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AIBU?

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Original poster

To be homesick for the UK

142 replies

twiney · 17/12/2017 14:17

I'm a little hungover and had a rough day yesterday and it's triggered a bout of homesickness for the UK. Any other expat MNers feeling homesick for their country?

I miss...

The humorous trashy aspect of Christmas

The free-form approach to womanhood

Pubs

The love of newness and creativity

The acceptance of difference

My friends

The sea and the faded kitschness of coastal towns

The flexible playfulness of using English

There are more. But as Christmas draws nearer and nostalgia kicks in, having tried to integrate here and doing an okay job ploughing on with it, I just wanted to say it out loud: I miss you, UK, I miss your no-nonsense women, an attitude I can still just about hold onto through the various personalities on MN.

I miss you and love you!

OP posts:
heron98 · 18/12/2017 15:15

I think many of the people who are down on the UK have never lived elsewhere and have a "grass is greener" attitude. Lots of other countries have far worse problems in terms of race relations, wealth discrepancies and equal rights and sexism.

Yes, the UK has its problems and its idiots. But it's really not that bad.

I love where I live - near the fells, I like the fact it's never too hot in the summer and never more than a few degrees under freezing in the winter.

I like the long days in the summer and the lovely fading winter light in the winter.

I think the food is nice, the people are generally friendly and I feel safe as a woman.

There is plenty going for it.

RainbowTint · 18/12/2017 15:50

HelveticaVanBuren

Your post should read,

I think the United Kingdom is the best place to live in the world. If anyone can suggest a better place then why aren't you living there? If you already live there then good for you, but the UK is still the best place to live in the world in my opinion.

AlexaDoTheDishes · 18/12/2017 16:01

Yanbu

I'm trying to get back to the uk after 15 years abroad

Uk people you have no idea how good you've got it!

crackerjacket · 18/12/2017 16:03

Still there twiney?

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 18/12/2017 16:05

Yanbu.

I get homesick on a two week holiday.

I love living in the UK. Appreciate it every day.

Evelynismyspyname · 18/12/2017 16:22

Coffee being defined by your nationality stops happening after a while though, that only really happens to visitors or newish arrivals. I'm not any more defined by being from England where I live now than someone from one part of the UK living in another part of the UK, or even someone from one part of England living in another part with a different accent.

Evelynismyspyname · 18/12/2017 16:29

Actually I got "yer not from 'round 'ere are ye" far more, and in a far less friendly way, living in Yorkshire than I do in Germany.

TorchesTorches · 18/12/2017 16:56

I moved from the UK nearly 5 years ago. A few years ago, at this time of year, I got really bad homesickness. My husband suggested I phone one friend every day. I had fallen into the habit of emailing. It felt a bit wierd to speak to people, but it was so lovely. I spoke to about 8 spent friends and it was such a tonic. 2 friends who had also emigrated had wise advice. I also realised if i go to the Uk every 3 months, even if just for a weekend, then i don't get homesick.

I miss certain things (pubs, decent fish and chips, tea, cheddar, Christmas carols, good radio) but I have to commit to my new country too (husband is native and now kids are too).

Evelynismyspyname · 18/12/2017 17:41

I think that's the thing Torches - as long as you (generic you not personally) see yourself as an "expat" and talk about "going home" you will never be committed to the new country and will never be at home, when you are at home (in your own house, with your own spouse and kids).

Some people emigrate and others go on a long holiday/ post or secondment, others effectively behave and think as though they are in exile. If you're in it for the long haul only one of those mindsets works!

user1490465531 · 18/12/2017 18:14

As much as I hate living in the u.k it's not easy just to pack up your things and go especially if your a single parent like me with full responsibility of a child.
That's in response to all the posters who say if you don't like it just leave.
No I don't like it here but it's not a case of just jumping on a plane is it?.

user1492877024 · 18/12/2017 18:21

English and proud.

juneau · 18/12/2017 18:23

I love the UK. I lived OS for 10 years in 3 different countries and I came back here with my eyes wide open. This place IS better than many others - at least for me. I love our wry sense of humour, our free press, Radio 4, our magazines, our TV, our acceptance of difference - and yes even after the Brexit vote the Britain I know and love is a tolerant place, and yes my family and friends. The weather is a bit shit - it's true - but I'll take our grey winters over 40 degrees and flies, or 98% humidity any day.

MiltonTheCockroach · 18/12/2017 18:33

I love the UK.

It's not perfect, but then nowhere is.

It's not 'like it used to be', but then nowhere is.

I think I'd still prefer to live here than any other country in the world apart from Barbados but mainly because the weed is awesome

So no, YANBU to be homesick, especially at this time of year.

MissionItsPossible · 18/12/2017 18:39

Torches The first two things you mentioned (pubs and fish and chips) you may not be able to do but can't you order some tea from amazon or bulk buy for your house when you visit the UK and listen to the radio on your phone through an app like TuneIn for your christmas carols and decent radio? I've never lived in another country so it may not be the same and I just don't realise but that's what I think I would do if I missed those three things.

Biber · 18/12/2017 18:39

I'm homesick for how my country used to be.

