I fly to the USA on Tuesday 24th September at lunchtime from Glasgow Airport. I’m pretty much packed and ready to go, with a modest sized suitcase and hand luggage – what do you really need for 9 months in a country with shops and Amazon?! I’m so excited there have been times this week when I’ve not been very effective at concentrating on what I’m supposed to be doing!
In my last week, I’ve been making the most of lunch time walks around Lenzie Moss, which is a lovely 45-60 minute round walk from our house. It was looking particularly lovely this week in the last splash of sunshine as we head into autumn. There was good bird-watching this week too with long-tailed tits and a treecreeper in evidence.
Last night, I was at a meeting of my lovely book group, where friends sent me off in style with the US flag on prominent display and the Star spangled banner playing in the background!!
I commented that I don’t know the words of the US national anthem and that maybe I should learn them, only to realise it’s yet another anthem with overtones of ‘we beat you in a war, aren’t we great’ – in this case victory over the British in the War of Independence. However, Scotland is no better with it’s ‘we beat you in a war, aren’t we great’ anthem of ‘O flower of Scotland’.
Anyway, if anyone has ever heard the Whitney Houston version of the Star spangled banner, sung at the Tampa Stadium, Florida for the Super bowl XXV in 1991, I think I’ll give up any attempt to sing along, as no one is ever going to hit it out of the park the way she did 🙂 (Those checking out the Youtube clip, yes I did notice the description of Whitney Houston as ‘just a woman’! Grr.)
