Neither one nor the other

I went to the UK, well England, a few weeks ago. I like England well enough but I don't visit that often. I probably go a little more often than once a year but I usually only stay three or four days. My visit in February was my first since May of last year. Both of my last two visits have been prompted by my mum being less well than usual.

It's funny going back. I'm English, I'll always be English and my English is still pretty good - a bit old fashioned maybe but good. My language skills and my cultural knowledge make me feel comfortable in England. I usually know how things are organised, how to behave but if things have changed, or start to go a bit awry, I can ask, I can talk to people, find out what's going. Nonetheless I had, at one point, to hold out a handful of coins and ask the person on the other side of the counter to take the appropriate money. I am, of course, aware that simply using physical money makes me a bit odd but, in the heat of the moment, I couldn't decide which coin was which. There were lots of other tiny incidents to highlight that things are not as they were when I left and sometimes, despite being on home turf, I was slightly uncomfortable in some situations.

I lived in Cambridgeshire for about twenty years and I left a bit short of twenty years ago. For several of those years I worked for a charity. At one point I recruited my dad to help out with something, I don't remember exactly what, but it involved him phoning lots of people we worked with. He found that at least half of the people presumed he was me. On the phone it could only be accent. My dad died in 2000 but long before that he was in hospital in Huddersfield in West Yorkshire. I drove up from Cambridgeshire to see him. At one point the nursing staff needed to do something ghastly related to bodily fluids so they pulled a curtain around his bed and chased me away. I sat on the edge of the bed of the bloke next to my dad in the ward. We chatted a bit. "Where are you from?," he asked.  "From here," I replied. "No," he said, "not now, where are you from, where are your roots?" "I was born in this very hospital," I said. "Well you don't sound like you were," he concluded. I realised I was stateless. In Cambridgeshire I was broad Yorkshire. In Huddersfield I was from somewhere South. 

Something similar happens when I go to England. I'm definitely not from here but I'm a bit out of place there. 

I was amazed and unready to eat at British meal times. I mean everyone knows that Spaniards eat later but do Britons really eat so early? I saw people ordering lunch before noon. My sister tells me that she thinks that British people are tending to book an evening meal in a restaurant earlier than they used to. Her feeling was that, until recently a 7.30pm booking would be pretty normal but that now the same booking is a tad on the late side. I wouldn't expect most Spanish restaurants to be open before 8.30pm! I found it very odd even considering eating at 12 noon or 5pm. 

I went shopping in a supermarket and I couldn't find anything - the ordering of goods seemed to follow no obvious logic but I remember having the same difficulty when I moved from the UK to Spain. Oh, and then I was completely flummoxed by the "scan and pay" or "scan and go" options at the self service checkouts. A very pleasant woman helped me, in a slightly condescending way, with the multiple operations required to pay for a single lemon!

On the bus, even though there is a maximum fare of £2 people were still asking for their stop by name. When you get on a Spanish bus you just want tickets. The fare is the same for two stops or twelve. Mind you the community spirit on the British buses was great. All that clearing the way so someone in a wheelchair can get on or everyone thanking the driver as they get off is something I've never seen on Spanish buses

You can be more specific if you want to get a beer in Spain but really all you have to do is ask for a beer. There are sometimes supplementary questions from the servers in more upmarket bars but that's something fancy and new. In the UK it's always been, a pint of Ghost Ship (or Landlord or IPA and so on) please. Essential to specify both product and quantity (and nowadays to have a sizeable credit limit on your card) .

Strange as well that the cars and buses go on the other side of the road. I whirled around in the style of one of those robot vacuum cleaners when I had to cross the road as I was quite unsure where the traffic would be. In a taxi I had a momentary panic attack when the driver was obviously going to go the "wrong way" round a roundabout.

In the Dhaba I was pleased to be able to lean on my sister and brother in law to understand the menu.

Here though, obviously enough, to Spaniards I'm as English as five o' clock tea, pea soupers and fish'n'chips. Lots of people in shops, restaurants and bars will, annoyingly, speak to me in English despite my best efforts and I'm sure if they had a any spare socks they would offer me them to wear with my sandals.

They walk in the sun

I've just been to the UK, to see my mum. I was feeling a bit guilty about not having seen her for about seventeen months. She was in good form, fit and well and full of life.

In the UK I don't have any problem with talking. My words and phrasing may be a bit old fashioned but I can say what I want to whoever I want and with an appropriate emphasis. People even understand me if I throw in a bit of irony.

Nonetheless I find the UK a bit more foreign every time I'm there. I refer back to Spain all the time. I noticed hundreds of little differences - for instance I was impressed by the way that people repeatedly gave way to other people - in traffic, in queues, in doorways. People really do choose to walk on the sunny side of the street rather than to search out the shade. Food was distinctly different and I noticed that people eat all sorts of food in the street at all times of day. Forms of retailing seemed much more innovative with all manner of kiosks and small businesses offering services and products that don't exist here. It could be a long list.

I tell my students about ordering and paying for beer at the bar but I was surprised when the bar staff wanted the money before pulling the pint in Wetherspoon's so I'll have to change that a little. I tell my students that for we British a coffee is a coffee but I'm wrong - lattes, cappuccinos and americanos have taken the place of the distinction between coffee and black coffee and I wasn't there to notice. I found it strange, though I know the system, that the bus fare varies width distance. I was constantly perturbed as I rode on the buses that they seemed determined to drive into the face of oncoming traffic. It would take a while to relearn the driving on the other side of the road thing. Even the cars were slightly different; I spotted lots and lots of Jaguars and I doubled the number of Bentleys I'd seen in my life in just five days. I had to check the unfamiliar banknotes and coins before paying and not being able to see the tobacco in supermarkets was most odd. 

So I was quite at home in England but always a bit off balance at the same time. To be honest it's probably the same here though maybe the other way around. I'm in a bar as I type this. I was going to have a coffee but, as I waited to be served, I heard the waitress say the coffee machine was broken. When I ordered I checked about the machine and ordered a non alcoholic beer instead. She came back, "You may think I'm joking," she said, "but we don't have any zero alcohol either." I understood what she was saying without any trouble - though I probably didn't hear every word - and changing my order for a third time was no problem. It's not that I was lost, it's not that I was phased or confused but I wasn't exactly at ease with the situation either. So the talking can be a bit tricky but the way of doing things and the things I see around me are just commonplace.

As I got off the aeroplane in Spain I felt glad to be home but, as I will never be fluent, fluent, maybe I will never be at home.