The spirit is willing but sometimes the inspiration/ideas/muse just doesn’t come and so I wait. Rather than write some rambling treatise on my food adventures or family adventures or personal growth adventures, or God forbid, TIKTOK, I will wait patiently for the . . . wait, that’s exactly what I’ve been writing about!

Sorry. My muse tends to be a little shallow.

But this week I am preparing for a trip to England, leaving Wednesday, and in my excitement about the trip, I failed to notice that my muse has taken a vacation also, leaving me high and dry in the words department.

But I SO want to talk to you (see how I’m already picking up a British inflection–that could be from all the cozy British mysteries I watch) that I am writing this without her on my shoulder, winging it, as it were, with no wingman.

I’m very Maverick-y.

So, to England. I have a lovely friend who has moved permanently to the town of Shrewsbury in the county of Shropshire, in western England. It sits inside a loop of the River Severn, and its Tudor centre (I’m practicing my British spelling) is lined with half-timbered houses. The medieval, red-brick Shrewsbury Castle (above) houses the Shropshire Regimental Museum, where military artefacts include uniforms and weaponry. St Chad’s Church is defined by its unique circular nave, and St Mary’s Church has elaborate stained-glass windows.

My friend, Andria, lives in a stone cottage that looks a lot like the movie Holiday (the English part) on the outside, but is quite modern on the inside (pictures to come when I take them.) She has spent her career taking groups (mostly women of a certain age) on magical tours throughout England, exploring the castles and gardens on the way. She is retired now, but invited me to visit ages ago, and it is finally working out.

Although I have chosen to go just when the gardens have withered and the air is chill and damp with the rain you would expect from England. I think she is slightly disappointed that she can’t show me the glorious English gardens, but oddly, I am thrilled with the idea of stone fireplaces and tea and mucking about in my wellies and tweed scarf.

She said there’d be no “mucking about in the rain and mud,” but I’m bringing my wellies anyway. I really don’t have a tweed scarf, I just like the idea of it.

She did say there’d be a fire and tea (and coffee, too, but why waste a long plane ride to get coffee.)

Anyway, the romantic in me (and my romantic nature is !00% in charge, let me tell you) wants all the quintessential British things. The castles, the rain, the fireplace, the village, the language, the King, tweed, a pint in a pub (even though I don’t drink beer–I will, by golly, order one), and different food.

Bangers and mash, bubble and squeak, fish and chips. I’m in it full bore, ready to experience it all, with my sweet friend, who is excited for me to come and experience it all!

I’ll be back next week to tell you all about it.

Maybe my muse will be back by then from her “flit-about.” Cheeky little thing.