Why does homesickness always strike when you least expect it? There I was, in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales, minding my own business. We were staying at the Stone House (please don't book, it's my secret) near Hawes at the same time as a gaggle of Americans. Most of the time I find random Americans irritating and pretend to be English but this group were classier and a bit intriguing and so I admitted to having grown up in the States.

We then embarked on the game of finding a common geographical link. This turned out to be Iowa, my birthplace and their former home. Plus they were now at a retirement community in Texas, a state where I have also lived. I beamed. Why is it so satisfying that this game is completed successfully? I have no idea. I fell to talking to one of the men who said they were off to the Lake District for another week of walking. “After that,” he chuckled, “we won't be walking anywhere. We'll be all tuckered out.”

All tuckered out. Just three words but, the moment he said them, they wrapped around me. In general, or so I believe from my current comfortable position of great distance, I remember American English as a gentler and more understated form of the language. The words “all tuckered out” unlocked something inside that brought back entire scenes from childhood: riding my bike, without hands, down the silent roads of America's suburbia, picnicking beneath the huge mossy oaks, spending a whole day, back against the roots of a huge fir, reading a book.

Homesickness is a greatly underrated emotion. Surely it is as powerful, and as capricious, as grief, the way it waits like a tigress to pounce when you least expect. I once just walked by a hedge and the smell, so pungent, so tangibly part of my past, stopped me in my tracks, my eyes pricking with tears. I have only been to Moscow once and can't say I liked it much, but the people, who thought big and were convinced they were the centre of the universe, reminded me so much of home that my attitude towards them softened considerably. Other languages have different words to describe various aspects of homesickness (for people, places, childhood etc) but we have only one. Perhaps we should invent some more.

Foot-in-head disease

I have to admit that even in the Yorkshire Dales I found it hard to stop thinking about Gordon Brown. Certainly I did so in Muker. This is a village (tiny, perfect, should be in movie, etc.) in Swaledale which, for reasons I don't understand, I immediately decided to call Muckta. Yes, I know, it sounds Arab, hot, deserty, but logic plays no part here. Again and again I said it wrong. And as I struggled, apparently incapable of saying it right (Mooka, I think), I thought of Gordon.

This summer, in the open therapy session that our relationship with the PM has become, one (nameless) civil servant was quoted as saying: “He's incredibly rude. He doesn't remember names.” Well, so what? I sometimes don't even respond to my own name. I often forget my children's, a problem solved by simply running them together. They hate that but I tell them it's better than Thing. I have an entire array of Things (Mr Thingy Whatsit etc). Other people are known by some memorable moment. So the man who hurt his foot once is forever Mr Foot. But once I get a name stuck in my head, regardless of whether it happens to be accurate, I can't get rid of it. So Muckta it will be.

Haven of yappiness

The Stone House is a “dog friendly” hotel and at times the lounge looked a bit like a canine convention. I was dog-less, which rendered me almost invisible. Of course, I immediately named everyone after their dogs - Mr and Mrs Beagle, Mr Yappy etc - a practice that is dangerous, to say the least. But, listening to them chattering away one night in the lounge, dog anecdotes running amok, I was struck by how very friendly (indeed, almost American) it was. But then I imagined what it would be like to remove all the dogs from the scene. The result? Silence, but for the tinkle of tea cups and the occasional sigh.

Spitz image

I haven't been able to get into the Olympics that much so far, though I notice my unexplained hatred of all things Paula Radcliffe continues apace. But, having said that, who cannot be entranced by Michael Phelps? I can remember when Mark Spitz came to visit my tiny swim club in McMinnville, Oregon, to chat to us. It must have been 1972. I can't recall what he said but I can still see him, tall, dark, arrow-shaped, in his sweats with the seven medals arranged, overlapping, on his chest. We were agog. I don't think there was even such a thing as celebrities then but he was the only famous person I met in my childhood.

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