Category: Ramblings

The reconstruction is almost complete; only a few small bits to finish up in the kitchen. My broken woodpile is a home again! It feels like the sun has come up for the first time in months and the stress has moved out.

 

Everything has an energy, even inanimate things. Before I bought this house, it was renovated, supposedly. In hindsight, it wasn’t completely renovated; it was the equivalent of putting a band-aid on a severed limb. The neglect was painted over and made to look better, but the damage within the bones was ignored. This house was NOT happy.

In all fairness, if I’d been neglected for years and not taken care of, I’d be pretty pissed too. There are certain things that need to be serviced and replaced periodically in houses; it’s all part of the ‘joy’ of home-ownership; you get to take care of these things. Or in the case of the previous sets of owners, NOT take care of them. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it will eventually give out and break. Which is what it did. Instead of having a small wound, this place had a full-on breakdown. I’ve decided to view it as the inanimate-equivalent of a full blown tantrum.

Instead of viewing the chaos as a home in need of care and repair, I hated it and funneled my anger into it for all the disappointment it had caused me and for all the ways it had let me down. Obviously, I thought I’d signed on for something different; a renovated home, not a money pit. About a week ago I decided that this house and I need to get onto the same page. So I did the only crazy thing I know; I had a frank discussion with this house, in the same way you’d have a chat to a friend. Out loud. Yes, I know, they probably make pills for this.

After getting the apologies out of the way, for all the anger I’d brought to the party since the snafu in January, I acknowledged all the ways this house has been neglected. Looking at some of the scars left, this house was in pretty bad disrepair before it was ‘renovated.’ Then the renovation just glossed it up and dumped it on the first person to fall for it. Whether the previous sets of owners just didn’t give a shit, or whether they financially couldn’t handle it, this house was left to break and there was never a level of love and care put into it to make it whole again. It’s a bit like breaking up with your partner because they got sick; they just walked away and left it.

This place was built to be someone’s home and there are no visible signs that it ever was. The people I bought it from, never lived here. They owned it for 2 years and it stood empty while they renovated it. It’s been a long time since any kind of love lived within these walls, then I moved in and my anger moved in 5 weeks later.

It’s time this place was a home. My home. There are still things to be fixed, and I will fix them one at a time. I’ve promised to take care of the things that need fixing, in exchange for my house showing me what those things are. If there’s a leak, show me where it is gently; don’t collapse the ceiling around me to get my attention. I can only fix them slowly, so if this house collapses around my ears, I can’t fix that. But I can turn this home into the Belle of the Block, one project at a time.

Acknowledging the neglect has really shifted the energy. This isn’t a fight anymore. We are 2 things in need of care and pampering; my house and me.

 

Thanks to the amazing crew at Chicago Water and Fire, my house feels like a home. I have floors again. The broken kitchen is functional and better than it was before. There’s extra storage, the paint is fresh, the walls are no longer gaping holes oozing insulation, the floors are gorgeous and smooth underfoot. Everything is back in its place and the energy has changed completely. It’s gone from feeling angry and negative to a sanctuary; even my body feels lighter.

By recognizing how deep the neglect has run into the core of this house, something has shifted mentally. Restoration is going to take time and it needs to go right down to the bones. You can only fix something if you’re willing to admit that it’s broken and I am broken. So after 20 years of having it on every single list of things I want to do with my life, I took myself to yoga. By myself. Restorative yoga isn’t what was on the list, but it’s what is necessary right now. I cannot restore this house down to the bones, if I’m too chicken-shit to do the same thing for myself.

To Henley, for taking me a restorative class in Canada 3 years ago; to Kara for constantly nudging me to try it; to Tia for researching the studio to make sure it would be the right place for me and for encouraging me to go, THANK YOU! Love you ladies to the moon and back.

A while back I wrote about the weird quirks South Africans and English people have. Next stop: America!

Each place has its own unique quirks; things that make perfect sense to everyone who lives there, but to strangers, not so much. A standard American greeting is ‘Hi, how are ya?’ This is absolutely NOT a question. It is a statement. If you answer that with anything resembling how you are, you get the oddest looks. 6 years I’ve been answering that damn question…

The word ‘fetch’. I told a colleague I was going to fetch a friend at the airport and got ‘Say what now?’ You know, she’s at the airport, then I will fetch her, then she’ll be with me. ‘Oh…. you mean grab?’ No. This isn’t a staged kidnapping. 100% of the time, the word ‘fetch’ in relation to anything other than a dog, causes confusion. You can grab or pick up, never fetch.

