Homesick for Britain

[Maninadirndl]

Hello there,

I live in Bavaria, I am a SAHD with two lovely kids who are bilingual. I have a big place and garden and I shouldn't complain. However I am very isolated here. It's hard to connect with locals here on my wavelength. I don't think it's a language issue as I am fluent in German now. My parents have been out here recently and made me miss them and UK more.

Please tell me I am seeing Britain with rose tinted glasses and that life in UK is better in some ways than in Germany. I always tell my wife that we in Britain are generally more polite and less direct for example. My problem is I am stuck here as I haven't worked for four years since becoming a SAHD so at 42 my career prospects are virtually over. Maybe that's not the case in UK but I feel it to be true here in conservative Bavaria where the mother stays home for the kids and the man works.

There's one thing I do appreciate about Germany which I know isn't so in Britain. The absence of idiots on the streets. I can leave my car unlocked whilst doing shop/KG runs and not worry, even leave the front door unlocked overnight in absent mindedness. There doesn't seem to be the underclass here in Germany that we have/had in Britain.

Please convince me that if I came home I'd want to fly back here.

Tea abroad is never the same is it...you can buy Twinnings English Breakfast here but it is definitely doctored altered to suit European tastes. The colour alone is enough to put you off, knats ---- springs to mind

Oh and the UHT milk, I am much relieved to find that Spain now "does" fresh milk

Enjoying a short spurt of silence as both DS are asleep

You have my sympathies on the shopping front manina. I cannot imagine ever going shopping again without DH now that I have 2 children, it was hard enough with just DS1. Oh and as for shopping trollies you can´t even take it for granted they will have a child seat in Spain, they seem to have just a select few which you have to hunt out first, very odd indeed

Hi Manina, can I get St John's Wort in Rossmann? I seem to spend so much time feeling a bit down but am reluctant to go to my doctor...

No need for the doc abroad. Just go to the Apotheke and ask for it. It's called Johanniskraut and is available in tablet form.

I was going to ask for Baldrian (Valerian in the old money) and sje used this "biotensor" (Google it) on my hand and said nope the Johanniskraut would be better. She diagnosed me with low iron several months ago so I believe in it this time.

Right I shall go and look up the product name.

...

right its called Laif 900 from the Prophyto company. Ask for that. Its effects are very subtle. Doesn't turn you into a spaced out zombie, btu just prevents the need of a pint or seven on that Friday night if you get my drift.

I just found a fascinating book in German on this subject and am impressing myself at how much of this pain in the arse language I have picked up over the years. It is all about the Monks and their herb gardens. When you dig deeper into James Wong's subject it just gets more and more fascinating.

Ahhh I am just laughing and laughing about the idea of taking any medical supplement called Johanneskraut. That sounds deeply, deeply sinister!!!!!!!!! I can imagine it happening here. You go into the pharmacy, say you're feeling a bit rough and need an aspirin and you come out with "quelquechose homeopathique tres tres efficace". It's only when you get home and look at what you've purchased, usually under some doubtful brand name, that you realise you haven't a clue what it is. When my ds was constipated the pharmacy here tried to sell me special baby fennel tea. Maybe I'm just weak willed but the idea of trying to get fennel tea anywhere near him was an absolute, unequivocal no no.

Unrelated to the fennel tea, and on the subject of pain killers, why you can't get Aspirin in a continental supermarket? I find that very annoying. But maybe that just demonstrates my addiction to Anadin Extra.

BebeSpain, we sound as though we have very much in common and it makes me feel better I'm not the only moper out there. I raised the issue with dh the other day again. He said he understood the problem of me and Belgium was irreconcilable. However he gave no sign of having any thoughts of actually doing anything about it. Grrrrr.

I also fully agree about tea (there is no way I can ever adapt to the local stuff, it is just something I have to export) and supermarket trollies. It particularly annoyed me when DS was small. In the UK you get those trollies set up for car seats so you can just lob your maxi cosi in and off you go. Someone has obviously thought of this, realised the need for it and put the product in production. I am sure, therefore, these companies would sell such items to Belgian supermarkets. However Belgian supermarkets loathe their customers and make it their business to ensure shopping in them is unpleasant, limited, and expensive, and the trollies are just part of the experience.

Johanniskraut (Hypericum) interacts with many other drugs especially heart medication and it is not recommended for use during pregnancy. I would not use it without consulting my doctor first.

I am not on any other medication and don't intend to have another baby! It would have to be an immaculate conception, the amount of time DH is away!!!

I used to take St Johns Wort years back and stopped when we were trying for our first child.

Then there is no problem with taking it, abroad, but I don't think that it should be recommended without pointing out possible problems with it.

