Nearly four years have passed since I arrived in this town and still I walk through certain parts of the city centre and pinch myself because life is so different here from living in Florida.

For those of you who only know Florida from visiting Orlando, the entire state is NOT amusement parks and shopping centres. But then too nothing in Florida will ever have the charm of Hereford. I've been told that Herefordians will not accept you until you've been here 20 years. While I've not made lasting friendships (yet, I am working on that)no one has ever been anything but kind to me. . .okay for the most part, one person has been very hurtful but I've learned that we can't be responsible for other's behaviour of feelings towards us.

When I first arrived I was quite intimidated. If I went into a shop on my own, I counted out the money before I got to the till because I didn't want people queueing behind me while I tried to tell the difference between a 5p coin which is the same size as a dime (10 cents) in the U.S. and a 10p coin which is the same size as a quarter (25 cents) in the U.S. I often came home with a purse full of change for fear of looking like an idiot by not being able to give out the right amount.

I was also afraid to talk. . .I blame George Bush. . .I felt that as an American people would automatically think of him and I would be thought badly of. I found as I time went on, that people would actually say "I love your accent" to which I would reply jokingly "I don't have an accent. . you do". Most of the time it got a chuckle.

My first outing in the car on my own was to go on a job interview and stop at the old Safeway on the way home. It was bitterly cold and for some reason I couldn't get the car started when I went to leave the store. I approached a couple of elderly gentlemen who were gathering trollies (we call them shopping carts) and asked them how long I could leave my car in the parking lot. I swear to you, they looked at me like I was speaking Russian!! I asked again with the same response. Then something clicked and I changing parking lot to car park and voila, they understood me. I had a lot to learn about the British language. (And am still learning, especially about pronouciation.)

Eventually the money thing became a non issue and I learned the proper terms to use when out and about for everyday things. My husband, a frequent visitor to American slips easily in and out of American English and British English. I'm trying to learn to do the same. My children say when I go to Florida for a visit that I have an accent, I don't. It's just and inflection thing, if I were in the U.S. and wanted to get hubby's attention I would say "Tony." but here it's "Tony?" with a little lilt up at the end. Hard to show here but it's just enough to make my kids think I am becoming British.

I had an American driving license for 30 years but the UK and USA don't have a recipricol agreement so I had to take the driving test here. I was allowed to drive for one year before attaining a British license. Several lessons and a few tears later I felt ready to take the examination. First I passed the theory with 34 out of 35 correct but failed the computer part of the test because I didn't recognize enough of the percieved hazards. Six weeks later I took it again and passed. I scheduled my driving test only to find that the day it was scheduled the examiners decided to go on strike. It was rescheduled nearly immediately and I failed it. Devastated, I went home and immediately booked it again and just as quickly failed it again. I was ready to give up. What could I be doing so wrong after 30 years of driving in the states that I couldn't pass a test here.I booked yet another test, this was getting expensive. I failed again. I came home crying determined that I would never drive again, that I would walk where I wanted to go. Hubby was having none of that and threatened to sell my lovely little car so I switched driving instructors, one who taught on an automatic gear box and that did the trick. Who knew there could be such a difference? I took about 10 weeks of lessons, dreading every one of them but finally passed on my fourth try!!!

Lots more to tell you another time. . .oh and by the way, not every American has a handgun in their bedside table. I wouldn't have one in my house at all. . .ever!!