The word herb. It’s pronounced ‘erb here, and it breaks my brain every time. What happens when the guy’s name is Herb? I had a colleague who interviewed with a guy named Herb and she said she had to actually concentrate not to call him ‘erb. Oh boy….. She got the job by the way.

Trolleys (shopping carts) have cup holders. An actual place to put your beverage. Personally, I have no clue why anyone would attempt to steer a renegade trolley one-handed while attempting to consume a hot coffee. It’s like a legal version of drinking and driving. It takes an epic level of skill, which I haven’t yet mastered. Score 1 to Murica!

Frequently you’ll see people going to school, walking around the station or out shopping in their fleecy pajama pants. Yep, fleecy snowman pants, on teenage boys, in public. WHY? Last winter I was stopped behind a school bus waiting for the little darlings to get off and virtually every person on that bus was in PJ pants. No, it wasn’t ‘wear your jammies to school’ day, it is a legit thing. Not just kids, grownups too. And believe me, it’s not just in Walmart either. I checked with my nephew & he doesn’t understand either. He’s 15 going on 50, so he’s equally disturbed by this oddity. Is this a fashion trend? Sweat pants sure, but pajamas?? Really? God, I sound like my grandmother.

Rigorously defending their Constitutional right to freedom of speech on one hand, and also being utterly offended at what someone said to the point of considering legal action to remedy their hurt feelings. Best not go to South Africa then, because Saffas are notorious for having no brain-mouth filters at all. It’s likely that my cause of death will be being sarcastic at the wrong time. Oh well, ho hum. I am personally too lazy to be offended by someone else’s opinion of anything. For me to be offended, I’d have to care, and the chances are I probably don’t.

In South Africa, people often refer to themselves as stupid when they do something dumb. Do NOT attempt to call yourself stupid here, it really upsets the locals. There’s something about that word that deeply offends them, even if you’re using it in reference to yourself. Saffas also say ‘don’t be ugly’, meaning something along the lines of ‘don’t be mean/rude/whatever’. Say that in Murica and sweet baby Jesus and all the saints, people lose their shit. I can see why, but always figured the context would speak for itself. Assumption really is the mother of all fuck ups.

So to all Americans, please take this as a blanket apology in advance for all the unintentional offence I will undoubtedly cause during my lifetime and I really will try to use the correct verbiage based on geographical location. The chances of success are slim to none but I’ll give it a go.

 

 

 

 

At some point we’ve all scratched our heads in confusion wondering what the point of it all is. The point of life. The point of struggle. The point of anything at all.

The Enlightened among us figure it out early; the rest of us careen through life like out-of-control bumper cars. The assumption is that we’ll eventually figure it out, right? That’s the eternal unanswered question, isn’t it? It’s a safe assumption that we’re all winging it.

After another few setbacks this week, it feels like life is hanging off a very short rope and secretly I hope the rope snaps, bringing an abrupt end to the chaos. As I’ve mentioned before, tying myself to one place was never been on the list of things to do, and for 40 years it’s been mission accomplished. Since abruptly changing direction and doing the one thing I said I’d never do, life has been total mayhem. It’s been chaos, wrapped in mayhem, sprinkled with carnage.

The socially accepted standardized map for living is find a partner, get hitched, buy a house with a picket fence (or a McMansion, whatever floats your boat) and sprout out a few kids. Maybe throw in a dog/cat/goldfish/parrot. That’s the map I’ve measured myself against since I’ve been old enough to vote and have fallen short in every single category. I haven’t done a single thing on that map and have judged myself a failure as a woman because of it. I’ve never measured up to the ‘successful’ siblings in the family.

So I spontaneously went against every instinct and let me tell ya, life has kneed me in the bollocks constantly since I did. It made me realize something on the train home today. No-one knows you better than you do. If your life path deviates from the standardized map that society uses to judge your worth, THEN LET IT. You don’t need to justify your life choices and your version of happiness to anyone. Stop trying to live up to someone else’s picture of what being a well-adjusted adult should look like. If your gut instinct is screaming NO, then for the love of God, LISTEN!

