There has been a curious absence of blogging activity here lately & for that I apologize.  But the holidays are a busy time of year, as we all know, especially if one is a nurse & holiday breaks by necessity don’t actually exist.  However, my husband & I did manage to see all of our families in Virginia, so it was a successful & enjoyable Christmas for us.  

Anyway, it has occurred to me lately that while in actual fact I’m an American (& a Southerner at that), I’m really quite British at heart.  Here are a few reasons why I’ve come to that conclusion.

1. Many of my favorite authors are British, particularly Agatha Christie & PD James.  I’m not nearly sophisticated enough to honestly say that I spend my leisure time reading such scholarly pieces as those written by Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, or Shakespeare, though those works certainly have their merits, but I can say that British literature was always my favorite in school, though there are certainly some great American writers as well of course.  But there is just something about the way British people write, the phrases they use, the innate dry humor that is so pervasive in their culture, that I just love so dearly & of which I can never, ever get enough.
   

   Russell Brand on the Jonathan Ross show

2. If you know me in real life, hopefully you know that I really love to laugh, quite often at my own clumsiness & general silliness.  In any case, most of my favorite comedians are British, namely Ricky Gervais, Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross, & Graham Norton.  If you’re an American, you’ve possibly never heard of any of these genius men, aside of course from Russell Brand.  But I implore you to proceed immediately to that place of great amusement called YouTube & research these gentlemen.  Specifically you should check out the Graham Norton show featuring Marilyn Manson, the Jonathan Ross show featuring Russell Brand, & Ricky Gervais on obesity & religion.  Additionally if you’re not following Ricky Gervais on Instagram, you are seriously missing out on some insanely hilarious pictures.  His account is one of the main reasons I finally broke down & created an Instagram account for myself this past week.  Furthermore Russell Brand’s autobiographies are some of the funniest but also most inspiring & well written books known to man.  (Indeed, reading them completely changed my views on the man.)
   

   Here’s our adorable corgi obtaining great amusement out of a plastic water bottle.

3. My favorite dogs in the world are welsh corgis.  Here’s a picture of ours, aptly named Chaucer (my husband actually chose that name after his favorite British author Geoffrey Chaucer).  I love all dogs, but with their stubby little legs, cheerful faces, fluffy butts, & never-ending playfulness, corgis are definitely the best.  It’s no wonder Queen Elizabeth owns so many of them.
4. While I’ll confess it’s a new obsession for me, I’m extremely fond of hot tea.  Of course if I were truly British, I wouldn’t have to qualify it as “hot” tea, but being a Southerner I have to phrase it that way for fear of people assuming I mean iced tea which, shockingly, I have never liked.  Sometimes I even like my tea with milk in it.  And what could possibly be more British than that?
   

   This stuff is what started my love affair with hot tea

5. I’m very fond of certain words & phrases (though some of them I think more than I actually say) that are definitely British.  Here are a few of my favorites:
   1. Bloody
   2. Predilection (Americans use this too, but it’s not exactly a common word like it is in England.)
   3. Fancy (as in “I rather fancy a little honey in my tea” or “I’ve taken a fancy to that Indian buffet of late.”)
   4. Wanker
   5. Blimey
   6. Beastly
   7. Bollocks
   8. Gallivant
   9. Not my cup of tea
   10. Queer (NOT used to be mean gay/homosexual)
       

       I don’t actually know/use all of these, but I love most of them & think we Americans should adopt them.

6. And most importantly one of my dearest friends in the world is British . . . Which of course is the biggest reason why the UK is the number one place I want to visit as far as international travel goes.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that a part of my heart is across the Atlantic, which is why I’m so incredibly grateful for Facebook, WhatsApp, & Skype to help us stay in daily, sometimes hourly, contact.

In all seriousness though, I really do think I’d fit in quite well in England or the UK in general.  The idea of living somewhere with actual decent public transit sounds quite thrilling to me.  And of course London is easily recognized as one of the most culturally & ethnically diverse cities in the world, & it’s certainly quite loaded with Indian restaurants, which of course would make me feel right at home.  Additionally one of my great-great grandmothers hailed from Yorkshire, so at least part, if not most, of my ancestry is indeed British.

My sister attended grad school in England; this is one of her pictures from her time there.

While I cannot say with great honesty that I am truly proud to be an American all the time, I am thankful to be an American because of the freedoms we have here . . . But there will always be a large part of me that feels British at heart.

Oh, look! Another fabulous British thing: BFMV, a Welsh metal band who are seriously awesome.

In conclusion, the British are a people who created the phrase “How’s your father?” as a euphemism for sex.  That’s so absurd, it’s endearing!  I don’t know how one could read that & not become a bit of an Anglophile.

Cheers, everyone!  And happy 2016 to all ya lovely wankers reading my blog today.  I mean that in the most loving way possible, of course.  😉