Concretely

Just sent this note to Steve who asked, "So that’s it, huh? Sick of it all? Think it’s going to stick this time?"

I think he means, am I going to keep blogging.

Sheesh! Of COURSE! But he doesn't know. I have a plan. Not the Great Ineffable Plan to Save the World, but a plan to take up where I left off a long time ago. Gonna blog about that, and other stuff.

I thought that my experiences as a re-patriated Catholic Anglo would be interesting blogfodder.
To that end:

I've certainly found that watching a great deal of British television has helped. I'm going to stop off and rent the boxed DVD set of Cracker on the way home today. One thing I admire about British TV is the top notch writing. Even their middle brow fare is wittier and more fun than US TV. (Though the talk shows are wretched. Beyond bad.) And all the really good stuff is available on DVD so no telly licensing fee.

I also told my employer last night that things have developed lately that have made me want to get away entirely and that I'm planning on being in England by the end of September. So after September, my writing is by necessity going to be pretty strictly curtailed and restricted to paid work. Circs, admittedly circs I am myself orchestrating, are going to make the Catholic moving n' shaking thing difficult. Thank God.

I'm hoping to stay with the Chester relatives at first, but there's no reason I can't keep working for LifeSite until I get something better. Something more meaningful. More relevant to the bigger picture. Something in a chip shop perhaps.

The plan as it stands is to take a retrospective on the things I was doing before I discovered The End of the World. I recall it was fun, and fairly well paid. I liked the theatre, before I became a prissy Catholic snob. I also remember that I was pretty good at wardrobe work and had once vaguely thought of opening a business. There's no money in it of course, unless one joins the TV and movie unions (which I might do) but there is money in Britain in couture millinery. I took the hatmaking component of the costume studies programme when I was in theatre school in university, but it was so long ago I'd have to refresh. But it's OK, because it turns out Britain is bristling with private millinery schools. I've done a tiny bit of digging about and discovered that there is quite a thriving industry. Ready for one more to jump in.

The world is going to carry on ending with or without me paying attention. I'm retiring from the army and am going to go see what life is like as a lowly civilian. Part of the mob. In Birmingham.

I used to have quite a heavy middle class Manchester/Yorkshire accent. I wonder how long it will take to come back.