I had more than one moment of wanting to walk away from the purchase of this house; instead I went through with it, putting the feeling down to the stress involved in buying a house. Life has always been about having freedom; the freedom to travel; the freedom to move at a moment’s notice; the freedom of having no-one to answer to by myself. I spent too long feeling caged by life and from the minute I tasted freedom, I’ve never let it go. Until now.

The cage door has closed and regret is the lock on the door. There’s no inspiration to write; no urge to create; no joy in hobbies because every iota of energy is being sapped by stress. Fleeting moments of contentment in the garden are paid for with a pound of stress brought on by the responsibility of a mortgage.

It’s been a lot of years since I’ve wanted to run up the white flag on my life and just call it a day. Ignoring the one thing I know about myself and flying in the opposite direction will go down as my biggest regret. Every setback makes the dream of going home seem impossible. In a stupid attempt to have a place to call home, I have a house, while home is an ocean and 3,700 miles away.

Anyone have any useful tips on how to just close the door and walk off the grid? Just a backpack & a destination and let the world deal with what’s left. Just an occasional postcard, with an obscure postmark, letting them know I’m still alive.

Maybe that’s my road to Enlightenment. Maybe mental suffering is more closely linked to the physical things we tie ourselves to, rather than the physical things we can live without. More stuff = less freedom and in the end, the only thing that will leave this world with you is your soul, with all of its memories. The stuff won’t matter. It never did. Lesson learned and now the tedious process of divesting myself of the anchor I’ve tied to myself. There has to be a way to flip the switch from bad to good, because if I don’t, the spiral into chaos will not end. God…… this might take a while & a significant amount of scotch.

May the odds be ever in our favour.

The weather was amazing this weekend, so I spent it outside, in the garden, hacking down the last of the bush I started cleaning up in January. The last time I was in the garden was January. The day after an amazing day, it all went to shit when my house flooded.

I spent most of this weekend in the garden, enjoying the hell out of it. It’s not often you get 4 days in a row of spring weather in Feb! 1 day later: e-mail from the supplier saying the floors they said they had, are no longer in stock. Of course, the only available stock is more expensive and blows the budget. Unless I’d like to wait 2 months for more stock to come in. I’m starting to think my garden may be cursed or located on a burial ground belonging to an angry dead guy.

FML…. I’m on vacation this week, so spent the morning looking for new flooring, bollox to the budget, God bless Master card and there’s now a beef shank braising in the oven. Bottle of wine chilling and in about an hour, I’m going to have a bowl of the most sublime beef shank braised in tarragon and marsala wine, with garlic roasted potatoes. My kitchen may be stripped to the concrete but I’m damn well going to eat something delicious.

So instead of reconstruction starting next week, it’s now starting in 3 weeks and between now and then, there is a fully stocked wine rack with my name on it. It’s supposedly snowing this weekend, which means I won’t be digging up the angry dead guy in my garden so we can assume life will go on uninterrupted until spring.

Time to binge-watch cooking programs on Netflix.  Once my kitchen is fixed, I’ll put up some nommy Scottish recipes for you to test, should the urge grab you.

After dinner, work will continue on the 18,000 piece puzzle. Maybe it will be done by Christmas.

 

Being a gypsy is embedded in your DNA or it isn’t. You either have roots or wings; it’s rare to have both. I’ve always preferred wings, even if I didn’t always use them. Roots are terrifying.

In an attempt to grow roots, I bought a house. When the sun was up and I was ankle deep in mud playing in the garden last weekend, it was pure bliss. Monday was a completely different can of worms.

The water heater died and the floors on the ground floor have been gutted down to the concrete. The frustration is it was literally scheduled for middle of next month to be replaced. It was meant to be this month but I had unexpected visitors so figured pushing it back 3 weeks wouldn’t make a difference. Yeah, right.

While dealing with that, I had my water tested only to find it’s not fit to drink. Enter stage left: black mold, which was deliberately hidden by the sellers.

The silver lining is if the water hadn’t flooded my house, the mold would still be neatly hidden and growing out of sight. The ramifications don’t bare thinking about. So all the new floors are gone; half the kitchen is gutted down to the studs to remove the mold; I have a shiny new water heater; 19 industrial fans that sound like an airport runway at rush hour which will be blowing for 4 days total; every square inch has a layer of dust over it; my furniture is strewn around and everything is out of place; using the kitchen is out of the question unless you like dusty food; my furnace and AC  were ripped out and replaced because they’re old and about to go so before they destroy what’s left of my house, they were replaced; I haven’t slept since Monday; it’s safer to drink wine/scotch than the toxic shit in my taps; and I want to find the sellers and rip their spines out and feed it to the neighbour’s dog.

