package larger than my head.