Thursday, October 05, 2006

Mental relief and side topic of Slough

I want to comment on how surprised I was to find a big burden off my shoulders after knowing we had a place to live. It obviously was important, but I didn't realise how important until after. It's one big unknown factor that is no longer unknown. It's great to be able to tell people where we will be living when they ask their usual assortment of questions. When we will be moving is the next unknown to solve. The other good thing about moving to Cookham is that for people who know the area, they usually are very positive and have good things to say about it. Whereas, if we told people we were moving to Slough, I doubt their reactions would have been so positive.

For my non-Brit readers, Slough (pronounced to rhyme with "plow") is a town between London and Maidenhead with a very poor reputation as a place to live. Deservedly or not, I couldn't say, I've personally never been there. But when a British Poet Laureate wrote a poem to bomb the town during World War II, you get the feeling that this place hasn't been a favourite of anyone's in a long time. If you watch the British version of "The Office", the series is set in Slough, with the opening credits showing one of the industrial estates there.

For my Brit readers, I can tell you that most people from where I come from in Canada wouldn't rush to live there either, as a slough (pronounced "slew") is usually defined as a small, stinky creek that has very little water movement in it. Hence the stink and also lots of algae. So either way, poor Slough loses out.

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