WHO DOES THAT?! How do you KNOW there is black mold and instead of dealing with it, just cover it with laminate, knock a board over it and paint it white?! Karma will level their playing field at some point but right now I’ve imagined every conceivable way to dismember their rotting bodies…. Maybe I really did live in the Dark Ages with a side gig as a prison warden/executioner.

Upgrading the floors was on the list to do in about 2 years; that’s now been ramped up to immediately, so maybe that’s a blessing. My budget doesn’t think so right now. I have to believe that this too shall pass but at this sleep-deprived, caffeine-fueled moment, I wish I’d never changed my name. If I hadn’t, I’d have my visa and be living in the only place I want to be.

Instead I chose roots and it feels like I’ll never have wings again. Regret…. this is definitely topping the list of regrets right now. I’ll get my wings back and it’s safe to assume that roots will never cross my horizon again.

A while back, I was chatting to a friend about her love life – let’s call her Friend A. I don’t remember the exact details of it all, but I remember telling her to stop writing in the guy’s backstory. It was similar to a conversation a group of us had over a year ago, her, myself and a guy friend. We were talking about a mutual friend (Friend B) who wasn’t having great luck in love. The consensus was that she was giving these guys a story that made them seem perfect for her. It was Friend A who made this observation.

The same thing I was now telling her to stop doing. So what have I gone and done? The SAME DAMN THING. The same thing I did with the last guy I was involved with. He told me about himself and when telling my friends about him, there was an extra layer to his story. A layer that made him seem like a great guy. Now I’m not saying he wasn’t a great guy before the layer; he was just a better guy after it. More heroic; more perfect for me.

The layer blinded me to what I should have been seeing. The half-hearted hugs, the canceled plans when it was something I really wanted to do, but he was less interested. The quick visits that were obviously booty calls.

After he made a flippant comment on the wrong day, it was like my 20/20 vision was restored and it became so obvious. I ended it and we never spoke again. That was 2 years ago.

And I’ve gone and done it again. Attached my heart strings to the wrong balloon for all the wrong reasons. Why do we keep doing that? Taking a perfectly regular guy and mentally adding on all the filters and layers that make him a hero, when he never tried to be that? He never asked to be the hero and that should have been the first clue that his heart strings weren’t attached to the same balloon.

Maybe this is the lesson I’ve refused to learn and it keeps coming back with a different face, handing out the same disappointment and sorrow.

 

The last day of the year is scorecard time. Time to tally up the wins and losses of the year gone by. 2016 has been a strange vintage.

It will be remembered for a lot of reasons; all the legends who died; Brexit; Trump; the Chicago Cubbies breaking their 108 year curse to finally win the World Series. From there the scorecard moves away from the masses into the personal. The loved ones who died; the dreams that didn’t survive and the goals that were never reached. It’s always been a melancholy day for me.

That changed last year, around the time I started this blog. All stitched up after surgery, I took score of all the things that got done that were never on the list in the first place. I much prefer that tradition to the one that ends with me sobbing into a wine glass because I’m still a failure at everything I wanted to achieve.

So that’s the tradition I’m going with.

2016 was a mixed bag. The dream of going home to Scotland was dented but not crushed. So I can’t go back right now and I need to wait for some bureaucrat somewhere to do their job and update my details, but the door isn’t closed forever. It’ll just take longer and I’m ok with that.

An old school friend died on Thanksgiving after a long brutal battle with cancer. I’m thankful for his life, his courage and his spirit. It’s because of him that I took the chance to try and go home again. He taught me that life doesn’t wait for you to do all the things you want to do. So while you can, DO IT. He packed a lot into his 40 years and he’ll be remembered for showing us how to live. I’m thankful for that and that he’s finally not suffering anymore. There will be a toast to him at midnight with a great scotch because he did love a good dram!

I spent my birthday someplace new, same as last year. It’s now going to be an annual thing. Birthdays will be celebrated somewhere I’ve never been so I start each new year doing something new. Start as you mean to continue.

