Status Updates From My Love Affair with England...

“Perhaps the reason I am not unduly depressed by most of the changes in England during the past thirty years is that my England, the countryside I love is still there. I can still seek out its gardens walk to its sea coast, and retreat to its medieval churches. For me, England remains a refuge.”

“I didn’t have the energy to explain to Peg what it is like to drive in England—or rather, to sit mesmerized by oncoming motorway traffic, or brush against flowers and branches in the hedgerows that edge most minor country roads, or squeak past stone walls as I wait for the sound of scraping metal.”

“What impressed me most about English gardens was their generosity of spirit, an exuberant lavishness that could not always be contained within strict squares or rectangles.”

“Perhaps I love England most for its paths. They lead across pastures and cultivated fields, over stiles and through gates, into valleys and over hills, along the banks of rivers and canals, beside lakes and ponds, atop mountain ridges and seaside cliffs. Past moors, meadows, bogs, and dunes, and through every English garden.”

“Then, when I decided to major in English literature at college, I arranged to spend a summer studying in England. What happened to me at twenty that summer has surely happened to hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of American tourists before and since. I discovered the romance of history.”