Forgive me if I write with a British accent, but I bingewatched all six seasons of OETA’s Downton Abbey. The series takes place in England in 1927.

Since I’m not in to period pieces it must’ve have been my DNA (69-percent British) that kept me glued to the TV. On second thought I believe it was a combination of the brilliant writing and characters.

I was immediately drawn to the outspoken and elderly Dowager Countess (played by Maggie Smith). It was a given since I’ve rarely had a thought I didn’t express, and there is the age thing too.

That character also had such great lines that included many idioms that I assume were from that time, but are used in some corrupted form today, and God knows I love all sayings.

When the Dowager said, “No more chance than a cat in hell with no claws” I loved it, and couldn’t believe we’d changed it to “Not a chance in hell.”

Same goes for “Flogging (beating) a dead horse” and “Let the cards (chips) fall where they may.”

One that I hadn’t heard was “It’s been donkey’s years since I saw you.” Though I did get the drift that it had been eons because donkeys have long lives.

I caught myself before I told a friend I had to go “post” a letter, and when she complained that the Downton series is just a glorified soap opera, I actually held my tongue. I wanted to remind her she’d recorded her soaps for years and rushed home to watch them.

Yes, that was the demure me, which made me think I was more like one of the lady’s maids, or kitchen help at the mansion, but not one who could iron, sew, or even boil water.

As a child I always wanted to be a nurse so I probably could have helped those who had the Spanish Flu in 1918, or the soldiers hurt in WWI.

They only mentioned extended relatives who died from that deadly flu, but did a bang-up job on telling the stories of returning soldiers, and those who didn’t make it home. The series dealt heav

The series dealt heavily with The Great Depression that in 1929 the British called The Great Slump. “Everything had gone all to pot,” author Julian Fellowes wrote for one of his characters.

They ate crumpets (pancakes) for breakfast back in those 52 episodes, and had what we’d call cookies, but they called biscuits, at tea time. You can bet your bottom dollar when we talk about having tea our English friends would let us know that iced tea is certainly not their cup of tea.

The 30-percent Irish in me would have to say drinking tea the English way is arseways, and since I’m new to my Irish heritage I hope that’s not an ugly word. If it is, blame Google.