One would think a move from Singapore to New York would create fertile ground for interesting ideas, content and stories to share. It hasn't.
The US is just normal. Or rather where we are living is just rather normal, nice, pedestrian and dare I say ... boring.
You might have guessed that we are not living in the bright lights big city of Manhattan, so for those of you excited to stay with us to have access to the Big Apple, be warned, we live in the woods 40 miles outside of Manhattan.
The only bright lights where we live are the lighthouse bulb bright drive way lights on everyone's property to stop them crashing into their own houses at night.
That said, you are all extremely welcome to stay. Well, actually, only half of you. (See divisiveness is brilliant. I see why politicians do it, as now half of you are wondering... "is that cow talking about me?").
I am also writing now because Christmas is coming up and I always write a Christmas blog to wish you all merriment and a wonderful healthy hearty time with family and friends.
This year, we will have family with us for Christmas and will not have to run away from the heat, our ipad app log fire and our 3 ft fake tree.
I also thought this is the time to wish everyone a Happy New Year but I don't think I can write that without you noticing the sarcasm dripping off my font.
It has been a doozie hasn't it... 2016? I don't want to bang on over the state of the world because there is endless banging on about that every second of every day.
Instead, I thought you might enjoy hearing how, with this miserable funk hanging over me due to the 24 hour news cycle beating me up on loop, I have managed to turn an exciting new adventure for us in America, into poop.
Example 1
It is an hour on the train into Manhattan which is a bore, but as one steps out of Grand Central station into the hub bub of the city it is instantly energizing. And at Christmas it is especially wonderful. The lights, the noise, the homelessness, the garbage, the music, the buildings, the drunks, all makes me love Manhattan and takes me back to my many happy years as a young Dick Whit seeking my fortune in London.
The only problem with New York is the grid system.
Everyone warbles on about how the grid system is the easiest system to negotiate. This is like those people who say bats have sonar. I cannot tell you how many times I have had bats fly into my face. That whole sonar echo location thing is just something made up by conspiracy theorists.
Secondly, it doesn't matter if I have my New York guide book and my google maps out on my phone. I can come out of the same exit of Grand Central every time and stand there for ten minutes before screaming out loud "which goddamn way is east".
Please note that even though I mentioned a guide book and phone GPS I am not a tourist. I am one of those travelling snobs that would never call myself a tourist.
Tourists get in the way, lacerate strangers with their selfie sticks, amble and stop suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk. I am not one of these people. I am a traveller, so I do none of these things, but admittedly in New York, I do all of these things, because I don't know which way is east!
I think a good start for overcoming this problem is admitting to yourself that east does not mean right and west isn't left and it does matter where you are standing when attempting to navigate.
I also believe if you have grown up or worked in a big city you have free licence to go to anybody else's big city and abuse tourists for getting in the way. It is a big city understanding between big city people. So on a recent trip to Manhattan to meet an old friend, I had great fun parroting her as she cursed all the tourists queuing round the blocks of places we wanted to go to. What fun.
God, I really hate people.
Example 2
As I mentioned we live in the woods and when I say the woods, I mean the woods. We do live in a wonderful friendly neighbourhood and there are two small towns about a 15 minute drive away in each direction. There are no pavements or sidewalks and we regularly have rabbits, deer, coyotes and velociraptors strolling through our garden.
I love the countryside. It is clean aired, refreshing and pretty but unlike our old days in Guildford where we had the benefit of the countryside on our doorstep, it was also a short walk into a fantastic town with great shops, restaurants, bars, theatre and a cinema. So if you fancied a bit of sophisticated urban posing, it was only a few minutes away and it was delightful.
We don't have that here and everything is a car ride away so I decided I should embrace my new life and attempt a daily stroll. This was particularly important after I found out shortly before we left Singapore that I had put on 11kg in weight, shrunk an inch and had raised cholesterol. Just what every girl wants to hear. They might as well have given me a lollipop and a sticker saying middle aged with an arrow pointing downwards, labelled "death".
Anyway, I decided to dig a free fit bit out and attempt to do my 10,000 steps a day by walking up and down our road which is hilly. You get the 10,000 steps in and have an asthma attack, which I believe is a sign the cholesterol and arterial tube fat is breaking up. Can't breathe and want to faint. Cholesterol is dissolving. All good.
However, while this is all rather swell for my health, due to the fact we live in the woods, walking has become somewhat of a hazard. Unlike my children who absolutely love road kill and are clearly putting in the foundations to become serial killers in later life, I am less keen.
I am petrified of road kill and dead animals haunt me. My daily walk has become a minefield of squashed squirrels, dead mice, decapitated bunnies, run over raccoons and just recently half a deer leg that appeared in front of our house and a few days ago moved across the road to someone else's house. I have no idea how this happened but given it is a leg, I assume it walked there.
I am now too scared to leave my home. So my walking days in the fresh biting cold air are over and I am just going to walk up and down my stairs at home and carry laundry up one pair of pants at a time to maximise my opportunity for exercise.
