Happy Sunday from Chelmsford

Happy Sunday from Chelmsford. Let me share a little bit of English culture with you

Good morning from a typical November crisp morning in Charles Hood. I trust you are well. I am 10 minutes ahead of schedule at my get together with my classmates. I’m here for lunch with them, but I arrived early and I thought that it’s an appropriate time to have a conversation with you and share a little bit of English culture with you. Now, I need to give you some disclaimers cuz the minute you do that, I remember having a conversation with somebody. Um, well, when I go to places and they say that there’s a British curriculum school, I laugh. That’s true because internationally people have British curriculum schools, but here we have English schools, we have Scottish schools, we have Welsh schools and they are not run the same. This is going to be a bit like it. English culture itself is very transient by the way. Yeah, you will see lots of people like me who live here legitimately, who are here legitimately, but may not necessarily take your boxes for a typical English. And so when you say English culture, people are like, well, well, I’m sorry. The England, which used to be full of only Caucasians, is gone. In its place, we have forged a community that includes a lot of people. And yeah, when you forge a community that includes a lot of people, there are a lot of cultures to be embraced. So remember what you’re going to see is the original Caucasian culture infused with all the many influences that are now here and undeniable. All right. Okay. It is the culture as we see here. It’s how society is behaving right now. That’s what I want to share with you. Anyway, in this beautiful place there is a canal and this is one of the things I love about England. You see these beautiful water bodies. Yeah. Occasionally you see somebody stupid from yesterday who dropped in a plastic that probably will be picked up. Depending on where you live, it will be picked up quicker or otherwise. What you see mostly though is just leaves that are falling from the winter’s bite and it’s inevitable. The other thing I see which I love is a Christmas deco. You see Christmas deco in the Emirates where I am, but it’s never asatic and it it is embedded in every fabric of everything everybody does. Yes, most stores will have a Christmas tree. That reminds me when I go go home, I’ve got to mount mine. Last year, I didn’t even pull mine out cuz again, where I live now, people don’t well, not everybody’s celebrating, so it doesn’t remind you to do. So the other thing I want to share, so what I want to share of the culture is the outdoorsy nature of what people do. It is Christmas in the city today. Here you will see that people are out and about and they are actively shopping for Christmas. Families are out. It’s a family event. So you will see loads of family members who are out. As I said, you will see people selling Christmas specific things. I went to buy mold wine and mint pies. I didn’t realize that I had missed eating m spice and mold wine. I’m looking for the Christmas market. I want to go there. People saw those who live here are not as wrapped as I am. Yeah. Yeah. Of course, they are acclimatized the cold. I’m not. I just came from 40 degrees. No, this is not to do with your passport. This is to do with your daily experience. I haven’t lived here consistently for so long that my tolerance for cold has dipped significantly. But anyway, hi Celia. How you doing? Can you hear people laughing? Yeah. I’m not even sure what all these stands are supposed to be. We’ll wait and we’ll find out when it actually does open. And yeah, in England, the shops don’t open early on the Sundays and they don’t stay open for a long time. It’s only for a short period. I want to share some of it with you. All right. So, we’ve got a stand of a song. I hope somebody’s singing. It would be nice, wouldn’t it? Yeah. I hope somebody is singing. It will be nice. But what is very special is these popup cafes. You see how people just buy what they need and they settle to have conversations to chill with family members. Yeah, that is my favorite. Hi Wendy. Hi Celia and Frederick. So this is a little bit of it. You and your friends can sit. If you don’t want to be on the outside, there are shops that have internal spaces for you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it’s for sure. Period. I need to get Missy Mo so she can be here. It’s a eat with me. You know, the other thing that I miss is pork products. Pork products on display. Hello. Hi, Celia. How you doing? Pork products on display. Not a lot of apologies for them. Yeah, it’s not something you get a lot. If you want pork products in my new reality, you will need to go to specific places and get it. As I said, I am craving mold wine. I can see some. I need to go and bring Miss Simo so we can have some mold wine. The pop-up things in public spaces like this are beautiful. We will come back and try some cheeses. