Another year in the U.K.

I can't really believe it but yet another year has passed and today is once again the anniversary of the day I came to the U.K, now 28 years ago. Surely this can't be true? I can remember the day so well. Some friends drove me over on the ferry and delivered me to my new home in Slough. I started my job working at the Cargo Terminal in Heathrow Airport on the 1st Jan. 1980. Was that actually me???? And has all that time really passed??????? To say that I find all this astounding is somewhat of an understatement.

But it actually all happened! I know as I was there at the time!

I give you a picture of a Journal Quilt I made back in 2005 to commemorate the fact. It shows the place I left (Hilversum in The Netherlands), a picture of the ferry and the route it took, my then Dutch passport, an official form signing me out of Hilversum as a Dutch citizen and the form that made me officially a British citizen, although this did not happen till 1984, courtesy of my marriage. It also shows what I looked like at the time.

At times my own past seems like a foreign country to me and then I remember, that in fact it was a foreign country! I've learned to live with this and don't spend a lot of time contemplating all the implications of that far away decision (mainly motivated by Mary Hopkins' song Those were the Days) but on this day, every year, I indulge for a brief moment, in what ifs!!