One year back in the UK

We left France a year ago yesterday, arriving off the Channel tunnel train with the dogs and trundling along the coast road to our new quarters in Hastings.  Much has happened since that time, with extensive building works, getting used to a country that we had half-forgotten, coping with new doctors, vets, tradesmen etc. 

A return to the UK was necessary for Paul, who felt isolated in a country where he couldn't master the language to his satisfaction.  Had we stayed, the effects of exile would have worked their way through into depression.  Nor was I an unwilling passenger: having left the legal profession to spend time writing, our time in France had diverted me into estate agency, which was not what had been intended, so the chance to get back on track in the UK was welcome.

And those primary objectives have been achieved.  Paul is back in a country where, although different from his native Ireland, he can blend into local life.  I've been able to get back to writing, and am due to start my MA in Creative Writing in October. 

But at the same time, there is quite a lot in this country that I heartily detest, and quite a lot in France that I miss.  I find the insularity of the British more irritating than the nationalism of the French.  The climate is pretty awful, and unlikely to get better.  British politics seem largely governed by ad hoc policies rather than an overall view of rights and duties, and the French concept of "solidarité", however defective in practice, is vastly preferable to the hideous divisions of the British social structure.  Intellectual life in the UK seems to have retired into obscure places, leaving us with television of the Berlusconi bread-and-circuses type, Radio 4 a tedious series of pontificating drones, and Radio 3 dumbed down.  The National Health service appears to be falling apart, and the poor increasing in number.

Had we remained in France there would have been other things to lament: the sad decline of rural life; the corruption of local authorities; the inexorable rise in taxation - all of which goes to show that everything's a compromise in the end.  What has tipped the balance for me is the ability to meet other writers again and get back into the literary world in some form.  But I'd sometimes kill for a decent local market, and a blaze of sunshine. 

Antony Mair