So we are moving to the States in June. We'll be in Severna Park, a suburb of Annapolis, in Maryland.
The state slogan for Maryland is (as listed by the unimpeachable Wikipedia): "Seize the Day Off". This I like.
The official state motto is taken from the state's official seal and was written in Italian thusly: "Fatti maschii, parole femine." The commonly accepted translation is 'strong deeds, gentle words'. This, too, I like.
We're just coming to the end of a preliminary two-week visit - I'm currently writing this from a house just nearby where we'll end up in June - and it's enabled us to get a flavour for what's ahead. First impressions are that it's very similar to Dubai - big roads, big cars, big food, big shops. The physical geography is completely new to me - certainly unlike anything I've known in the U.K. We are by the sea, but it's the Chesapeake Bay, and there's a mild tidal reach and almost no surf, so it's an odd beach environment. (A nice touch is that we're on the Severn River.) People here are very open and friendly - shop attendants will greet you as you enter their shop (and of course, bid you to 'have a nice day' when you leave), and we've freely exchanged words of greeting to people in the neighbourhood. And the people in the church here have been true to the state motto - welcoming us into their lives and bending over backwards to help us.
On Friday we go back to Bristol, which I have called home for the past ten years, to begin the process of packing up memories and possessions and saying goodbye.
