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{Expat Life} Back to Britain: Would we do it?

12/10/2014

20 Comments

 
I was born in Belgium and Mr P&P is originally Brazilian, but we both grew up in Britain. It makes the concept of home a very fluid one, but if we were ever going to "go back" anywhere, it would be to the UK. Or would we?
Britain
As I wrote last month, it is coming up to crunch time for us: Mr P&P's work contract runs out at the end of July, and so we are looking for new opportunities. Most likely it will be one in his field that clinches it. I'm the more mobile one, needing only a desk, a computer and a decent internet connection to do my job. M-Big, on the other hand, needs a big lab full of shiny and expensive toys, the kind you don't really stick in a box and take with you. So we will probably go wherever he finds work.

As we search, we discuss the pros and cons of this place, the possibilities of that, the maybes of another. We have discussed "going back" to the UK. There are things we miss: our family and friends, the way people are completely open-minded about food. Paperchase and White Stuff and Riverford veg boxes. Cheddar cheese, retail websites that don't look utterly pants. MINCE PIES and CRUMPETS. Countryside you can walk through, everywhere. 

Britain is as close to "home" as is possible for two serial globetrotters to have, but would we go back? There are things that tell me we wouldn't:
The little Unfathomables

Why must the ceilings be so low the lampshades are threatened with decapitation every time someone takes off a jumper in their vicinity? WHO thought it was a good idea to only construct taps that give you either freezing cold or SCALDING hot water? And why can I not get onto a train without having to sell off a kidney first? 

Could somebody tell me who's brilliant idea it was to construct walls out of a material so flimsy I fear my toddler will fly through one on a particularly boisterous day? Oh and when did it become acceptable to charge £2.30 for a cup of hot brown water?

The Important Stuff: finances and quality of life

No matter how hard I try, I cannot make the numbers add up. Our combined salary here in Italy is significantly lower than what it was in the UK, and yet it still goes further. Despite us living in Italy's most expensive city. Despite the astronomical social security contributions and the myriad Silly Little Taxes we're subjected to. Despite food prices being much higher than they were when we arrived four years ago. 

We arrived as a couple on a cheapskate adventure, we'd go back as a family of three. While I don't believe having children should mean breaking the bank, they're not exactly free, are they? In the UK we would pay four to five times as much for childcare as we do here. It probably wouldn't make financial sense for me to keep working, which I think is a hideous situation for a parent to be in. We wouldn't have a hope of owning our first home until we were at least 40. 
It just doesn't add up. 

The ways in which WE have changed

Leave for long enough, and you come back a stranger in your own country. You open your mouth and sound like a local, but your brain is desperately trying to understand the cultural references to TV shows you haven't seen, celebrities you don't know, songs you haven't heard. Someone's built a road where your school used to be, and what do you mean I can't go to HMV any more?

Somewhere along the line, Mr P&P and I stopped drinking cappuccino after 11AM. We stick to monochrome in winter and join the masses to prance about with our toddler at 5PM on a Sunday. Ice cream in winter now seems, without doubt, like a very good idea.
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I stopped huffing at shop assistants to leave me alone, and started agreeing that, yes indeed, "you dunno wadda you want, LUIGI nos wadda you want!". I can no longer see the sense of a pasta dish with more than five ingredients, and pineapple on pizza? Give me strength. 

It might be that none of these things are serious enough to stop us from going back, should a great opportunity arise. Maybe we would take a deep breath and learn to ignore the brutality of Osborne's cuts, in much the same way as we Don't Talk About the seemingly never-ending and entirely unnecessary building works all over northern Italy. Perhaps we would come to see paying at least a tenner for lunch as completely normal. 

It's hard to imagine, though, after nearly four years.

Come say hello:

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20 Comments
Philippa Hammond
12/10/2014 07:24:07 am

You can still visit HMV in our town :-)

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Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
12/15/2014 03:38:32 am

Thank you Philippa, that's most reassuring :-)

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Daniel Hiller
12/10/2014 02:17:52 pm

beautifully written once again, you make it such a joy to read about your adventures in life. It would be great to see you back here in Blighty again! X

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Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
12/15/2014 03:41:06 am

And a lovely comment from you as always! Hope to see you soon, for a visit at least x

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Donna link
12/10/2014 03:26:42 pm

Oh such a wonderful post. You summed up all the things I hate about the UK and everything I love about going abroad. I look forward to finding out where life takes you x

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Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
12/15/2014 03:41:53 am

Thanks for commenting, and I look forward to finding out where we go too ;-)

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Meghan Fenn link
12/10/2014 10:42:43 pm

A tough decision. One that I feel I didn't make, I just ended up here. I'm an American expat in the UK and after 15 years of living here and only here, I feel this is more my home than the USA (at the moment!). All those things you mentioned still drive me crazy - especially the scalding hot water and the huge expense of pretty much EVERYTHING. But, where would I be without my beautiful British children who are growing up more British than American and my very British husband? Good luck with your decision - I'm sure it will be an adventure!

