Say YES to a NEW adventure: Krexit time.
Seven years and nearly 5 months on from my departure from Canada, it’s once again time to create a new chapter, in fact volume, to my book of life. As I have been hinting over the past months, it’s time to make my Kr-Exit from Britain. I am following in true Kristyn-style advice: if you don’t like what’s happening, then get to the root of it and make a change. In this case, I am literally uprooting from the source of the Brexit issue (59% of the West Midlands voted to leave where 51.9% of the UK voted out) and venturing into the palms of the future decision makers of Brexit: À Bruxelles ou buste.
I’m not leaving to become European because of Brexit, rather for this plant to flourish, it requires a new environment for some period of time. I’ve triggered my own Article(s) 50, and am on my way! Article(s) 50 in my case are the 50 pairs of shoes I apparently own and are currently being transported with the rest of my belongings to my new Continental abode in Belgium.
For those of you who are still confused about what is actually going on (part of the problem of Brexit), I have taken on a new adventure and am moving to Brussels, Belgium. It’s onwards and upwards in a new job with a new company.
I’ve kept my chocolate making apron on and am moving to work with another Chocolate Giant based in Brussels. Simply speaking, I’m going to work in the heartland of fine chocolate (Belgium) with one of the world’s finest chocolate brands. I’d elaborate more, but quite frankly, the secrets of the world of chocolate are as coveted as escaping in one’s ingoing physical form from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. However, I will tease you with letting you know that you can expect some Brussels-Life type entries about my time on “the Continent” over the coming months.
As I write this last (for-now) UK adventure entry from the perspective of my time in England, I would like to revisit all that is twee about the fine time I have spent on these fair Isles. A few years back I started to work through the book “102 English Things To Do”, and today I will share with you a few more of those happenings.
I’ve already started with #3: Referring to ‘Europeans’ as if they were from a different continent distinguishing the geographical differences on either side of the Channel. However, the mentality that “English people believe they are essentially alone in the world, and would be downright foolish to rely on anyone else” is potentially part of how this whole Brexit polava was established in the first place. Leading me to #2: Dwell on England’s Failures which is perhaps subconsciously why I haven’t yet subscribed for true British citizenship. Instead of embracing a persona which chooses to dwell on routine English failures such as consistently late, overcrowded trains and celebrating tarnished mushy-peas-on-soggy-chips as a national foodstuff, I’d prefer to search out all that is positive.
Of course, I’m not saying that all English-folk are celebrators of their nation’s mediocrity (#6: Be ironic where “irony might manifest as hyperbole”), rather that #1: Ignoring England’s achievements and the traditional English trait of admiring “‘pluck’ over skill” (#8: Cheer for the underdog) sets the nation apart from the more extrovertedly achieving countries of this world, from which continent I originate. So to my English readers, I would please ask of you to #12: Keep a stiff upper lip in regards to this paragraph whilst I go on to thank you and dote on some of the very makings of England and the English for which I dearly love (#17: Say please and thank you).
One of my main reasons for loving the English is for their fostering of the unusual, and even further for their high value on #21: Cultivat[ing] eccentricity. Usually this pastime is reserved for the elite of the country where apparently in addition to painting his cows willow patterned, a gentleman named Sir George Sitwell “tried to pay his son’s fees at Eton by offering the school vegetables from his garden”. I have seen these very eccentric sorts in some of my most favourite escapades in England usually when I have #38: Go[ne] to a finger-in-the-ear folk performance and join in the chorus.
Live example of eccentricity in Camden Town
Ok, Glastonbury is modestly larger (#6: Being ironic, again) than an actual folk performance that one of our friend’s hosted in their living room last year; however, the former was definitely eccentric and finger-in-the-ear where the latter was, although a creative way to do some fundraising, very ear-pleasing. I suppose the Cider Festivals I have blogged about before have encompassed the elite eccentric, finger-in-the-ear folk performances, in addition to Things to Do: #’s 100: Drink traditional cider and 101: Visit a beer(cider) festival.
Panorama of Glastonbury
When I look back to reminisce on when I have really felt integrated as an English-folk, definitely “responsibly drinking” many “small 1/3 pint glasses known as ‘nips’” of traditional flat, murky “dung, hay, mud, and bees”-essenced cider in a farmers field during a summer festival, then that is when! And what is the most eccentric of it all is that the word festival in England presumes there will be a good percentage of patrons using the excuse to cultivate there inner child and dress in costume, sparkles, tutus, and whichever clashing colours and patterns they can get their hands on for the duration of the weekend.
