English Vacation

By Bobby Neal Winters

I have minded the gap. I have ridden trains, underground and overground. I've been in train stations mighty and humble. I have waited on cabs at Stonehenge with people that I love. I've ridden in hotel shuttles with total strangers. I've driven a rented car on the left hand side of the road for one hour fifty-nine minutes of which I was trying to get it back to the place from whence I rented it.

I have stood on ancient walls and walked them.  I have stood within the walls of a church that was finished before my hemisphere was discovered and took longer to build that my country has existed.

I've drank proper Yorkshire tea. I've eaten the full English breakfast. I've had jacket potatoes and bangers and mash. I've eaten Kentucky Fried Chicken in twilight at 9pm in a place where I am not sure they know what Kentucky is. I've eaten a quarter pounder on the south bank of the Thames and was damn glad to get it.

I have scaled castles; have stood on queue; have paid to pee.

I've rented rooms, rides, and cars in a place that has been known to tax sunlight. I've bought chocolate, t-shirts, and thimbles in a place called a nation of shopkeepers.

I've been on tour buses, tour boats, and a giant ferris wheel across from a cathedral. Have listened to tour guides, both funny and dull.

I have heard people speaking my native language and have been mystified at times.

I have visited “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”

It was a good time.