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Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
12/15/2014 03:57:52 am

Children especially do change things, don't they? My son comes home singing nursery rhymes in Italian, and it's things like this that make me feel more tied to Italy. It doesn't yet feel like "home" but it'll always be the country in which he was born, and therefor remain special.

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Seychellesmama link
12/11/2014 01:39:00 am

Eline I LOVE this post!! I laughed and was nodding along all the way through!!

The tap thing.....seriously I don't understand why all taps aren't one instead of two!!!!?

Money, we are kinda in the same situation. Definitely on less money (lots less) plus I'm not allowed to work since I don't have a visa and yet somehow we have more "disposable" income...crazy!! I can't imagine how we ever would have afforded to have children in the UK....!!

Best of luck with your decisions, I think it's an exiting time for you guys, but daunting too!!! I'm not sure there are any labs with cool shiny toys in them here....maybe we could build one!? Xx

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Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
12/15/2014 03:59:39 am

Thanks for your comment lovely, and if only we could stick a lab on an island in the Seychelles!!!

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Ersatz Expat link
12/11/2014 08:14:52 am

Funnily enough we were talking about where we want to retire when the time comes just the other day (How is it we are approaching 40 already)....

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Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
12/15/2014 04:06:24 am

Gosh, I can imagine that's very hard question for an expat to answer too. At the moment I wouldn't know where to start!

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Bart
12/11/2014 03:36:25 pm

The € equivalent of £10 doesn't get you a decent lunch in a lot of Northern European countries including NL. I'd definitely go back and take the fam with me (assuming they wanted to come) given the chance. Although the one thing I could never do to myself is carpets in the bathroom/loo/kitchen ...

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Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
12/15/2014 04:09:23 am

Oh yes, the hideousness of all those carpets! Now that we are potty learning with the Bean I can't fathom having them ANYWHERE, to be honest with you...
But on a more serious note, I do realise it's not just the UK that's expensive these days. Belgium is definitely right up there now too, which wasn't the case 10 or even 5 years ago. I would, however, still say that the childcare situation is particularly tough for parents with under-3s in the UK.

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Polly Mixtures link
12/13/2014 02:45:45 pm

Great post about a conundrum that I think runs through a lot of expats heads! I consider it every so often when feeling homesick, but the UK is prohibitively expensive. Our lifestyle is so much better here. Very glad to have discovered your blog via #MyExpatFamily P x

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Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
12/15/2014 04:11:02 am

Thanks for commenting Polly! This whole question does resurface every time we're homesick too, and I imagine having a Christmas at home with our family won't help matters.

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Phoebe @ Lou Messugo link
12/15/2014 12:50:37 pm

I chuckled out loud about the taps and someone's comments about carpet in the bathroom! I often think about if I could go "back" to UK but it's been far too long since I lived there and I know I couldn't. I'll never be French (where I live now) but I'm not really British (or Australian - dual nationality) either. I wish you the best of luck deciding on where next and look forward to reading about your adventures.

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Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
1/20/2015 08:04:35 am

I think the fact that I'm "not really" Belgian, despite being born there, means I'm very unlikely to ever go back there either! With the UK it bothers me less that I'm not from there, but I'm still not sure it'd suit us anymore.

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Rachel @ The Ordinary Lovely link
1/2/2015 12:36:10 pm

Ooo, this is a toughie. I went through all those points in the year or two before we moved back to the UK. Our situation was slightly different because Paul and I are both from the same village so our roots are identical. Home is home to both of us. And we also had a house to move back to as we left on what was a temporary assignment for the company that I worked for so they sorted all the moving stuff out for us and rented us an apartment (a luxury, I know).

After being back for just over a year now, for us, it was the right thing to do. I'm ridiculously happy to be home and there's something about Wales and the Welsh countryside that fills my heart with a joy that nowhere else can. That aside, I still wouldn't mind the odd overseas adventure. The thought of being in one place for so long makes me very nervous.

Make a list, check it twice, sleep on it. One place will ultimately win over another and you'll make it work xx

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Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
1/20/2015 08:08:03 am

Thank you for your comment Rachel, I really appreciate hearing your thoughts on this. It's lovely to know you feel so happy to be back in Wales (for which I can't blame you at all! I do miss the British countryside as a whole...).

I can imagine how it would be different if my husband and I both felt we had a fixed concept of home, and the fact that we don't does complicate things. Or perhaps it makes it easier, in the sense that home can anywhere!

There are still a fair few lists and sleeps to be done, but I do also think that we'll make it work when the time comes.

x

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