OOer Gravelo: It was in fact recommeded by my doc after she found out I had spring tiredness back in April. Everything was waking up after the long winter except me, so she recommended it then, but I wasn't sure about where to obtain it. Now I've got it growing in my garden for furure use I feel more comfortable about using it.

Maninadirndl, I'm a biologist working in natural compounds discovery for pharmaceuticals and I'm very very uncomfortable when herbal remedies are recommended without mentioning counter indications. About 80 % of our new compounds which are showing promising activities as anti-infectives, anti-inflammatories, anti-oxidants, anti-cancer, anti-whatever are dropped after the initial toxicology tests.
I really just wanted to stress that even for herbal remedies there should be consultation with a gp or a pharmacist.

www.amazon.de/Handbuch-Klosterheilkunde-Schutzumschlag-Johannes-Mayer/dp/3898830160

According to this book which I just borrowed from our library, fair skinned people may suffer light sensitivity when taking SJW. There's quite a section on "Nebenwirkungen" so I think this book is pretty objective.

My doc checked me over with an ultrasound and said everything inside was okay, and that any poison in my body i.e. alcohol on a Friday night was being neutralised by - are they free radicals? - as I cook as fresh and organic as possible, though not always.

My experiences in the "alternative" world are very mixed in that I've often found a lack of realism there with some adherents taking a very dualistic view of natural versus scientific where natural is good science bad. I'm somewhere in the middle.

tbh I am beginning to think my feelings of being down are quite normal in this unbelievably wet Bavarian summer and kids getting on my nerves (they've just walked into the room moaning Bob the Builder is over and they want Tubbies)

In this case bugger SJW and I shall go and sink a pint (on a Friday). Less dangerous it might seem.

(forgive my typig they are climbin on....

I know what you mean about the weather. I am about to go round the bend with my two. Thank god DS1 goes to Kindergarten every day for a few hours...

How do you get to watch those BBC programmes? I have BBC Choice on digital but CBeebies is only on until 9am.

DS2 has been off this morning as he had a cold, he was out naked splashing in the mud during a brief sunny period yesterday, then got a chill which he's quickly thrown off.

During my respite from beer and using SJW I was able to realise that it isnt all "me" who is reacting to this situation badly, the general situation i.e., the alleged summer here in Bavaria is getting all of us down.

I've decided to stop SJW, continueto reduce my intake of beer - I was drinking shandy in the week - and have a couple of those cool beers weekends. After all they are "pure" according to the German Reinheitsgebot and they were brewed by monks so they have to be the best herbal remedy of all....

Maninadirndl, would that be free radicals being neutralized by anti-oxidants in your food? Your immune system needs some free radicals for fighting infections. People who overdose on antioxidants (almost impossible to do without supplements) are shown to be less healthy then people that take fewer antioxidants.
I don't at all doubt that there are many benefits in herbal remedies, many drugs are based on natural compounds. I just come across the "Natur" is great and safe all the time (especially in Germany) and it is just not as clear cut as that. Evolution had more than 3.5 Billion years time to come up with some truly scary molecules. It's a bit of bete noir for me.
My mum in Franken (technically Bayern) hasn't had much rain at all, if anything it is too hot. Nice here in Scotland at the moment.

Gracelo - last night I dug out an old bottle of Valerian extract (Baldrian) and took a dose whilst my kids were in the bath. It was pretty old but I noticed a difference in how I felt afterwards, unfortunately I took it too early and it wore off by bedtime!

There's definitely something in these remedies....

Well I have already stopped taking the SJW after 3 days. Have no idea whether it is related but this week I started getting sore swollen eyelids. I read about photosensitivity and SJW but not this. I thought I would eliminate the one new thing in my life this week and see if these painful eyes go away.

Hope so.

Check out sjwforum.org. Maybe someone else had it.

Well I got halfway thru the pavket and I def hada rest from feeling too shitty. Cut out all alcohol for now and we'll see. Can't expect results overnight.

I've just recovered from a massive round of homesickness, infact so bad that I packed up and came back to the UK. What a shock I just had when I was able to compare the life I had in Germany to what my country has turned into. It just isn't the place I remembered and experienced as a visitor on many holidays.

I'll check out some of those herbal remedies next time I feel even a tiny bit of homesickness and get myself down to a nice beer garden for a cool beer and try smiling at some Germans, they do smile back but you have to give them a helping hand!

Admylin what did you find?

I remember going back and being shocked on a Friday night at how everyone in the oub was off their heads. I'm no sobriety angel out here but the sight of a sea of pissheads was a shock. Something that was normal for me years back on a Friday night was weird to see.

I was having a beer in a pub when I saw this girl, yes a girl - puking on the floor on top of a pile of sick which she'd made a few hours earlier. Hours earlier! How 3rd world is that?

