Missing England

One of the major themes/thoughts/problems with this whole year abroad living in France is missing the home country and comforts! Being so far away really brings out the child in me, and all I want is to go back home, sit in front of the TV with my Mum and Dad, have the wonderful homecooked food come fresh out of the oven (I don't have one, and when you don't have one, you want everything you can't have!) and to just chill out. Hell, why not throw a cat on the sofa into the mix and right now, that seems pretty perfect! I'm not sure what brings out these feelings of missing home. I'm content here, I know what I'm doing and I generally enjoy myself so I don't really have any huge reason to be missing England so much.

There are some silly little things that make England make much more sense to me than here! This may seem pedantic and weird, but even the supermarkets are messed up! I went looking for raisins, so I went straight to the baking section of the supermarket, where you'd usually find dried fruit in England, but they weren't there. After walking around for a good 10 minutes, I found them all next to the fresh fruit. Now, this isn't particularly weird in itself, but the fact that for those 10 minutes I was thinking 'I'm pretty sure the French do eat raisins....I wonder where they are...Maybe they're specialist over here...'. This just messed me up. Even supermarket logic is silly over here!

Missing England isn't constant! I don't want to worry people that I'm insanely unhappy here, because believe me I'm not! I actually quite like it here, and the missing England often seems purely irrational, but I just can't help it. I think it's when I'm stressed anyway, and when I'm in the middle of a long term away from family it gets harder because I know that my Mum's amazing pizza is weeks away and that so much can happen in the time when I'm here. My sister organising her wedding makes it harder too, as I can't go and see her try on any dresses because I'm in France. I plan to make the most of it over the summer though, and help/hinder her with anything possible.

Missing home is odd. I spent so long itching to get away, and now I'm here, all I want to do some of the time is get back! Goodness knows where the logic is there. It's the little things you miss, I could die for a crumpet, a bag of salt and vinegar crisps and the NHS (I had a headache for 3 days, and the French medical care is nowhere near as good as home, you have to pay the doctor at each visit and get it 70% reimbursed, so it's not free, despite the taxes!). And my cats, and my Mum and Dad, and all my lovely friends and the rest of my family. You don't realise what you have until it's hundreds of miles away! So all you people, appreciate it, next year, I'm going to be annoying everyone to make up for lost time!

I'm sure next year, there'll be a similar post entitled 'Missing France' as there are things about this place that I wish we could have at home! I guess it's a case of the grass being greener on the other side, and I guess living in a country for 21 years and then leaving it does mess your mind up a bit as you have to take everything on...alone! I'm sure in a day or two I'll be fine, but for now, I'm going to raid my Cadbury Dairy Milk and English Tea supply and enjoy a baguette for lunch. Perfect marriage of the two at lunch time I think!
A+
xxx