Smug

Coming from a family that believed if you went more than two towns away you might fall off the edge of the earth, that I now consider myself an international citizen and fairly well traveled (but not as much as some of my friends) often leaves me smug that I succeeded in my childhood wish of being able to travel.

Thus this morning when I was reading Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (R.K. Rowling) the author mentioned fat rascals served at Bettys Tearoom in Harrogate. Its history goes back to 1919 and its pastries and meals have a Swiss influence.

Here's where smug comes in. I had a fat rascal at Bettys on the one day I was in Harrogate. A friend and I were in Yorkshire taking a sheep herding course. That's another story.

I am smug because I knew of the tea room from personal experience.

I was equally smug when flipping channels and saw Bab Tooma, the entrance to the old city of Damascus. There were other street scenes in Syria that I knew.

Less smug was watching a George Clooney movie filmed in Geneva. He turned at the end of the Quai du Mt. Blanc and was suddenly in an another part of the city without fighting the traffic between the two places. Oh, to be able to do that. Movies and TV shows from other cities in the UK such as London, Oxford, Edinburgh flash by and I can say, I've been there and in some places several times for extended periods.

There's still much of the world I have yet to see, and probably will never see. Still, they are more than two towns away from where I grew up and I haven't fallen off the edge of the earth.

And the fat rascal scones. Since I began writing the blog, I wish I had one. Maybe someday I will be Harrogate again only this time with no sheep herding.