England/Scotland 2001: Snippets From Halfway
So much to write about, so little time trespassing in a Durham university computer room to write it…
I could write about Luke’s infrequent and reluctant observances of personal hygiene, or his frequent and enthusiastic attempts at cornball humour. There’s also his Sainsbury’s fetish.
I could write about our strange and irrational fascination with going to John O’Groats, despite knowing almost nothing about what is there, simply because we like the name. There’s the saga of the canned curry and accompanying naan. There’s the ongoing religious warfare. There’s our complete inability, even now, to bother making any plans whatsoever about Scotland.
I could go into daffodil ruminations – we pass fields upon fields of them in the bus (we’re National Expressing around), and the novelty of that strident yellow in the placidity of the English countryside still hasn’t worn off yet – but why are they there, and who plants them? Answers on a disgustingly touristy Sherwood Forest postcard…
I should definitely mention lovely friends who have borne our idiosyncratic impositions with patience and generosity. Kaif and Paul in Cambridge, Terence in Nottingham, Natalie in York and Jed in Durham: thank you, thank you, thank you. Apart from being wonderful, you’ve also saved us a lot of money, and that fact in particular really does make me love you more.