Category: All Blog Posts
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Going Backwards Isn’t Normal
I’ve recently come back to stay in the UK, I use the words stay instead of live because after five days in the grey and rain of the midlands I am certain this is not where I want to be. Weather not withstanding, the UK is a wonderful country in…
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Am I More Fun Overseas?
Do you have a holiday personality? Are there things you will do (maybe things we shouldn’t speak about) while you’re on holiday mode that you would never dream of doing in your home town? Where we lived in Spain was tourist chaos in the summer and as locals we would…
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Who Designed This Chaos
During our time overseas visitors have often got excited about the prospect of a trip to the Supermarket. The novelty of foreign supermarkets with their exotic cuisines and choices is an exciting thought for many. The holiday-mode that gets activated means they don’t care about the foods they miss they’re…
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Is Feminism Going Backwards?
The last seven months have been spent in an ex-soviet country with a predominantly Muslim population. I have written about small aspects of the culture and my experiences, but have kept it vague due to the heavy level of monitoring that the governments figures mandate. I have heard stories of…
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How Long Can You Live in Other People’s Houses?
I have a dream, a dream that I know may never come true. I dream of a house that is my own, it doesn’t have to be big, even two bedrooms would be plenty. The walls would be decorated in the colours I want, the kitchen would be fine-tuned for…
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What If Familiarity Doesn’t Breed Contempt
Yesterday we landed back in Barcelona airport after living in Baku for 7 months. For me it’s the end of my time in Baku, and amid the stress and chaos of packing up my belongings and paying for overweight cases (I must learn how to pack light), there was a…
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Foreign Food Tastes Weird
My husband and I went out for dinner not long after Christmas, and under the recommendation of a colleague of his went to try their favourite winter dishes. The recommended restaurant reminded me of a static caravan with a glass frontage. The Grinch was playing on the TV, presumably in…
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Life is better in the City
As I was walking the streets of Baku yesterday, taking in sights I haven’t noticed in the last few months, a thought occurred to me. How much of my trailing spouse experience is affected by never having lived in a city? The versatility and vibrancy of a city can’t be…
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Is The Friendship Real?
The thing about leaning on friends when you’re living overseas is this; they are new friends. This is not people who have had years of knowing you, nor people who have grown up with you. These are people who 12/18/24 months ago were strangers. People with whom you’re still nurturing…
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Is It Good Because Someone Said So?
In our home of a decade ago we had our favourite hot spots, places that we knew would deliver exactly what we needed as needed. My husband and I had our first date in Gordon’s Wine Bar in London, one of the oldest wine bars in England. With its vaulted…
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Don’t Be Silenced
Moving to a country with a different language from your own can have a serious impact on your ability to communicate your needs. Even in places where the locals have some grasp of your mother tongue, you have to think hard about the easiest way to communicate your message. You…
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The Dirt and Sleaze of Living Overseas
I wouldn’t class myself as a prude, or having lived a sheltered life. I used to read Cosmopolitan Magazine at a highly inappropriate age, and thirty years ago their pages were all about sex. That being said, the sleazy undertones of the countries we’ve lived in have surprised me. Even…
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The Most Expensive Vegetable I’ve Seen
When you are familiar with a place simple things like shopping, eating out, finding plastic boxes (a current challenge of mine) are easy. They’re the mundane necessities of weekly survival, but when you’re overseas it can exciting, challenging, and at times shocking. The way things are done, the documents needed…
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Why Is This Place No Longer Home?
I’ve just finished reading the book Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree by Santa Montefiore, and without wishing to spoil it for anyone (stop reading now if you haven’t read it yet) it touches on something I feel very deeply as an immigrant. In the book one of the characters…
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Why I Hated France
Hated might seem like a very strong word, and it is but it is also an emotional one and so much of what we experience be it places, restaurants, or even partners can be related to external factors. So yes I will say at the time hated, because at the…
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Is It Worth The Fight?
If there’s one lesson I think living overseas teaches you, it is the lesson of acceptance. That doesn’t mean you have to like it, but if you want to live a low-blood-pressure life where you find the things that bring you joy – it is a necessity.
Immigrants on the Move 