My elite festival attire: requires a posh hat and over-priced "riding" boots
This guy probably works in a bank and wears a suite Monday - Friday
Closing on Eccentricity, as has the Patron of the Eccentric Club in London (founded in 1781) HRH the Duke of Edinburgh (news in the past weeks that the Duke will step away from his royal duties), but continuing on with my highlights in England, was one event Robin and I attended a year ago called The Patron’s Lunch. I have always secretly wanted to meet Her Majesty and members of the Royal Family; however, receiving Her royal wave from about 10-feet away at a “classic British ‘street party’ lunch for 10,000 guests is acceptable enough for now. It was a typical British day flanked by hours of morning rain and queuing (#15: Form a queue) to get past security, pick up our picnic baskets so we could eat lunch (#93: Have a nice tea), and #92: Have a nice cup of tea. The Queen herself must have been rain-shy because by the time it was time to watch the parade up Pall Mall, the sun was shining in all it’s glory.
Queuing in the rain..
Along Pall Mall for The Patron's Lunch
Can you see Her- yes you can!
Official tea (lunch), minus the tea.
To touch on some of the sights that make England such a wonderful place to visit, one trip we made over the past year that took perhaps far too long to arrange because of requirement to arrange correspondence with our MP (politicians are the same everywhere) was when we went to #84:Visit Parliament. It is possible, with much planning and writing if you are a citizen or planning and queueing if you are a visitor. Robin and I once again ventured down to London for the day to have a tour of Westminster Palace and to climb behind one of the most famous faces in the world, Big Ben.
View from the inside of Westminster Palace
To the top, and inside, of Big Ben
Admit one. No photography.
And on the topic of time, if ever you choose to visit London, I recommend partaking in #85: so you can Go to Greenwich and visit the Royal Museums. The novelty factor is high as you split East vs West and “see the famous meridian, the line from pole to pole, and jump from one side to the other of it”. Whilst you are picture-posing on this plane, don’t forget to meander a mere 102.5 meters to the east of the historic Prime Meridian of the World as that is apparently where the revised-in-the-80’s-thanks-to-satellite-technology true prime meridian lies… In my time I can say I have visited both the tourist-trap and true meridian lines and equatorial lines as there was a similar story in Quito, Ecuador.
Walk the line: the Prime Meridian line.
Finally what I love most about England, and was struck yet again by on my recent return from a trip back to Canada, is the rolling green landscape. In spite of an estimated 66 million (accounted for) residents crammed into the municipalities, apparently “only around 20% of the land of England is inhabited by people. The remaining 80% is empty.”, and for those of you who have taken a train out of a town or city, you will have seen this. I’ve touched on this before in the past, but by far the best of the English Things to Do is #86: Visit an AONB. Official Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) I’ve visited include recently the Causeway Coastline in Northern Ireland, and over the past seven years, Cornwall, the Cotswolds, Dorset, Malvern Hills, various parts of Devon, Gower, and the Wye Valley.
The Giant's Causeway - Northern Ireland
The Giant's Causeway - Northern Ireland
The Causeway Coastline at Carrick-a-Rede Bridge - Northern Ireland
Of course there are even more beautiful areas within the country without the AONB designation and for the sake of box-ticking within this book a long while back, I kick-started my British mountain climbing endeavours by taking part in #91: Climb[ing] Scafell Pike- England’s “mountain”; however in the past couple of years I have also clambered around the other “mountains” of the Lake District and visited the UK’s first national park The Peak District. In short, you don’t need to find a coastline of England to appreciate the beauty of the land, such as many of the AONB’s are, rather a good pair of walking shoes and a selfie stick will do the trick.
Thorpe Cloud, Peak District
Milldale, Peak District
Tenby, Pembrokeshire coastline
Tenby, Pembrokeshire coastline
With that, I will leave you (with another clerihew #50: Write a clerihew) and the fair land of Her Majesty the Queen as I embark on my new adventure in the land of waffles, fries, chocolate and beer. I enter Belgium more English than I wish to admit, where I have not yet in my time off bothered to brush up on my French (English Thing to Do #52: Fail to learn other languages) and will instead depart attempting #53: Speak[ing] in cockney rhyming slang:
As my Mince Pies look alive
I shan't be one to Duck and Dive
Because my life’s Sausage Roll
is to Adam and Eve I’ll fulfill me soul.
As my eyes look alive
I shan’t be one to skive
Because my life’s goal
is to believe I’ll fulfill my soul
Cheerio!
