I've been on a trip to Oxfordshire.  And Olde Englande is alive and well - what a relief! 

Lunch at The Bell Inn was a delight. Someone held the door open for me to enter, locals sat at the bar holding forth at the iniquities of the world, there was a real sense of "community". It was old fashioned, courteous, quiet, under-stated Englande.

Stepping out of the underground at Gloucester Road tube station at 11.30pm with two of my children, we spotted a young man lying face down by a bus stop.  People streaming out of the station gaily walked past, others stood chatting while waiting for the bus to arrive, tourists carried on crossing the road and generally life continued as normal.  No one paid the slightest attention to the young man flat out on the pavement and struggling, in vain, to pick himself up. 

Something about him struck me as different.  He had an elegant stick next to him.  We rushed over and my strapping, fit, six foot tall, rugby playing son picked him up. 

This was no drunk. The young man had dreadful cerebral palsy. He had been trying to cross the road to go to the Burger King opposite the station when he had fallen.

What country is this where a disabled person is left splayed on the pavement and no one, repeat no one, bothers to help them up? What have we become? A nation of cruel, callous, selfish beings who assume, utterly wrongly in this case, that everyone on the ground late at night is a drunk who deserves to be left there.

Shaming!

I jumped on the underground today at Gloucester Road heading east to central London. Sitting opposite me was a man I instantly recognised - though seemingly none of the hordes of tourists and other assorted travellers did.  An extraordinarily tall Englishman, deep in thought, reading a weighty tome.  He was studying a copy of Lawrence Freedman's latest book "A Choice of Enemies - America confronts the Middle East".  Pen in hand Sir (as indeed he is) Max Hastings was jotting furiously - he's left handed I noted.  I suspect this is a book review in the offing. 

But I was struck with a sudden feeling of poignancy. This is very much my "comfort zone".  I know my way around, I have my bearings here, I recognise people......I am about to leave my world and won't instantly recognise people or places.  It is often a very scary thought.

Americans are nothing if not thorough!  The school in the States, which my youngest son is due to start attending at the end of August, has written saying they want a full medical report on him.  I suppose they want to cover themselves as everyone is, apparently, so quick to consult m'learned friends stateside. So it was a quick dash to the surgery in West London to get this wretched form completed. 

While standing in reception a man with a puffy face lurched in looking in a pretty bad state to my untrained medical eye.  He asked if he could see a doctor and explained to the receptionist

I've been mugged - for the second time and I think my jaw has been broken - again!   My face has swollen up and I'm in terrible pain.

The receptionist's relaxed response

Well, you should have made an appointment. You can't just turn up and see a GP!

Truly I am starting to lose the ability to be shocked in this country! 

Today I move out of my house! The emigration process is truly underway now.  There will be very intermittent postings for some time, depending on my ability to get near a computer while staying in a rented flat in central London between now and my departure for the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave later in the summer. 

Once ensconced stateside I will return - but under a new name - www.helloamericans.com

Hope to see some of you then!