I finally manned up and submitted my photos to a stock agency. It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. Something I’d been meaning to do for years is finally done.

I wrote more, I cooked more. I enjoyed life more.

For the first time in my life, I have a home. An actual home where I can just be me without asking permission. I own a home which is something I never meant to do and I’m glad I did. It was certainly not on the 2016 menu this time last year! An unexpected detour onto the road less traveled and I’m grateful. To the people who helped me achieve this, thank you!

I finally have all my treasures with me. From childhood comforts dug out of boxes I’d forgotten about, to new treasures that I found along the way. My piano is finally with me and I need to learn to play again. I cleared out the excess from my life and now only have things that mean something to me. I can look at each thing and love it.

Paintings I did years ago are all up on the walls. I’m surrounded by things I’ve created and they are reminders to let creativity come out and play. There needs to be space for beauty. Life can’t always be about duty & function.

I saw my bestie this year and we had a great time chatting, laughing and binge-watching Outlander in comfy chairs. She taught me how to bottle wine.

I met new friends; driving across Illinois to meet a colleague from out of state and having lunch with her family. What a brilliant bunch of people! If you can put faces to the people you speak to across the miles, do it. I’ve met some lifelong friends that way. A few years back I randomly took a trip to Arizona to meet a client I’d been speaking to for a year and we’re the best of friends now. He’s no longer a client; instead a friend I love to death and a huge part of my life. I can’t remember what life was like before his crazy arse arrived.

I paid off my car and it’s ALL MINE!

I don’t have the love life I want, or the body I want or the dream job that I want, but I have so much more. Those things will come and if the last 2 years have been anything to go by, those things will come by unexpectedly, through no planning of mine. They will be spontaneous detours along the way and I’ll love them all the more for it.

So drink a toast to everything you gained this year, planned or not, and leave the sadness where it belongs; in the times long past, in the days of Auld Lang Syne.

 

The big move happened last weekend. In snow and ice, 3 men and a truck moved all my junk and lugged a piano into my new home. It’s been an emotional roller coaster for the past few weeks. Nothing has been normal and it’s been difficult to stay balanced.

Thankfully it’s all done and I’m mostly unpacked. Other than a dozen boxes of books piled in the living room, everything else has found a new spot to live. It turns out I’m a book hoarder, even taking into account the boxes of books I took to Goodwill when I was going through my spring-cleaning phase a few weeks back. Well, it’s not hoarding if it’s books.

Once the holidays festivities have passed and the shoppers have all calmed down, I’ll head out and get some more bookshelves to complete the unpacking process.

The Christmas tree is up, the kitchen is cozy, my plants all look like they’ve been draped over the balcony for years, the first batch of cookies have come out of the oven and I’ve started prepping food for Sunday’s lunch. It’s still snowy outside so looks like a white Christmas is on the menu this year.

I’ll be hosting Christmas lunch for the first time since I’ve been in the US so really looking forward to it! FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD!!

Monday we’ll probably all need a new wardrobe when our pants don’t zip up but oh well, same procedure as last year! It’s what we do best 🙂

Wishing you and your families happy-whichever-holiday-you-celebrate and don’t forget to make time for family. It’s all that counts at the end of it. Once life settles down a bit, we’ll catch up and tally the wins for 2016. It’s safe to say this year didn’t go one bit the way I thought it would. It turned out better!

Stay safe if you’re traveling

After I left South Africa, I moved to England. Well…. despite the fact that both countries have English as an official language, I spent the first few months not having a clue what they were talking about half the time.

TEA

Tea is tea. Tea is an occasion & tea is also food. Let that sink in for a bit. People frequently ask ‘what’s for tea?’; at which point my automatic response would be ‘uh…. tea?’ Apparently not.

Dinner, or the evening meal, is frequently referred to as tea. This is not to be confused with afternoon tea, which is an entirely different meal altogether. When someone asks what’s for tea, what they really want to know is, what’s for dinner?

If you’re meeting someone for afternoon tea, well then that’s the fancy little bite-sized cakes, with crustless cucumber sandwiches and scones with jam and cream. Oh and tea, of course. Afternoon tea simply isn’t tea without actual tea, even though it’s also a meal.

