Being Back in Britain

Although I wish I were here in happier circumstances, it sure is interesting being back in the UK. I haven't been back this long for since I last lived here, 4 years ago, and for the last four years my visits have always been very busy with work. So it feels very different, to say the least, to be in the UK, on my own, with a lot of time on my hand.

Bizarrely, I'm finding that in-between the hospital visits I'm not thinking much about my Dad's situation. Probably a defence-mechanism, but it's causing no small amount of guilt. I am still working and that is definitely helping to keep my mind off things, but I've also caught something that is causing me to be very achy and sluggish, so I'm 'dozing' a lot too - more than normal.

Being in Liverpool is particularly strange. To some extent it feels like home, I spent many summers here as a child and as my mother didn't really have a family, all my extended family came from Liverpool. On the other hand, I feel like an alien here as much as I do in Macau. Today, at the pharmacy whilst talking with the checkout girl, a woman behing me was simply staring at me like we-dont-get-folk-like-you-here-very-often.

And then there's the salt-of-the-earth types. I'm dubious about all of this because very often it's forced and unfounded, I'll give you an example: today an old woman who lives opposite my dad's house came by. She was telling me how she went to visit my dad last week in hospital. He was crying, she said, and told her 'I just want to go home'. Except, for the last two days that I've been seeing my dad he's been barely able to utter a single word, and certainly not a sentence or sentiment as fully formed as that and, as far as I know, my dad was much worse last week. So, friendly-neighbour-type across the road was lying. To know she was lying, as I do, completely changes the way I take her words. I don't hold any antiganism towards this woman because I don't question her motives, just her words.