We are a nation bitterly divided now by the brexit referendum only brought in to plaster over divisions within the conservative party. It has unleashed the xenophobia that was bubbling under and made the country a poorer and unhappier place.

When I say how it used to be, I'm not looking back with rose tinted spectacles to an idealised time two years ago, hell no. But it felt like home. I wasn't told I should be hung, regularly threatened for exercising my democratic rights to disagree with the country committing suicide. I'd never been called a saboteur by the Prime Minister before.

I want my country back.

LakieLady · 18/12/2017 18:39

I get homesick for the UK on any trip abroad of more than about 10 days.

Pubs, queueing, unpredictable (but rarely dangerous) weather, real beer, quirky humour, tolerance, varied landscape and architecture - this country has so much going for it.

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 18/12/2017 18:41

YANBU. We briefly lived abroad, we hadn't permanently moved but were 'testing' how we felt about it for a few months first. Everyone said "you'll end up staying" and TBH that's what we thought too.

It was Christmas that did it for us funnily enough, that is made us decide that we belong in the U.K. we were quite alarmed to find out that we're much more British than we realised Grin

Evelynismyspyname · 19/12/2017 06:10

Yes, you can get almost every UK radio station via the internet, we order PG Tips in catering packs from eBay, and German Aldi sells British made cheddar even in areas with no expat population now (that's only been available for a year or so).

Tea bags are the only thing I ship in, though I do go slightly out of my way to buy real Scottish manufactured marmalade at the one supermarket that stocks it for some reason...

For a long while I missed Indian restaurant food but we finally had a good Indian restaurant open locally enough to actually get to realistically a couple of years ago.

There's nothing wrong with missing a few things, but where it's just food and media it's usually very easy to import these days, especially if you are in Europe.

LoveInTokyo · 19/12/2017 08:05

Twiney, are you finding the winter mornings hard? I'm feeling a bit down at the moment and nothing else is wrong and I'm going home for Christmas in two days anyway, so I think it must be the fact that it doesn't get light until nearly 9am! I have an office job and unless I force myself to go for a walk outside at lunchtime, I don't really see daylight from Sunday afternoon to Saturday morning. Sad

Toadinthehole · 19/12/2017 08:46

The UK. A place where politesse is mistaken for progressivism, and the solution for everything is to make another law. A place where honesty is rudeness and where all aspects of life are draped with a delicate skein of lies.

Yes, of course I miss it, but blimey, am I looking forward to putting my feet up on the beach here in sunny NZ.

Bebespain · 19/12/2017 10:03

twiney - no, YADNBU!

I have lived in Spain for 11 years and still have crippling bouts of homesickness, and I find it especially hard at Christmas.

Those of you berating the UK, I just don´t get it. I find that British people have this "thing" of putting the country down, talking as if it´s the worst place on earth...the schools, the NHS, the people, the food, racism and so on. Please!

I think that the only explanation (as has been pointed out already) is either they haven´t lived anywhere else or they believe the Media.

Racism is much worse in other countries (you would cringe at the blatant use of `black-face´for the 3 Kings parade in Spain) and educational systems are very much flawed elsewhere too. As are work practices and plenty of other things.

Oh and don´t get me started on the weather. Do those of you talking about the crap weather in the UK really want to endure long Summers in temperatures of 40 degrees every year whereby you can´t even step outside?

Bonkers!

I love the UK and I am bloody proud to be British

HelveticaVanBuren · 19/12/2017 10:25

RainbowTint

But if I did that I'd be lying - because it's not my opinion, it's a fact.

Please don't tell me what my post should read when you're so far off the mark you shouldn't have bothered writing anything at all.

Independentstateofeyebrows · 19/12/2017 10:32

The UK has morphed into Royston Vasey - the parochialism, the bleakness, the recreational cannibalism. You're well out if it, op.

WhenLoveAndCakeCollide · 19/12/2017 10:41

YADNBU twiney

I've lived in the US since I was 13. My late mother was American, and we relocated here so she could be there for her parents, who were both diagnosed with dementia within a few months of each other. I always planned to return to the UK, but life had other plans for me.

I may have moved as a teenager, but there's still so much I'm homesick for, and mainly it's the people. However wherever I lived, whether here in the UK (I'm here for Christmas), or back in the US, I'd be living away from one half of my family.

My husband is American, and he's said he'd be happy to relocate to the UK (specifically England, as I am English. However we just have a quality of life back in the US that we wouldn't get here. We live in a lovely area of the Chicago metro area (we're about 40 minutes drive from the city itself), in a large home with land, in the intake area of one of highest ranked school districts in the whole country (let alone in Illinois). When I converted the price we paid for our house (which needed work doing to it, so it was more affordable than it would been otherwise), into £GB, the equivalent sum wouldn't get us anywhere near to the life we have in the States. Even converting what our house is now worth, wouldn't get us close. So for now, I deal with the homesickness, because the pros outweigh the cons.

It never gets any easier though.

Helendee · 19/12/2017 10:44

That's why I will never leave my beautiful country. I love England, warts and all.