God Bless America.

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We are currently in the USA staying with family. The weather is hot and lovely. We have a pool in the back garden and the kids have had a great time. They have loved going to the local ice cream parlour and are hugely impressed with the array of different candy available here. We are in Cheshire, Connecticut, one of the more affluent areas in the US. It is very different to the UK in many ways. The first thing that hits you is that everything is built so far apart. For many people their nearest neighbour is halfway down the street. There is no high street as we would find in UK towns, with a parade of shops, restaurants, cafes and perhaps a library or a church. If you want to go out you need to drive. You drive to the first shop and then drive on to the next. Then you get back in the car and drive to the cafe or the diner. Then you get back in your gas guzzler american car (and boy do they guzzle) and drive back home. Little wonder America has such an interest in the world’s oil resources.

Whilst we were here our eldest ended up going to the hospital. The hospital like many public buildings had security guards taking everyone’s ID and logging it into the hospital database. Shops take customers’ telephone numbers and the supermarket charges you more if you don’t have their loyalty card. The message there being ” let us track your shopping habits or we will charge you more”. When you enter the country your iris is scanned at customs and stored for 75 years along with biometric information on all other foreign visitors. Carrying ID is necessary especially when entering public buildings.

This place however was absolutely amazing, one of the best things Cheshire has to offer in my opinion. The local ice cream parlour. I am not a lover of Ice cream but theirs is amazing. r