Rule Britannia!

Fish’n’chips. Jude Law. The Queen. Marmite. Cricket. Shakespeare. Afternoon Tea. The Thames. The Globe. Coffee Mornings. Oxfam Charity Shops. London. Cadbury's Chocolate. National Trust properties. BBC TV. Oxford. “The Shipping Forecast.” Little Red Post Boxes. Little Red Telephone Boxes. Royal Ascot. Full English Breakfasts. Double decker buses. Colin Firth. Radio 4. Classic FM. Brideshead Revisited. Jane Austen. Union Jack. Sunday Lunch. Yorkshire pudding. The Brontës. The Cure. Tesco's. Sainsbury’s. Boots. Marks & Spencer. Laura Ashley. Next. Hugh Grant. Stonehenge. Virginia Woolf. Rugby. Football. David Beckham. Handel. Hob Nobs. Crisps. Ribena. Christmas crackers. Boxing Day. Roundabouts. Driving on the left. Warwick Castle. Orlando Bloom. Country lanes. Cozy cottages with adorable names. Adorable children calling their mothers "Mummy". Pubs. Lager. Ale. Bitter. Cider. Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night. Dr. Who. Monty Python. Postcodes. Village fetes. Car boot sales. Cotswold stone. Warwickshire red brick. Rhubarb crumble. Fields of sheep. Shepherd’s pie. Nigella Lawson. Harry Potter. Gordon Ramsay. Parsnips. English gardens. English manors. English manners. The weather. The accents. The men.

England.

I love everything about it. I always have. I blame PBS. I was seduced at an early age by Masterpiece Theatre and Miss Marple. And I have finally succumbed utterly and completely to my Anglophilia and Anglomania. I surrendered my big city life in Manhattan to join the man I love in “the Motherland.” I have lived here before, but that was long ago, as an undergraduate and then post-graduate student, this time it’s “for real.” And hopefully, this time, it’s for keeps and forever.

Rule Britannia!