All roads lead to England

I seem immersed in England and life there right now. I am coming to the end of 30 CDs of unabridged Dickens, as Bleak House finally finishes after months of commuter listening. I am ten books into  a 15+ series of fiction set in an English village. My family history quest has me hopping all over the country with ancestors seemingly in every part. And my co-worker Kintara is busy blogging about her family who are holidaying there for four weeks! Even as I write, Midsomer Murders is keeping me company! Oh, and my daughter Melissa hopes to visit next year for a wedding!

If a bucket of money fell from the sky, I would be off with her like a shot. Melissa and I have a shared interest in English history, folklore, geography and scenery. We could quite easily drive from Lands End to the border and beyond - and lets throw in Wales, Scotland and Ireland while we are there, because they hold just as much appeal!

Living in a country where even the oldest of old buildings cannot be more than the 200 or so years of white settlement; where even my convicts arriving in 1818 can still only mark 7 generations, it is hard to comprehend the sheer age of England and the rest of the UK and Europe. As a fan of Edward Rutherford, who writes immensely detailed histoicral novels tracing families through time, I have deep interest in all the stages of British history. Finding genealogy that flows back 30+ generations, with the Norman Invasion coming to life as suddenly names change and watching the families living through times of war, plague and more, just increases the wish to visit as many pieces of the puzzle as I can.

But for now, I can only watch on from the other side of the planet.

Kintara freezes at Stonehenge!!