Nearly complete

Here's an odd thing about being home. One of my senses has dulled.

At first I wondered if my hearing was kaput, so I listened hard for birdsong and traffic noise and people talking as they walked together along the street.

I followed the sparrow, frowned at the car alarm, and eavesdropped on Mavis. (I'd have him put down, with a bladder problem like that.) Then no, not hearing.

I wondered if it was taste. Dig said that life lived in airplanes can do that to a person. But PG Tips and Hob Nobs taste just the same to me.

Sight? Well, I'm appreciating the shadow and light slipping about the walls. Maybe too much. Yes, it's becoming odd, my habit of staring at the wall, but I can't help myself. After the concrete of Hong Kong I can't get enough of the texture of England. The slopes and slants of light, passing slowly bright to dark across the bumps and grain of plaster, wood, brick, is quite addictive. It fixes me in a mystic trance. Sometimes I want my fingertips to stroke the wall as the light shows up the minute crumble of old horsehair plaster. So we can eliminate touch, too.

And smell. No, not that. I know it, for I'm sniffing the pomegranate perfumes of gift soap, Sapone al Melograno, effusing in my knicker drawer.

Maybe there is some other sense called English. Somewhere an intuition or a shared understanding in me got blunted. Perhaps I'm looking at the street and I'm reading it with all the wrong rules, and wrong assumptions and judgements.

It must be that. I began to be think so when I found I broke the law in Tesco. A woman customer hissed frosty words at the back of my head, something about it being nice to be patient.

In my defence, I thought I was doing normal walking behaviour. Maybe normal for Hong Kong; weaving your way through a crowded street, making no concessions for the elderly, infirm, or the beggar outside Wan Chai station. What a stupid place to sit! Of course I didn't mean to kick him. But you have to! There are six million people to get past. But I learn it's not okay to do that weave routine here, around the OAPs inspecting the sugar in the cooking aisle.

So my missing sense could be this. I need to relearn the intuitions of my behaviour; English in England, rather than ex-pat English in Hong Kong. The two are very different.

I must reacquire the ability to tut more, shuffle, and sigh while standing in queues. I must remember to raise my eyebrows while waiting at the bank, sure in the knowledge that everyone around me will understand that to be a satirical comment on the finance industry. And I should reinvigorate my dysfunctional relationship with my own wardrobe, which will result in me gaining six pounds around my middle, which I can then disguise by shapeless fleece leisure clothing. Once I have attained these, I can move on to the higher levels of English achievement, by becoming embarrassed and awkward around all social greetings and partings, including who steps first through the door of the Co-op.

Ah, soon I will have all senses intact, then it will feel good to be home.