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I need to decide how much of it I can take with me. I might bring some cheese so we can do classic things. Oh, I want everything. Me. I want to be everything. There’s falafato on the street, which is amazing. You know, I never noticed those things when I lived here. Hi Wendy. I became conscious of those things when I moved to the Emirates. Maybe falafa was around, but I didn’t even know what it was and I never really tried it before. But yeah, the foods that I am looking forward to as street food. And yeah, we have some chestnuts. Well, have you already guessed that today I’m going to be a gluten? I’m going to eat and eat and eat some more. Yeah, there’s roasted chestnuts. There is roasted marshmallows. I don’t think I should alert this girl cuz the minute she gets here, that’s my bank account empty. Anyhow, it’s beautiful, isn’t it? But yeah, that’s the thing. It’s unassuming. There isn’t much ceremony. It is just what it is. And yeah, I can see a lot of those things that are very similar to what you can get in the Emirates. I’ll need to come back and have a look and see what it is here. Baklava Lebanese sweets. Yeah, it is obvious. It’s Middle Eastern influences, which I now recognize and appreciate much more than I used to when I was just a girl who lived here. Anyway, yeah, I am off to go for my communion of doctors. Very excited. So, to celebrate with me, my classmates have decided to do lunch with me locally. Many of them are local, but not all of them. There are some of them who have actually traveled to get here. And it humbles me. You hear me? It humbles me. And for those who are Afro Caribbean, that’s amazing. Okay, there’s a jerk station. Hello. Hi. It’s nice to see you. You do not need to advertise. The minute I saw a joke, I’m like, [Music] yeah. Yes. Anyway, I like to share a bit of the culture and no, not all of us are freezing the way I’m freezing. That’s the thing I find people comment about the most. Why are people in shorts if you are in look the theory of relativity says that the way things are perceived and experienced are not exactly identical. Yeah, there are people in shorts. I’m not. If I’m stupid enough to be in shorts, I’ll be dead. I want to be warm and toasty. That’s how I want it. I know I make no apologies to that. And there are few people around here like me who are also covered to the hills. There’s a little bit you will see that even some of the natives are definitely feeling the wind chill. Yeah, of course. Did you hear that? Yeah. Some of us feel it and other people don’t feel it at all. Those who don’t feel it tend to be very young people. Again, what runs in their blood vessels is not the same as what runs in mine. To each his own has been the theme of my life for a long time. But look Christmas. I like these cute little inflections. CM1. Yeah, this is the post code for the area. Chelms Ford one. So this is CM1 and Chms for one celebrates Christmas. So CM1’s must Oh, there’s an audioon here. Okay. I mean, I think I chose beautifully the location of the flat that brings with it a lot of interesting things like uh the disco that happened. And every time I say the word disco, my daughter’s like, “Chringe, mom. It’s a club.” Girl, you speak the language of your youth and let me speak mine. When I was a kid, it was a disco. I know it became a club when I wasn’t too old, but no, I’m still stuck with a disco. And because I know it winds people up, oh, it’s now so attractive. Anyway, and the UK is a very interesting place because everybody and their friends are here. So, there’s a German dona kebab. That’s another thing I have missed. I miss getting donaka kebab from the trucks. Yeah, but for the time being, I have 10 minutes to turn up to go meet a group of people. I don’t know if these guys would like to have videos and pictures of themselves. I might take some pictures and I might post some silhouettes. video. What I want to say to you about meetings like this one, you are limited to the people in your circle. If everybody in your circle is on the bread line, you will have breadline thoughts. You will have breadline inspirations. You will be limited to the bread line. If people in your circle are elevating, you have conversations that are elevating and it’s inevitable that after a while you will elevate. So be conscious, be intentional in making choices that bring you into communities of people who will take you to the next level. I am honored that I get to have some of these. I am here in the Pizza Express for my lunch date. I have 10 minutes to the clock. So, I’m going to love you and I’m going to leave you and when I finish I’ll be back here to share what is happening on Chelmsford High Street with you. All right.