Do you ever get homesick for the different places in which you have lived?
I do.
Last week I was chatting with our interim receptionist, a lovely young lass named Louisa. She being a native-Londoner, and myself a self-professed anglophile who lived in Jolly Ol’ England (BAH) in 2009, it was natural that our conversation turned towards the things that we missed most about life in the UK.
That morning we lamented about how much we missed GREGGS, a British chain bakery (and the place to procure the BEST 3 for 1£ egg tarts you will ever sample in your ENTIRE LIFE.)
As I walked back to my office I thought about all the things that I miss most about the different cities, that at one point or another, during my short twenty-eight years, I have called “home”.
Here are two of them:
Birmingham.
Cheap groceries.
Oh how do I miss thee! Three big blocks of (GOOD) cheese for five pounds? A massive box of cereal for ninety pence? A dozen free-range eggs for one pound? Organic veg for all but nought?
WHY ARE YOU SO BAD AT THIS CANADA?
Ease of travel.
“Oh hey! Want to go to Bath today? How about Edinburgh next weekend? What about Switzerland for Christmas?
“Hmmm, I don’t know…”
“It will cost us next to nothing, and we will be there in a matter of hours.”
“LET’S DO IT.”
All the candy.
Seriously, walk into a Tesco and IT IS EVERYWHERE. Aisle, after aisle of just the most amazing junk food you have ever encountered.
You can buy different flavoured marshmallows.
And if you like marshmallows as much I do, THEY WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
And it is glorious.
Rugby.
I sure do like me a professional sportsman with cute bum.
Or as Marc was one to say, “Could you stop taking photos of that guy please?”
Classic.
Halifax.
Friendly people.
Seriously, the nicest people you will ever meet (I should probably say SOME of the nicest people) live on the east coast of Canada.
Sometimes I miss the easy, everyday interaction with people who just want to really, truly find out how you are doing.
Bars that have live celtic music.
This point needs no elaboration.
Also this:
Ease of travel.
A little different from Birmingham, in Halifax proper you can pretty much walk anywhere (weather permitting, of course.) In the dead of winter is it unlikely that you want to be on foot going anywhere, lest you freeze to death, trapped in a massive snow bank, or get carried away in a hurricane.
But in the summer?
It’s glorious.
…
On a completely different note, I feel like I’m going slightly mad from watching so much MI-5.
I was taking the skytrain yesterday, and there was a half-drunk frappacino under my chair, and all I could think was, “I’M SITTING ON TOP OF A BIOLOGICAL WEAPON.”
Yeesh.
I should probably give it a rest, and allow my life to be influenced by other things.
Although I sure do want to be spy.
I also find it weird how just watching this show totally ramps up my homesickness for the UK, despite the fact that it regularly rips out my heart, and gives me massive anxiety over the course of both episode and series’ arcs.
What about you dudes?
Do you folks watch MI-5?
And what cities do your hearts call out for?
I want to hear all about them.
Rant and Roll 