Example 3
Work is very quiet. The company I worked for briefly in Singapore, where I signed my contract and then two weeks later handed in my resignation due to the job offer in the US, were incredibly kind to ask me to continue working for them from here. This was an absolute gift. Having spoken to friends who have moved to the US in the last few years, they are all struggling with boredom due to lack of work opportunities. So I grabbed this job with absolute glee.
I am doing freelance work so it is ad hoc and as a result can be infrequent. I had a month of work to keep me busy after we arrived but recently it has quietened down to, well, nothing so I am bored and of course scared due to the high proportion of animal deaths by my house.
So, I have had to find other methods to entertain myself other than walking underwear up and down two flights of stairs one at a time.
The Autumn here was nothing short of stunning but even though all the leaves have fallen to the ground, it is actually far easier to spot the myriad of amazing wild birds endemic to the US that are quite frankly, beautiful. Chickadee's, woodpeckers, nuthatches & finches. Glorious!
Anyway, in my bird watching glee I thought we should get a bird feeder. I never realised how relaxing it is watching birds. What joy one can acquire from the simple things.
But of course, no smooth sailing for me. Much in the way that my daily constitutional was mired by roadkill I have a new enemy in my midst.
I suppose I am always at war with some animal, irrespective of where I live. Slugs and foxes in the UK, geckos in Singapore and now in New York, squirrels.
I do not want squirrels eating the food I have put out for the birds. Those greedy rodents have spent all of autumn burying their nuts around the garden and are now attempting to build on their obesity by stealing seeds not meant for them.
I am on a continued battle with the squirrels who scare the birds away and ingeniously contort their bodies to pretty much empty out a bird feeder of food in less than a day.
I refused to be beaten, so I drove to the shops and bought two squirrel resistant bird feeders and you cannot imagine my joy as I watch those bozos try time and time again to get inside it to no avail.
I liken this experience to seeing someone very beautiful fall over in the street. I revel in this schandenfreude. Stupid good looking people coasting through life because they are pretty. They should fall over all the time.
Back to the squirrels. Don't be mad with me. These squirrels are the size of cats. They do not need any more feeding unless we plan to eat them for Christmas.
Example 4
We don't have any holidays booked. This fact is giving me the skitters.
We are trying to save our pennies so we can take full advantage of travelling around this continent. I cut my fringe at the weekend because I didn't want to waste money on a hairdresser, (although that backfired because now I need to buy a hat to hide my hair), Eleanor has toeless socks as her toes have broken through the material because they are too small and Arthur is wearing age 4 trousers even though he is 7 and a half. We look like a bunch of tramps. I am glad our landlord never met us before we moved into their house.
I think I understand now why Americans do not travel very much. It has nothing to do with the fact that their country is so big why go anywhere else. It is because their country is so big you cannot afford to go anywhere in America.
Furthermore, the seasons which I desperately longed for and missed while we were in Singapore mean there are actually less places to go to in America because it is too damn cold for 9 months of the year.
A bit of research highlighted that some of the west coast national parks are in fact amazing in February and April. You don't have the blistering heat or the millions of tourists (yuck!) getting in the way.
I looked into flights to Phoenix which puts us in Grand Canyon territory and the best option I found for both, the Grand Canyon or Yosemite National Park was around the $4,000 mark with two stops en route, making the journey around 21 hours.
After much screeching about how much I hate America because I could fly to Italy in less time and for less money I was reliably informed by my hubby that I was thick as, because flying from New York to the West Coast is probably the same distance as flying from New York to Rome and jet fuel costs the same. Still, I object to paying that much dosh when you are travelling within your own country.
I think the only way forward is to embrace the extreme winters on the east coast and do something fun, albeit cold.
There are lots of skiing opportunities in this area, a few, only a two hour drive from where we live, which is great.
The kids are going to take a couple of lessons just after Christmas to see how they take to it, Rob is going to go skiing on his own as he has no friends and I am debating whether I should have a few lessons too, given I have only skied once 15 years ago.
It was brilliant fun, although I was absolutely petrified. I can also proudly say that I didn't fall over once on the slopes because I saved that humiliation for landing in a messy heap off the button lifts every single time I used them. I also threw myself off the chair lift as it got to its highest point before rounding the corner to head back down. Don't ask how I managed it. Let's just say I am talented at such things.
So that is our life in America to date.
As we move forward into 2017 my resolutions are to avoid the news as much as possible. I can't even watch the endless stream of suffering coming out of Syria anymore. I think all our hearts break daily as we watch these poor people's plight and know there is little we can do unless we can quickly train at Black Briar and take Putin, Assad and Iran out, Jason Bourne style. Although, it is fair to say the list of monsters across the globe is much longer than just that triumvirate of hell.
I will continue to significantly reduce our waste and plastic usage, continue to watch The West Wing to delude myself into how government should be run, continue to watch The Crown and thank heavens I am not the English Queen. I know she has nice horses and stuff but that job really sucks.
And lastly continue to watch Planet Earth II and take solace that there is still great beauty, majesty, wonder and true magic in the world, entirely where humans aren't, but it is still there and I will never tire of seeing David Attenborough in a hot air balloon. Those images will always remind me that perhaps there is still hope.
Merry Christmas everybody and let's hope that 2017 isn't the crappy suck fest of 2016. Good luck to us all!
