Winter reflections

Leaving Wageningen later than planned.
Passing the 'whale ribs' of the Betuwese white elephant
And the colossal windmills on the A15
Snow on the ground all the way to the Belgian border.

Arriving in London's suburbs late Sunday, I crash and burn for two days
My mission's clear but there's too much history here
Family photos, medals won in the great war
My father's love letters when he was a-courting.
I don't want to have to deal with this stuff

Reg, Reg, Reg, you were so often resentful, angry and unwittingly rude
Fiercely independent, now in a nursing home- Alzheimer's quickly took it's toll.
You remember my face and the names of yourschool mates
But not what you had for lunch - or what I said two minutes ago

You're gentler now though - being well looked after
And genuinely pleased to see me - though you don't know what country we're in.
Your change of spirit partly melts the great sense of resentment
That I feel about the weight of responsibility that was dropped on me eighteen months ago

Staying in the maisonette where he spent the last ten years if his life
Clean now after years of neglect. No dsitractions here.
I threw away the TV that only received two channels (in black and white)
No radio - internet access only in the community centre across the square

I devour a novel a day as I run through the last inventories
Of what to keep, what to try to sell, what to give to charity, what to dump
Adjusting to new sounds: blackbirds in the morning, the sound of the community intercom
And the absence of the church clock

One night a dog fox's call for a mate disturbs my sleep
A pattern still ruptured by the one hour difference

Remembering to drive on the 'wrong' side of the road
Adjusting to industrial strength T-bags (dunk for thirty seconds - not four minutes)
The price of tobacco, alcohol, fuel, bus fares, mostly everything
How do people construct good lives on the meagre wages on offer here?

Many don't - the poverty and stress is visible in the lines in people's faces "Unequal Britain" puts into statistics what the casual visitor can see
A two track country - economically, culturally and educationally divided
I love the spirit and wit of my countrymen but the structures they have to work in are heavy and divisive.

A few days before leaving the NL I spoke with a fellow ex-pat - twenty years out of the UK
"I love the culture and the people but I'm intimidated by the brutal economic system;
Britain feels like a third world country after twenty years in Holland."
I share the same dilemmas - loving the culture but hating the divisive economic system.
Perfidious Albion will you ever change?

Job done - I visit some friends - who survive and keep joyful in this climate
Their loving family home a model for resisting consumer values
I bid farewell to the white cliffs - four hours drive Calais to Wageningen
Snow now reaching through Belgium to the French border

Full moon rising behind the windmills on the A15: twenty minutes driving left
Silver orb in the sky reflecting off the white landscape
Back home with a van full of furniture and 'family heirlooms' to store
Friends to see, work to do and roots to carry on putting into the ground.