I'm only just starting to get my own life healthier and cooking better food the last few years so this was a reverse shock of the lowest order. What is worse is how everyone simply accepts it as normal.

I stopped taking SJW, not because it wasn't helping, but because I realised the shit summer weather was getting me down not my own mind. If it was sunny and hot and I was down then I think I'd need medicine, but its external factors. But SJW and abstaining from any sort of alcohol at all for a while helped gain clarity.

Yes. maninadirndl, that shocked me with the pubs and drinking and also the younger gangs of teenagers hanging around swearing and drinking. I know that goes on in Deutschland but it was so much worse than I remembered and I was living in a posh little town in a really expensive area so no council ghettos or anything.

All the food stuff we craved for when we were in Germany too - after a few weeks I was missing all the fresh fruit and veg I used to fill my fridge with for half the price. Strawberried for £4 a punnet anyone?

Crisps, sugared cereals, chips and gravy are all things me dc can't get enough of but not exactly good for healthy living. I just kept seeing all these obese people and over weight dc everywhere too. No wonder!

I'd have to travel 40 minute drive to get my leg checked with a scan when I had a problem, I would have had to travel further to see an emergancy dentist if I had been unlucky enough to get tooth ache and my dd would have waited 2 months to get a specialist to check her bladder. All things I could get done tomorrow or within a few days in Germany for the small price of a 10? Praxisgebuehr.

If you need to rent a house the coditions are really crap in Uk too. Prices so high I would never have afforded more than a tiny flat and I would have had to get a second job (if I'd found a first one) just to be able to pay council tax average of £1470 a year.

Anyway, it wasn't just all those little things, I missed my own family and me and dh got back together after sorting out our problems so that will help me get settled back into life in Germany.

Well done admylin. Kind of brave to do what you did but also brave to come back. I think you are confirming everything I think about life here.

I always think UK is so community together but it was tbh that which drove me abroad to start with, the Thatcher era of me me me. It has now gone to its ultimate conclusion with no respect for anything.

I don't miss British food products at all except for tea. All that Birds Custard - easier to make your own and more satisfying to figure out how food "works". Last week's triumph for me was chicken tikka from scratch where it domes out of a foil wrapped Marks and Spencer Food dept tray in Britain.

I worked on a US Army base here in Germany first year 2000-2001 (during 911 too) and was shocked at how many fat women there were on the base.

Right, the sun is out, I feel better. We're harvesting "Johnberries" - the literal German name for blackcurrants, and making jams out of it, also the apples are also coming down this afternoon and tomorow will be juiced. Busy times and no time anymore for downers! River Cottage Germany Branch here we come!

It took me a long time to decide to move back to UK but I knew within a few weeks that it was not the right decision and I had to try Germany again. It took me ages to come back on here and admit it too, especially on the Geram thread

I wasn't thinking straight anyway. The most work I will have on my hands is geting ds to think positive again and to get both of them to enjoy school and not take everything so seriously. Their behaviour was probably my fault (dc pick up bad vibes from parents)

I personally don't think ill of someone who flies back to UK. Takes courage. Also takes courage to admit it's better here. What you did might be exactly what I'd do! Fly home, slip on some vomit on a pavement not cleaned up then say sod it and fly back!

Help us to appreciate Germany by listing the stuff you've perceived as better here and what has changed in the UK since you were living there.

Well, one side is the schooling. I always thought in Germany that my dc were suffering because it was too hard and too strict and too much homework. Over here I got ds into a school that listed as in the top 40 nationwide. Observing what his cousin was doing in Year 8 at the same school I was surprised at how easy it was, the standard isn't very high and it is very easy to get GCSEs. Makes me wonder how the standard is at schools that don't even make the lists!

Infact I was just over indulging my dc and feeling sorry for them because I was feeling sorry for myself. The education standard at Gymnasium is great and a good stepping stone for their future if they want to study. Dc's brains are like sponges so why not have them laern and educate themselves to a high standard, it's all they have to do now, no other chores or work to do except study and play abit. Being bilingual is also great for them and they would have definately forgotten all of their German if we had stayed.

I also think homesickness is abit like an illness and mine was just increased by exhaustion and a bad time in my marriage causing depression. Next time I feel it starting I have to do something about it instead of trying to struggle on and ignore it.

Hi Maninadirndl,
Haven't read the whole thread.
I think plenty of people who stay at home feel isolated. > whether you are in Britain or in Germany, being at home fulltime with 2 small children can be very lonely.

I think you are not being fair on yourself by saying that at 42 you are too old to get a career, not at all. Could you maybe find course you could do to retrain? Or maybe teach English as a foreign language? Or become a translator?
I bet that if you went back to work you would be able to meet more people and feel better.