Tag Archives: living abroad
Burning Up on Re-Entry
Having lived as an expat for nearly five years now, during which time I have seen many fellow expats come and go (it’s a transient sort of place), I have noticed that, while many take back to British life like ducks to proverbial muddy water, others find it a little bit more tricky to adjust… …
The Paths Untaken: Making the Most of Where We Are…
We’re all guilty of it: never visiting that National Trust property that’s only half an hour away; never getting around to trying that lovely looking restaurant passed every day on the way home from work; never walking the promising public footpath that cuts back across the fields just before the motorway turn-off; never exploring the …
Walking back to Happiness
I am about to head home again for a week of British autumn and, as I pack my suitcase full of thermal undies and attempt to zip it closed (having first removed the dozing cat from within), I am reminded of the last time I packed my bags for a flight – back home in …
Et in Arcadia Ego
I found it hard to write about being back home while I was actually there. Like a painter sitting too close to my subject, I lacked perspective and context. Much of my writing about England is, of course, idealised, romanticised nonsense, and it’s very difficult to romanticise something when it’s right there in front of …
Windswept and Winterstruck
So, for all my homesick yearnings and complaining about how mercilessly hot it is out here, it seems I have acclimatized after all. After three years, my internal thermostat must have recalibrated to Middle Eastern settings, because I was totally, profoundly shocked by how cold it was back home in England. I don’t mean just …
The River Bank
I have always found it profoundly pleasurable to be beside a river. There is something wonderful about the way in which water moves, purposeful yet playful, full of cool, soothing promise; the gently shifting patterns of light have the same quiet, hypnotic effect on the viewer as the dancing flames of a log fire. The incessant …
Suffering from Homesickness? Get a Cat. You’ll Soon be Feline Better…
According to recent medical research, owning a cat can reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, improve your immunity, lower your blood pressure, help depression, reduce stress and anxiety and even lengthen your life. I would like to add my own (highly scientific) findings to these: having a cat helps with homesickness too. For the last …
