Life as an expat has had it's ups and downs, but then doesn't life full stop? I've lived in some great homes, in interesting countries with some fantastic people. I've lived in crap homes in one particularly dull country with some pretty awful people. But on the whole it has been a really great experience. I've been lucky enough (did I really say that?!) to stay home with my kids while they were young. But now they are at school and I'm ready to go back to work. So the timing has been pretty good. New start in a new country. The only thing is that it isn't really a new country, it's home.
Now poor old England gets some mixed reviews when you're an expat. Some of the die hard career expats are rather unforgiving about the country's shortcomings. Probably to make themselves feel better about the decision they have made to settle in a foreign land. But then there's the other camp that idolises the country they grew up in and wears their rose tinted spectacles with pride. I'm worried that I might be in that camp and I know that my husband is in the other. I don't like it when he's right and I'm wrong, so I've decided to write this blog to focus on all the good things about England and to keep positive so that I'm in a strong position to ward off any itchy feet and make this little island my home for the long term.
So the first plus is that I went to buy my dearly missed Revels (I'm a Galaxy girl and the Hershey's of the last 5 years just hasn't cut it) and I no longer have to rummage through to find the solid chocolate discs because....Galaxy counters have been invented. A bag full of my favourite ones! I always used to wonder why there were hardly any "counters" in a bag when they were the best bit. The same goes for Fruit Gums. They always seemed to have far too many green ones when I've never met anyone who actually wants a green one given half a chance. I'm optimistic there will be bags of the black ones, but I haven't actually got round to looking yet.
So that was the first thing that struck me as being good about this place. There are many more, and maybe even a few less superficial ones at that, but I need to save some for my next posts.
Cheerio
Exexpat XX
