Sitting outside a country pub on a warm summer's day, a river flowing nearby, an explosion of green everywhere you look, and the sound of leather balls hitting cricket bats, church bells ringing, the wind in the willows, and a voice asking: would you like some more smoky bacon crisps?...that's England, my home sweet home.



It's been twenty years since I've lived there, having immigrated to the USA all those years ago. I met and married an American girl during the war and I followed her here to the US, the land of freedom and opportunity. Edna and I had made a happy life here no kids though, although we'd tried. Guess it just wasn't meant to be. Now that Edna was gone, it was time for this old English country boy to return to his roots. You see, you can take the English boy out of the country, but you can't take the English country out of the boy. I longed to return.

The flowers were hardly wilted on my wife's grave when I called international moving companies from the yellow pages. There was quite a list ready, willing and able to take me back home, lock, stock and barrel. Each was willing to give me quotes and wanted to compete for my business. I have to say, I was quite impressed. But I wanted one that was reliable and had the capability to move my car, my boat and my two Great Danes.

Oh, I know, I could have sold my stuff and bought new in England the international moving company agent from the one I eventually chose even offered help in doing so, or at least storing some of my stuff. But I wasn't interested. My possessions were chosen by me and my wife. To get rid of them would be like desecrating her memory somehow.

And so it was decided. The international moving company would show up in two weeks to pack up my life and carry it across the ocean. My parents had willed me their estate outside of Plymouth, right on the coast. The place of my birth. I longed to sit in the window seat of my boyhood bedroom and gaze at the ocean. I described it to the agent from my international moving company. We had forged a friendship, she and I. In the end, she'd decided to come for a visit on her next holiday!

For the next two weeks, I packed boxes of things that I could part with and gave them away to charities. I wished I had children to give some of the stuff to but any family we had was from my side and were in England. I promised Sheri, my international moving company agent, that I'd introduce her to them when she came for a visit as they are around the same age.

I looked forward to my new life in my old home.