Tomorrow I relinquish my passport for an unspecified length of time. Adventures will therefore be restricted to the UK (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland). The only reasonable idea I’ve only come up with is Bekonscot Model Village.

But Byron says that if I go there, the universe may end. So… whatever.

This morning I just wanted to drink coffee and write but instead I was stranded in a Bermuda Triangle of Ladychat. Must. Escape!

I hustled my headphones in and did my best to ignore, but could still hear a sharpish twittery noise…. though at least no words were discernible!

Then as I cycled to the river, the people who live on Drunk Bench cheerfully shouted “Oi! It’s the girl who loses her boat! Don’t do that today, we’re busy!”

One hundred and seven rolls of film later, guess what turned up? The Chorus at the first Ladyfest. Including bit not limited to the Beauty Bark Incident.

On the way to the camera store I provided directions and assistance to three sets of strangers. Before 9am. Perhaps I should give up my career and switch to the tourism industry.

Except, oh wait, I don’t like ….strangers.

Capitalist bastards took Birdsong off the radio!

That was sufficiently appalling, but this afternoon I can’t decide: am I more of a “Canal Boat” or “Waterways World” kind of girl? I’m certainly too cheap to buy both. How stressful.

On the topic of thrift, I am generally thrilled to find my books in charity shops… except today I stumbled across the one with my face on the cover. Creepy!

Back on the devils teat I’m realizing how special Olympia was, at least in terms of coffee. I miss the Smithfield! The Asterisk! Batdorf & Bronson! Dancing Goat! Heck, even the campus coffee cart was better than anything here.

Today I’m eating bread, cheese, cherries & plums on the banks of the river. If the tourists would stop pestering me I would say this is a perfect afternoon!

Though I must pre-emptively admit I loathe, detest, and abhor the Strawberry Fair.

I spent the morning sorting toiletries into two categories: “labels in languages I do not speak” and “tiny bottles of Aveda snagged from hotels.”

Is it possible to travel too much?

I was extremely excited to find that the city centre chemist now stocks the sunblock I normally fly to France to purchase. My life is officially perfect! I am quite insufferable.

A friend commented on the Jordan/Peter Andre split: just proves if you marry for tits, you end up with crazy. I mean, look at you!

In more pertinent news, it has been five years, five months, and twenty-three days since I last tasted coffee and I have decided: today is the day for a reunion with my favorite beverage. Wish me luck! Who knows how I will react to such a strong stimulant!

In the midst of what people in England call ‘hols,’ including visits to a twelfth century castle, the largest toy museum in the world, and a guinea pig safari park!

The view from my boat includes a cow nibbling on my bicycle.

I’ve been reading the newspaper and must report I am terribly disappointed that there isn’t more racy sexy nonsense in the current political scandal. Mortgage fiddling is BORING.

Off to a hot date with the Audley End Miniature Railway.

It is difficult to catch up on life after a long absence, but this I know for sure: I am not an intercontinental answering service. I don’t even know my own phone number!

Though if I had read the several hundred pieces of email that arrived while I was traveling, I would have known that someone wrote a song for me!

Back in the routine of archive films, I managed to see ‘Writers and Trains’ and… I’m ever so pleased that both Auden and Betjeman shared my sincere love of the railways.

Tonight I’m going out to watch Forgotten Music from the GPO (including live orchestra and chorus) with the best dressed and most charming chap in all of England. AKA my son.

I am merely a visitor in this country, despite the fact that I work here and pay taxes and whatnot. While I am entitled to use the health services, I do not feel that I can criticize the system. At least until August, when my permanent residency is certified.

However, I do have major concerns about the treatment I have received during the so-called flu epidemic.

Not that it was insufficient – quite the opposite.

I flew back to the UK from an area of the states with verified swine flu cases. I fell sick within the incubation time, and had several of the defining symptoms of the malady.

But I didn’t feel bad enough to seek medical attention, and didn’t know there was a public health issue as I failed to read the newspaper during the tenure of the illness. By the time I was persuaded to call, I was almost entirely better and certainly past the contagious point regardless of any other factor.

Why then was I prescribed Tamiflu? After my official government quarantine ended?

Or, more worryingly, why was I prescribed anything without a proper physical exam?

Nobody even asked if, for instance, I have allergies or a history of adverse drug reactions.

The anonymous people at the call centre did not, in fact, ask any searching questions about my particular history; they just noted whatever it occurred to me to disclose.

My questions about Tamiflu as a specific chemical compound could not be answered by the person on the line. My reluctance to take any drug for any reason whatsoever was disregarded. My resistance to taking medications before consulting my own doctor? Brusquely dismissed.

I’d already been in a state of self-imposed isolation for ten days, and was willing to accept formal quarantine as a condition of refusing medication.

That was not an option – I was told I absolutely had to take the drug.

In a word, why?

I didn’t want it, I didn’t have any symptoms it could help with, and I was no longer a threat to the public, even if Tamiful has magical unknown anti-infection properties (it doesn’t).

When I tried to weasel out of it using the ‘no ride to the chemist’ excuse the very nice concerned NHS people dispatched a delivery.

Now I have a spiffy unwanted box of a drug I will not take.

I’m going to go way outside of my normal remit and make a prediction that this approach to prescribing a relatively unknown drug to people who are not especially sick is foolhardy at best, dangerous at worst.

I was the driver on the day of the PSAT’s but we all missed the test because I was unable to find the building. Even though it is the only octagon in the county. My own parents didn’t know or care, but my mates were grounded over the debacle, and probably should have extended the lesson since it was the exact same crew in my car when the accident happened.

Without any preparation or interest, I pulled a perfect score on the verbal portion of the SAT’s, then elected to nap through the rest of the test. Why bother to make the attempt, when my college-of-choice didn’t require any particular score? Besides, my elder cousin had aced it without any discernible positive change in his life. Who cares about these things? Not our family, for sure! If memory serves, he ended his young life wandering – schizophrenic, addicted, and homeless. Though that might just be a rumor.

I sat the GRE the day after invasive jaw surgery, high on (and having an allergic reaction to) Percoset. I have no memories of…. any little bit of the whole ordeal, aside from the bloody surgical dressing stuffed down a gaping wound in the back of my mouth.

Today was mild by contrast. I woke up wincing and still sick, but officially no longer contagious. Then I trudged to London, where I shivered with fellow immigrants through the long registration to take the citizenship test. Knowledge required ranged between obvious and esoteric, and I was quite worried.

We were allowed forty-five minutes.

I finished in five, feeling hunted and horrified, arguing in my mind with the phrasing of the questions.

Though I passed.

My kid memorized the answers by rote (for instance, Question 19, answer = D) without engaging with the literature. Her method translated to a perfect score, and she finished first, then stood at the front of the class gossiping with the invigilator.