Then there’s just tea as a hot beverage. That mystical brew that has been a haven through every crisis. It doesn’t matter how devastating the news is, or how rough the day was, or how hot it might be outside, tea is ALWAYS the answer. It’s the Calm in ‘Keep Calm and Carry On.’ I didn’t realize how British I’d become until my dad fell down the stairs after his knee replacement and the first thing I did was ask him if he wanted a cup of tea. Never mind that he was sprawled on the floor. The shock of not knowing what to do or how to fix it made me instantly offer him tea. He obviously declined.

Then there’s the making of the tea. Each person has their own method; milk first, then tea. Tea first, then milk. Some heathens even go so far as to add milk to hot water, then just let the tea bag marinate until it’s the right colour. Rest assured; the Brits are extremely vocal about how to make the perfect cup of tea. I’m fairly sure a puppy dies every time someone lets a cup of tea get cold. A tea shortage would cripple the Empire. It’s that serious.

WEATHER

Good ol’ British weather. It sucks 96% of the time. I never knew there were so many different ways to refer to rain until I lived there. Each type requires a different level of preparedness to deal with it.

Brits take great pride in their shitty weather; it’s probably the most talked about thing in Britain BUT, moaning about it is reserved for Brits only. Foreigners are absolutely not encouraged to moan about the weather. If you don’t like it, you know where Heathrow is, goodbye.

As a foreigner you may talk about it and comment on the precipitation, but do not complain about it. Ever.

GARDENS

Britain is a really small island. I recall reading somewhere that you could fit England into Lake Michigan and Lake Erie combined. So it’s a fair assumption that it’s a pretty congested patch of land, which makes gardens a HUGE thing.

Summer is only 5 minutes long and the Brits will eek out every last second of enjoyment they can from their gardens. Bulbs are planted before the middle of winter, so that they can get the cold snap that helps them to bloom in spring. Spring is just a carpet of beautiful flowers, growing on the sidewalks, through the grass in the parks and people’s gardens are just packed to the hilt with bulbs.

Conservatories are big business and probably the most popular extension people add onto their homes. Think of it as a glass sun room attached to your home. They might have gardens the size of a postage stamp, but those lawns will be mowed, hedges impeccably manicured and hours spent tending to flower beds. It’s part of what makes Britain chocolate-box-pretty in the little villages.

South Africans employ people to take care of their gardens and Americans are somewhere in between South Africans and Brits. Some take gardening to the extreme, others couldn’t be bothered.

SHOPPING

When the weather is bad, Brits go shopping. They’ll straight up sit in queues of traffic to go to a shopping center, drive around for ages to find parking, then shop all day. It’s the oddest thing.

When you consider how often the weather is bad, that’s a LOT of shopping! Go to virtually any shopping center on a weekend and it will be packed to the hilt. It’s infinitely more painful over Christmas, or ANY bank holiday weekend. If you’re going shopping, it’s not going to be a 30 minutes excursion. You’re in it for the long haul.

It certainly goes a long way to explaining the level of credit card debt in the UK.

FOOD

I really got behind this weird thing. Carveries are a huge thing there. All you can eat buffets with 3 types of meat. The breakfast ones are the best!

Sunday lunches are frequently done at a pub that has a carvery and it’s one of the most popular Mother’s Day things to do. Take Mum out for a carvery.

The food thing also extends to regular food shopping. Buy one get one free offers are AMAZING!! Or the multi-buy 3 for £5 on ice-cream tubs! I picked up about 20 lbs in the first few months there because I inhaled multi-buy ready meals because I was convinced they’d never be that price again. They’re that price all the time.

Full on meals in a bag. £10 for a Chinese meal for 2, with ALL the trimmings included. The same bag meals also come in Indian and Thai!! Let’s not forget all the ‘all you can eat’ restaurants where you can stuff your face for a small price. Let me tell you, the Brits are often ridiculed for their limited cuisine but they do pub food better than anyone on the planet. Pack stretchy pants, people! You’re going to need it. I was genuinely surprised all-you-can-eat places weren’t more prevalent in the US, but guess that’s not a bad thing.

Between their dry sense of humour, their stiff upper lip crankiness, their ability to insult people in spectacular fashion without missing a beat & their fierce devotion to their football club of choice, they are the best bunch of people I’ve ever met.

It takes a while to really get to know a Brit, but once you do, you’ve got a chum for life. The true measure of their affection is how much they insult you. If they can’t be bothered to engage in banter with you, they probably don’t like you much. It’s really that simple.