Here goes

Okay, so I've been meaning to get this thing underway for over a year, but what with one thing and another (new house, new job, new country) it's only just begun (resisting the temptation to break into song here...). I thought that it might be of interest to me later, and perhaps to one or two of my friends and family, plus any hapless surfer who finds themselves reading this. Whilst there are lots of us Brits living in the US, they tend to be concentrated in the main (glamorous) cities like NY, San Fran and LA. There are not that many of us in Lousiana, and even fewer here in Lafayette (capital of Cajun country).
Work has brought us here, unexpectedly, but we're trying to make it feel like home.
This part of the US has a very distinct culture, cuisine and even language (most people outside the main cities speak French - though not the kind you learned at school!). It's not really part of the so-called Bible Belt, as the predominant religion here in Southern Lousiana is Catholicism (rather than Southern Baptist, as in most of the rest of the South). This is a historical artefact from the time that France and Spain owned this part of the US (not at the same time, obviously). It is also, just as you might imagine, extremely conservative (this is the only state that voted more strongly Republican in the most recent election than in the previous one - make of that what you will).
I have no intention to upset anyone, or be more than my usually critical self - but this blog will record my reactions to living here, both positive and negative. It'll be an account of the ups and downs of living thousands of miles away from home in a country that although it shares our language can be as foreign as anywhere in the world. It feels like a good time to be in the US, with lots of optimism and momentum for change - we'll just have to see if that change is realised, or simply fades away. Here's hoping for the former.