Homesick

I'm homesick.

It happens from time to time, and I can never know what's going to set it off. Once it was a box of rice crispies, believe it or not. The box looked so familiar out of the corner of my eye that turning around and seeing different characters on the front sent a wave of sadness through me.

Don't get me wrong, I know home is where you make it. I thoroughly enjoy living here in Kentucky. I love the place, I love the people.

But every so often, sometimes for no apparent reason, a tiny, plaintive voice inside me will wail out, "I want to go home."

Today, it was hearing a British accent over the phone at work. But not just a British accent. This guy had an accent - and manner of speaking - so eerily like one of the friends I left in England that I almost asked whether it was some sort of reality-TV setup job.

Anything, it seems, can trigger the sadness. Two years ago it was the Euro 2004 tournament and a desire to chat with someone - anyone - who understood the anguish of seeing England go out again. Not long ago it was an old episode of Blackadder Goes Forth. Stupid things like catching a quick glimpse of a dime and thinking it's a five penny piece.

I miss England. I miss her fish and chips. Her decent beer. Her kebabs. Her telly. Her tea. Her magnificent, late-night, greasy kebabs. I miss her bobbies. Her right-hand drive cars. I really miss those kebabs. I miss her golden syrup, her jam, her jelly, and - by the way - is it too much to ask that a guy get a real shredded wheat around here? I miss wotsits and crunchies and yorkies and weetabix. I miss sausage rolls and cornish pasties. I miss biscuits. I miss seeing the Queen on stamps and money. I miss being able to criticise the government. I miss being an atheist in a country that doesn't reckon atheism as being the next best thing to paedophilia.

I miss my friends most of all.

And, yes, I could easily come up with as long a list of things I don't miss about England. I could come up with a list of things I'd miss about the US, were I to move back.

And, yes, being here as brought me the most wonderful thing ever to have entered my life - Selene.

Okay, I'm kidding.

Really, I'm kidding.

Yes, Mrs Doombreed makes all the homesickness, all the missing, all the plaintive wailing, all I've lost seem insignificant when compared to what I've gained.

Well, maybe everything except the kebabs.