British Life Lessons: Embrace Simplicity and Joy

#kensingtongardens Let’s talk British. You walk a lot. You groceries very often and deal with crazy crowded small grocery stores several times a week. You know how to linger over food. i don’t know how lunch breaks work around here. You just “know” when to cross at a cross walk. You ignore traffic signs. Cops are rare. I didn’t see a single one in all of Scotland. And yet the world doesn’t collapse. You dress different. At least the under forty crowd. Cover your stomach. I don’t want to see that. You smoke and vape a lot. Your kids ride scooters to get around town and you just carry them around when they don’t need them. I don’t want to do that. And this one is big... you don’t have stupid caution signs everywhere telling me how I’m going to get hurt. Don’t wade in the stream... You might slip. Don’t walk on the grass in the park... It’s grass. My kids can climb on the rocks because there aren’t signs everywhere telling me to stay on the path. And... You have dogs. Everywhere. And you take them to the park where you ignore the signs, let your dog off the leash, and he happily frolicked around you while behaving with other dogs. Wha what?! And you take him in the subway. And train. And even in a tourist boat. And you even took him into to pub with you to get a drink and no one bates an eye. Life lesson. We Americans need to chill. Play with our dogs. Eat slowly. Get in the grass... It’s a start. And I would like to make more general observations about parenting in the UK, but there just aren’t a lot of kids to stare at. Just crazy tourists ;)