English-isms

So what does it mean to be English and a part of this strange culture? I can only speak for myself. I’ve never been to a football match, never attended an English court of law, never visited Liverpool or Birmingham or Manchester, never watched an episode of ‘Coronation Street.’

But I have broken into Stonehenge in the dead of night, seen the Rolling Stones at Wembley, heard Mozart’s Requiem at the Albert Hall, tripped out at Glastonbury, camped on my own in the middle of the New Forest, picked strawberries in the fields at Cheddar, marched in the Poll Tax and Stop the War demonstrations, had goose and freshly killed cockerel for Christmas, watched the sun rise at Avebury, made camp fires in the woodlands and cooked fresh mackerel over a fire pit, heard Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral, talked several times on BBC Radio, taken the steam train to Swanage, had cream tea in Devon’s Lorna Doone country, led day hikes in the countryside, slept in a treehouse, visited an old English brewery, flown a falcon and an eagle owl, drank water from streams and brooks, saw ‘Henry V’ at Regents Park Open Air theatre, fired a gun at Bovington Camp, soared in a balloon over Dorset, watched the sun set over the sea at Lulworth Cove, coppiced wood in a Nature Reserve, dozed for entire afternoons in flower strewn meadows, seen the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy at IMAX, dressed as a peasant at a Medieval Fayre and grown my own food at allotments.

What can you add to this somewhat rose-tinted list?